Christmas

Well, my plan was to talk about Christmas and how I fell in love with the song Silent Night this year and how we were spoiled beyond anything we deserved, but my grandpa passed away yesterday so I wanted to share that.

He turned 90 a few weeks ago and really took a turn for the worse recently so it wasn't entirely unexpected. I got to say goodbye to him (or "see you later" as he preferred) on Saturday so that was nice. I feel peaceful about it; he was in so much pain. And there is a reverence knowing that he is back with God and his family who passed on before. Dallin and I had planned on going to the temple yesterday anyway so it was very fitting that we were able to spend time there with my other grandpa and contemplate the Plan and sit in the Celestial Room knowing that I'll see my grandpa again. It was really sweet. Here is the obituary.
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/deseretnews/obituary.aspx?n=ray-moore&pid=137992659

Critters

There are lady bugs in the ladies restroom at work. We're on the 10th floor. It's the middle of Winter. ???

Choir Full Circle

Last week we went to my little sister's choir Christmas concert. It was a real awakening for me because she is now the age I was when she was born. She was actually born on the day of my first concert so I went to the hospital right before I went on stage and my grandparents had to fill in for the parents.

It blew my mind how small the kids still were. All the boys had these high-pitched voices. I used to think a select few were so cute, even though they hadn't been through puberty, and that I was really old. Now I've doubled in age - LOL.

It was fun to go and reminisce about old times and show Dallin where I went to school. The place sure looks a whole lot smaller now that I'm bigger. It brought back lots of memories. But I'll tell you what, I do not miss the junior high years what so ever. Some of the poor kids, ok, 99% of them, looked so awkward and lost in life. My sister is one of the lucky 1% who gracefully has embraced teenagedom. It made me remember when I felt awkward and I reflected on if any time of life is actually easy. When you're a baby you can't do anything and grow so fast so that's exhausting. Being a little kid seems hard when you're there since you're trying to learn so much. Teenage years - enough said. Then you grow up to be an adult and you cycle through all those things with your children and have to do grown-up things like fight with insurance companies. Then you get old like my grandparents where you have to wear a diaper and can't get out of bed. This definitely is a test! Back on track - it was nice to listen to Christmas music and did help me get in the Christmas Spirit a little bit. I've been having a hard time with that this year because it's been so busy! Good job Becks!

Cookie Monster

Last night I was invaded by little green cookies. Suzanne and her friend Seth came over and we dipped Oreos in mint chocolate for co-worker/neighbor gifts. I have never seen so many Oreos in my life. Suz got four boxes from Costco and each box had 10 packages of cookies. I guess the cashier gave her a weird look. Trust me, she didn't eat them all by herself.

The madness sure was yummy! Keebler sure is jealous.

Crafty

I did this cute holiday craft. It is a countdown to Christmas and has vinyl numbering on the blocks so you can change it every day. I'm not the best at modge-podge but I think I am getting better and was quite happy with the results!


On Saturday we met up with some friends at the Festival of Trees. They have a new baby and had brought along their little nephew so since we're nursery-tested and hopefully approved, we took the little guy around with us. I think the Festival of Trees must be torture for kids because they can't touch anything. He especially loved the rocking horses and the TV playing "UP." He was so mad when he couldn't watch the TV anymore. I was too because it was the most beautiful picture I've ever seen. It was a Sony but couldn't find what kind it was. Amazing. We bought him some little candies afterward to keep him happy. He downed the peanut butter cup, did ok with an M&M and made an absolute mess with the Tootsie Roll. Dallin and I were trying to keep him clean so he didn't touch us with messy hands. Dallin succeeded. The fun part was taking him to Red Robin afterward too. We fed him root beer, a little bit of shake, mozzarella sticks, mac and cheese (he ate with his hands and we told him to use the spoon and he'd pick the macaroni up off the spoon with his hands so it was a losing battle) and apple slices. I sure hope his mom isn't reading this...anyway it gave me a taste of how fun it'd be to have a niece or nephew that you can spoil rotten and feed and then send home!

Sinterklaas came and visited the Plaizier's this past weekend and brought us Jazz tickets to the Spurs game. My dad and Brett were also at the game and got to be a part of the human tunnel to welcome the players to the floor. After a while, my dad's section cleared out so we went down to the lower bowl to watch the remainder of the game.

The Bear made an appearance and silly stringed my brother and Mary since they were decked out in Spurs gear. It was such an intense, awesome game. Jeff called it the greatest game of his life and I still have a sore throat from all the screaming. And we won!

Cheers

Ok, this post is heavy on the pictures. Thanksgiving was wonderful. We started with Dallin's family and paced ourselves so we could hit up my family's Thanksgiving a few hours later. There are so many Plaizier's that we had to have it at a church. I've never done that before. It was so delicious! This Thanksgiving I was especially thankful that my marriage survived the Holy War - barely.








My cute Grandma and Grandpa

Dallin's friend offered us free tickets to the Jazz game that night so we hit that up. We creamed the Bulls and even though we were on the very last row, it was a lot of fun. Suzanne and her brother Jeff came with us too.

Friday we started decorating our house. We have my grandparents old tree and I made sure to pull all the branches out and it actually looked pretty decent. I'd still like a pre-lit tree but I'll wait for the after-Christmas sales. I didn't have any ornament hangers so we could only hang the ornaments that were ready-made so we have about 10 ornaments on the tree. It's so random but I kind of like it. Thanks to my parents for our "First Christmas" ornament!

I was very excited to pull out all my decorations. I had so many that I had to put all the snowmen in a box and I'll break them out for January decorations. Snowmen are so cute. I was thrilled to finally put up my olive wood Nativity that I got in Bethlehem last summer. It is beautiful and is perfect on the mantle.

For family night we got in the holiday spirit and decorated gingerbread houses. This is something I always enjoy, being surrounded by frosting and candy and getting to be creative. Unfortunately, I'm not very good at it. I was so patient and careful and no matter what I did, I ended up with globs. Globs on the roof, globs on the windows, globs in my hands, etc. I tried.

Here is our finished product.

Jeff hanging on every word of his man crush - Drew Brees