Christmas Eve Celebrations

We had a wonderful time celebrating Christmas Eve this year! To begin with, we joined our extended family for dinner at El Chapiro (a very yummy Mexican restaurant). It really is a fabulous Christmas Eve tradition! And this year we got to eat dinner with some of Santa's biggest helpers- Ggma and Ggpa- who were also know as Santa and Mrs. Claus for the night!

Tori wasn't so sure what to think of Ggma dressed as Mrs. Claus! (Although she did love the candy cane Mrs. Claus gave her!!!)

But Garrett loved her outfit!

After dinner we went back to the house, when what do you suppose- Santa and Mrs. Claus brought us a whole bunch of presents!

This year we did an "As Seen on TV" gift exchange! So, to start out, Tori, Garrett, Linken, and Grayson (who joined in via Skype) got to open their As Seen on TV gifts! Hurrah, we now have bedtime friends that light up like flashlights!

And Tori has already named them Clea and Scout- very fitting for both!!!

Next, the adults got to pass our gifts every time Santa said "the" as he was reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas!" It was pretty fun to see who has this classic memorized- a few people got a bit antsy in their passing!

This activity was a big hit and produced many laughs- look how excited everyone was with their gifts!!!

I absolutely love this picture! Not every kid can say his Ggpa is one of Santa's biggest helpers!

After all the guests departed, we had one more gift for each of us to open!

Our Christmas jammies!

And, of course, we had to leave a plate of goodies for Santa- I love how Tori arranged all the candies! And when you are at Grandma's house, the letters for Santa and Mrs. Claus are super cute!!!

While all of our Christmas Eve activities were tons of fun, the best part was spending our day with so many family members! It was awesome!!!

December FHEs

For the month of December, Jared and I decided that we wanted to step up our Family Home Evenings a bit to help us remember who Christmas is really about!
Our first Monday we focused on the Shepherds and how they take care of their sheep.  Then we started talking about Jesus and how He is also a Shepherd and takes care of all of us. And that He has asks each of us to help Him take care of each other. To wrap up our evening, we went to the store and let Garrett and Tori each pick out a toy for someone else. This turned out so great and it will be something we do every year from now on! It was so neat to see Tori especially grab on to this and be so excited about giving her gift to someone else to help take care of them!

For our second FHE, we invited some friends over to share Christmas stories and some yummy treats! We were joined by the Amber Smyer, Toney, Kunz, Homer, and Fenton families - it was so much fun! I love how all the kids gathered around for the stories!

Benson did an awesome job reading their family's story!

Hurrah for sharing fun Christmas stories!

The night wouldn't have been complete without a reading of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!"

Tori had so much fun playing with Anna and Olivia!

This gathering of friends was so wonderful and turned out to be our going away party without us knowing it. We ended up accepting an offer of our house two days later, and we were gone in a week and a half. I am so glad we had this night to strengthen relationships and just enjoy such wonderful friends!
We talked about the Wise Men for our third FHE! To remind us that they brought gifts to Baby Jesus, we delivered gifts of cookies to some of our neighbors! This is another one we will keep doing!

Our last FHE (tonight) was by far the most special- especially since we got to share it with Grandma and Grandpa Allen! We saved the best for last and talked about Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus. To make it even more special we dressed in our Bethlehem attire. We started out with a yummy Bethlehem-esque picnic dinner!

We had pita bread, meat, cheese, fruit, and some chipotle spread (I'm sure they had that in Bethlehem)!

Everyone enjoyed our fun dinner!

After dinner we started talking about Baby Jesus- I love that Baby Jesus is almost as big as Garrett!

Garrett was very concerned that we couldn't find Mary!

Grandma had a very special song for us to sing to conclude our last FHE before Christmas- tonight was very special!

Our Family Home Evenings leading up to Christmas have been wonderful this year! I am so glad that we have taken some time to step away from all the hustle and bustle and really remember our Savior Jesus Christ!

Gingerbread Trains

Our drive to Texas went so smoothly- really, the kids were rock stars in the car! And we made it just in time for the fun Christmas traditions to start! The first of which happened tonight- making gingerbread trains! No cookies at the Allens- no we go for trains!!!

Tori and Garrett were so excited for all the candy and cookies that were within easy reach!

Garrett made sure to try out the cookies before we put them on our train! Actually, I'm pretty sure none of his cookies lasted long enough to make it on the train!!!

We had dessert partway through building and Tori was so excited with her ice cream cone!

Can you tell Garrett really liked his cookie?!!

Check out the awesome wheels that Tori put together! (And this happens to be the only picture I got of our train!)

Aunt Meesha was a trooper and was brave enough to let Garrett feed her M&Ms- so cute!

Hurrah for being with family and fun family traditions- and this was only the first!!!

Night in Bethlehem

This year we had a Night in Bethlehem for our Ward Christmas party! And since we are leaving for Texas tomorrow, and when we all come back it will be to Bloomington, tonight was also our last chance to say goodbye to so many dear friends! We were all encouraged to come dressed in Bethlehem attire. I think we looked great! And Garrett's lion shirt definitely added to his costume!

During the evening we went to different shops to get our dinner of fruit, cheese, bread, and meat. Tori and Garrett loved playing in the trees while we were waiting!

Once we got our meal, we sat on our blanket while we ate. Tori and Garrett loved the bread!!!

We had a wonderful evening very simply remembering Bethlehem and the wonderful birth of our Savior! It was the perfect way to say goodbye to our ward and also to refocus on the true meaning of Christmas!!!

Packing Our Memories Away

After having our house on the market for nearly 5 months, switching Realtors, and having only 3 showings, I was beginning to wonder if we would ever be able to post that our house had sold. But yes, as of last Wednesday our Christmas miracle happened and we accepted an offer on our house! Then the panic set in. We will be closing on January 15th, but had planned on leaving for Texas on December 20th to visit Jared's family for Christmas and not really having a set date when we would be back in Indiana. After running through about every possible scenario, we felt the best about getting everything, and I mean everything, packed and ready for our move before we left for Texas. As you can imagine, the last week and a half has been insane- but our house is all packed up and we are ready for our move! We have really seen so many tender mercies from our Heavenly Father in this process! When we put our house on the market, we felt impressed to box up a bunch of things we weren't using- so, roughly half of our house and most of our garage was already done! The day after we accepted our offer, we discovered that our first choice of apartment was available and is now waiting for us to move in! I could go on and on, but the basic thing is that our Heavenly Father loves each of us, He is intimately aware of everything going on in our lives, and He does all He can to bless us! I have seen this over and over in my life, and we have most definitely seen His hand in selling our home!!!

Tori and Garrett were our big packing helpers!

They especially loved this huge stack of boxes! (Thanks so much for hooking us up, Frank!)

Where's a great place for a picnic? Why, on top of the huge stack of boxes, of course!!!

Here are a few pictures from tonight...

 ...our entire front room is one mountain of boxes!

It's amazing how walls and a roof can come to mean so much! We are going to miss our very first house tremendously- along with our wonderful neighbors and our amazing ward! But we are also really excited for this next chapter in our lives. Bloomington, here we come!!!

A Christmas Package

Today we got to open our very first Christmas package! I wonder what Grandpa and Nana sent us?

Yeah for a new truck coloring book!

And hurrah for a fun new princess activity book!

We are now the proud owners of our first table cloth!

Thanks so much for our Christmas presents Dad and Charlene! We love them all and can't wait to use them! Thanks for spoiling us!!!

Let It Snow!

Due to our huge snow storm last night, all of Jared's classes at IU were cancelled- hurrah for a snow day! And that means we had to go out and play in our lovely new snow! Half of the fun was getting everyone ready to go outside!

Tori loved her new hat!

 Our adorable snow bunnies!

 Garrett loved his hat, too!

 All ready for adventures in the snow!

 Garrett wasn't sure what to think of walking in the snow!

 Tori, on the other hand, thought it was tons of fun and ran all over our yard!

She loved every second and would have stayed outside all day long if we had let her!

 Garrett got a little more daring!

Tori had a grand time making "leaf piles" and then covering them up with the snow from her bucket!

 Garrett just wanted to fill his bucket up...

dump it out, and then do it all over again! Garrett really did great until he touched his face with his cold-mittened hands. And then he was ready to come inside and get warm!

 Tori made an excellent snow angel!!!

We had a wonderful time enjoying our snow!