playgroup christmas party... busy day!

i've said this before, 2nd ward has an amazing playgroup thanks to one lady who is really diligent in planning fun activities every week! last week was the christmas party. she planned a craft, brought some cars and made a track on the ground, we decorated sugar cookies and had a gift exchange.
it didn't take long for nathan to shove his mouth full of cookie ;)

and this little boy can sure sing, "far far away on judea's plains". LOL.

i wish i'd got more pictures, but oh well.

then later that afternoon, i was asked to take our stake relief society presidency's picture! what a huge honor that was for me! (but it also helps that 2 of them are in my ward, lol.)

they were a fun group of gals.

after that i came home and got dinner ready, then it was off to the church until 1am (yikes) to set-up for our wards relief society christmas dinner the following night. i can't remember having that busy of day in a long time!

5 days until christmas...

and this is what it looks like, and there's still more coming! i'm running out of space! those boxes on the right are taking up 2 seats. nathan must have written a letter to santa TWICE! or maybe he has some deal worked out with him to be good in 2012 as well? or maybe santa forgot how much he already had because things were hidden, so when it came time to wrap, realized he had overbought?

and notice how all the ornaments have migrated to the top of the tree. lol. 

cherry cheesecake cookies

here's the recipe

they were pretty yummy! i made them for our ward christmas party. and we ended up not even going :/

BARC's Magical Forest

my friend wendy had some free tickets to get into BARC's (bakersfield association of/for retarded citizens) magical forest. so last weekend we checked it out.

here are the boys minus 1. what i love about this picture is that we've been friends with them for 19 months now. so to see pictures of them 19 months ago to now is super neat to me. we've never had friends that long during our married life, lol. and now i'm getting all sappy about moving and having to start all over :(

here we are on the train...

nathan was super excited about seeing santa! he kept cutting in line to get to him!

and he loved them!

random...

this is how my local UPS man is delivering packages... LOL

sometimes when i have SO many dauting sewing projects on my list, i need a quick fix to make me feel accomplished. so i took some glittered ornaments from the dollar tree and turned them into mickey mouse.

(spray painted version)

add a red polka dot bow and you've got minnie.

this one i saw on pinterest. she bought a red matte ornament and painted the top portion black with a sharpie. then added white buttons to look like mickey mouse pants.

i thought i could turn this one into minnie... ehh... not a fan

nothing gets me out of funk faster then fabric, lol. the day after i found out i lost the baby, my mom was in town and we hit up joanns. they had this robot fabric on sale and she wanted to make a blanket for nathan. so here's her final product. i love it and so does he!  

and it was made entirely by hand while they were camp hosting in goleta.

thanks mimi!

to add to my ornament collection/obsession, here are some new ones i got this year...

i found these angel wings at cost plus world market. i really just liked it since it was unique. but when my friend melissa pointed out how fitting it was for me, i thought, hmm she's right! so now i love it even more!

and of course, no tree is complete without some crepe paper dinosaurs!

i'm not sure how i forgot to post this picture last time around, but here's nathan's "baby's 1st christmas" ornament given to him by his mimi.

jaren had his work christmas party last weekend at a place called steak and grapes. it was so ridiculously good! i exchanged with a friend in my ward a hairdo for a headband i'm making her :) i loved what she did and how it turned out! i wish i could braid on myself!

2011 Bakersfield Christmas Parade

our friends the nilsson's were looking for people to ride in their bus and wave at people in the parade this year. i've never been in a parade and not sure i'll get the chance to again, so i signed us right up!

they own a white water rafting company here in town.

this is the bus they use to transport the rafters. it was all decked out with fake snow, icicles, lights, a christmas tree on top and a reindeer head ornament hood. the bus was pulling a trailer that had some rafts on it that the guides rode in.

here's our crew... the handys of course :)

we were told to wear elf hats if we had any. so i "whipped" this up in about 3 hours for nathan to wear.

nathan and his bestie adam jumping on the seats.

nathan enjoyed waving to the crowd and saying, "merry crispy". half way through the route, he was finished and just sat down. lol.

Thanksgiving 2011

our thanksgiving was kind of a thrown together last minute thing. my parents weren't suppose to be here yet. but it was sure nice that they were!

this is a fairly common scene... they make a great team!

nathan wanted to check out what was going on. not sure about his choice of outfit, but he was happy about it.

we watched the macys parade.

slept while the turkey baked.

played some guitar hero.

and snacked on the cheeseball jaren made.

finally it was ready to eat. of course it was yummy. it was just a very kick back thanksgiving. we even ate at the couch ;)

the next day mom and cynthia wanted to break the wishbone.

mom won. hope her wish comes true!

Judd Christmas Pictures

after church on sunday, my mom wanted to take some family pictures. so we drove out to cal state bakersfield. in front of the library they have this "grove" of trees that were amazingly golden with leaves everywhere! it's a popular picture spot! there were at least 5 other photographers out there!