Merry Christmas All!!

Merry Christmas to you all!
May your Christmas season be filled with delicious treats from neighbors who keep their kitchens spotlessly clean, and angelic children who clean up after themselves and always tell you what wonderful parents you truly are.

We love you all and wish this Christmas found us all closer together (but not close enough to smell what you're cooking or hear what you're doing late at night).

December VT message AND a little XOXO too

Here's the VT message for December!

(You can find Almond Joy candy bars right now in Christmas colors...I should have told Jon that before I sent him out on my errand. Oops!)

I really wanted to tie the handout into the Christmas season so I dug up the one Christmas-y word in the whole message 'JOY' and went with it. I found cute little ornaments at a fun little decorating store (Scrooge and Marley's in Lehi) for $1 a piece. The label reads, "Share the joy of temple work this season". The back of the label has the following quote and scripture:

"There are personal blessings you receive as a result of participation in temple and family history work. One of these is the joy that you feel as you serve your ancestors. Another is that you are able to qualify for a temple recommend, which signifies your worthiness before the Lord." -Julie B. Beck, Relief Society General President

D&C 128:24 "...Let us, therefore, as a church and a people, and as Latter-day Saints, offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness; and let us present in his holy temple, when it is finished, a book containing the records of our dead, which shall be worthy of all acceptation."

So here's the thing: I created PDF files of these, and even uploaded them to google docs so I could share with any of you who might want them. The problem is google docs isn't recognizing one of my fonts and I have no idea what is going on! So, if you want the PDF file please leave your email in my comments and I will email it to you personally. We'll see if your computer will recognize the font. I don't know what's up with that. I thought that's what a PDF file was all about, but whatever. We can do it old school. You could also try saving one of these images, but I'm not sure if you'll be able to get them to the right size.

CRAFTY THING NUMBER 2 (can it be??)

I also made this knock-off version of a very cute neighbor gift I scouted out on another website called meckmom.com. I thought her idea was so super cute, but I wanted it for Christmas, not for thank yous so...I made my own. Bare in mind I'm an amatuer so it may be a little rough around the edges, but it gets the job done.

Mine is a fun Christmas-y version of this:

You can download the PDF HERE

Here's some quick instructions to get you on your way to a hopefully cute little gift for your friends around the neighborhood

Step 1: Gather your supplies-
To make these you'll need a 3/4" round paper punch and a 2" round paper punch...or a lot of patience to cut them all out by hand. You'll also need a small canning jar with a 2" wide lid. And last but, but definitely most importantly you'll need bags of Hershey's Kisses and Hershey's Hugs.

Step 2: Fill the jar-
Cut the paper into strips and use your punch to crop all the labels. The circles printed are a little larger than 3/4" to make it a little easier. Place the punched labels on the hugs and kisses using glue dots (glue sticks would work just fine, and be more economical if you have a lot of neighbors to give to) and fill the jar. It will take about 30 kisses to fill a small jar.

Step 3: Label and Tag
Crop the 2" round label with a punch or with scissors and affix it to the top of the canning jar. Trim the tag and sign your family's name at the bottom of the note. Tie it to the jar with a fun Christmas ribbon and you're ready to start the rounds.

Let me know what you think! And MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The First Dance Recital (sans pictures)

My sweet little pip-squeak had her first dance recital this week. She was ADORABLE and totally the best dancer (what?) out there. The morning of, I got up and charged the video camera because the battery drains so quickly. I so thought I had it all together. Now six o'clock is fast approaching: I grab the video camera, and pick up my little Nikon. But alas, the battery in my point and shoot is dead! What do I do? We filmed the whole thing but no pics for the blog or the scrapbook. Sigh. You'll have to take my word for it, she was to DIE for! But, sadly, it takes way to many man hours to convert our video to a blogger-approved format. At least that's what Jon says. I don't know anything about it aside from the fact that our video editing program bites. So, here I am telling you I have adorable footage of my sweet baby, who is growing up entirely too quickly for my liking, prancing around in her first-ever dance recital. Remembering all her little steps and shuffle-kicks and keeping her little smile on the entire time. She even remembered her "pose" at the end. I couldn't stop smiling. And my little guy clapped and cheered at the end for her, just as a great big brother should...and I didn't even coach him to do it. I couldn't have been prouder. A big THANK YOU to our Papa George, Grandma Debbie, and Great-Grandma Lewis who all came for the show. We have plenty of camera phone pictures, but let's face it, they suck so I'll let you close your eyes and imagine the innocence and sweetness that envelopes my almost-always angel. Well at least 85% of the time she has a 77% chance of being mostly angelic. And that's a fact.