Happy New Year!

The holiday season has come and gone in a whirlwind as usual and I loved every minute of it! The only thing that would have made it perfect is if we could have been with either one of our families. Luckily, we have amazing friends here who make it a lot easier to be so far from family. I know I talk about our friends all too often, but we are truly blessed to have them in our lives. I will always cherish the memories that we have made here with them. I sound like we're leaving or something...we're not, but I am just so grateful for our "family" away from family.

I spent last Monday out all day with a friend and came home in the evening to find that Dane had put away any and all things "holiday" related. Some wives might be thrilled at the idea and grateful that it was all taken care of but it made me a little sad. I know it's silly, but I like to sort of say goodbye to all my Christmas stuff when I take it down knowing I won't be seeing it for a whole year. Besides, with Dane's idea of cleaning, who knows what actually was put away and what was thrown away. I even told him that I think he did it while I was gone to get rid of some stuff knowing that by the time I get it all out again, I wouldn't notice if anything was missing!

Anyway, we've had a long 3 week break from school and I'm excited to get back into the swing of things and be on a schedule. Here's what we've been up to lately:

Ethan's preschool Christmas program. We did get pictures at Noah's program, but it was so dark you couldn't see where he was. :(

He was one of the sheep in the Nativity.

"My boys"

We've been going to the park a lot taking advantage of the great weather and to get some energy out during this looong 3 week Christmas break. Noah always complains that he misses Park Day while he's in school, so now he can't bug me about it for a while.

A quick family picture before church the Sunday before Christmas. I spoke in Sacrament meeting that day representing the Young Women's Presidency. It was a lovely meeting with beautiful musical numbers that really made it special.

Uncle J.R. always tries to outdo everyone else and succeeded this time with a R/C helicopter laser battle set. It was at the top of Noah's wish list and they couldn't wait to pump 12 (yes-12!) batteries into it and try it out. Dane's had as much fun with it as they have, although 2 days after Christmas, Ethan broke his...of course!

Ethan was so excited he didn't even want to open presents, he just wanted to give everyone else their gifts! And the ugly brown tape would be courtesy of Dane's custom wrapping service!

Noah got a very cool laser tag set from Santa...yes, he still believes!