Christmas Devotional

Sunday we had the wonderful opportunity to go to the Christmas devotional at the confrence center. The first presidency of the church spoke. It was amazing.
We went with our friends who live in Salt Lake because we had two extra tickets.
Thanks to Tanners uncle David we were able to get tickets. David is in charge of all the events that goes on in temple square. We were suppose to pick up our tickets at door 13. When we got to door 13 the lady was very rude to us and did not help us at all. Then we told her that David Miles told us to pick the tickets up here, her attitude changed. We didn't even need tickets to get in. Everytime we passed someone who asked for our tickets we just said David Miles and everyone was EXTRA nice and helped us to our seats. Later I found out that David is their boss. It made me laugh at how rude they were until we said his name. Our seats were amazing we were down front very close to the first presidency. I can not tell you how strong I felt the spirit. I sat there just wanting the Presidency to pour out knowledge on what I should be doing as a parent. As I was sitting there I got that feeling of "Ok take this in, how am I going to teach this to Ava and my other children." Gaining knowledge on Christ and the church not only helps me but I am doing it so I can teach my children. As we walked out of the confrence center I thought to myself "what did I get out of this? What do I need to do now?" The answer was so easy. President Thomas S. Monson said "Although it requires effort and planning, bringing the Spirit of Christ into our hearts and homes can be accomplished." I need to make Christmas traditions based around Christ. This was such a "DUH" moment for me because the past few weeks I have been thinking of traditions Tanner and I can start in our home. Everything I thought of was not based around Christ. Do any of you have any ideas of where we can start Christmas traditions based around Christ??

I loved the Christmas devotional. Seeing all the lights on temple square and the conference center decorated so pretty with the Christmas trees ahhhh so fun. Also the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing the Christmas songs was amazing to hear. One of the songs they sang was Oh Come all Ye Faithful. Wow. In the middle of the song they had the Orchestra get louder and louder then the Choir came in. WOW. We all got chills and started to cry (ok us girls did). You Tube it. Its good.

Festival of Trees

Last night we went to the Festival of Trees at the South Town Expo Center in Sandy. It's a really BIG indoor center where they had TONS of Trees. You walk up and down isles of decorated trees that were sold at the auction a week earlier. They sell for thousands of dollars and every cent goes to the childrens hospital in Salt Lake.

It was so fun seeing all the different ways to decorate a tree. I was getting lots of ideas. Tanner saw what I was thinking and started to worry :)

Ava was so good the whole night. She just chilled in her stroller. The tree behind her was a Mickey Mouse themed tree.

There was a lot of BYU and UofU trees. They also would have one tree half decorated in BYU and the other half UofU. BYU was decorated WAY better than UofU :)

This tree was a fun Rock the Jukebox themed tree. They had some Twilight themed trees as well. They also had a big display of gingerbread houses. I think it was a competition (like what you see on Food Network) it was to crowded to get any pictures.

It was a perfect night. When we got home I made some scones and we watched a movie :)

Thanksgiving!!

I have not yet posted about Thanksgiving yet because I did not have any pictures (I'm going to search for a new camera charger today). Luckily my wonderful cousin Nicole took lots of pictures. We spent Thanksgiving up at my sisters house. My parents came into town and a lot of my cousins came.



Ava got to spend lots of time with her 2nd cousins.





We had lots and lots of good food.

Can you tell we just got done eating. We watched friends as we waited for our stomachs to get ready for dessert. Perfect way to be lazy!

I made these chocolate cups with chocolate-orange mousse inside. These were SO fun to make and SOOO good!! I think I found my new favorite dessert. You know its good when you can see 5 extra lbs the next day :) I tried something new and put orange zest in my mousse. YUM! I recommend putting it in your mousse next time. Making the chocolate cups were so easy and fun! The strawberrys added a nice flavor with the chocolate (and who doesn't love a good strawberry.)

Later that night we went to Fast Track (I think thats what its called.)
Its an indoor race track. SOO FUN! You go VERY fast.
My cousins husband owns the one in SLC. So they closed it that night so it was just our family there racing. It was a blast! I think I got the slowest time, whoops!

Hope everyone had an AWESOME Thanksgiving!!!