A Bridal Shower

It has been a long time since I have been to a bridal shower, so I was really happy when my mom asked me to help plan one for my sister.  My sister, Kaitlin, and I were put in charge of the games.

And here is the blushing bride, my sweet sister.  We had the bridal shower at our neighbor's house.  She made a couple of cute decorations for the party.  K and C for Kylee and Chas, and then the date of the wedding.  Isn't she creative?

Erin was in charge of the food and she did awesome.  The food was a big hit.  Here we are preparing everything.  We all pitched in to help make things, but she was the brains of the operation.  The caramel apple slices with different toppings was a real winner.

Here is the beginning of the shower.  We had everyone grab some ribbon (yellow because that was Kylee's color) and they had to talk about themselves the whole time wrapping the ribbon around their finger.  It was a fun way to get to know everyone and to see how everyone knew Kylee.  We also played a balloon game - the person who found the ring inside the balloon (instead of a crayon) was the winner.

We played pass the bridal bouquet to a left/right story.  I ended up winning the bouquet, but I gave the prize to Kylee because I didn't need any of the prizes.

We played the ask the groom game.  Kylee had to match Chas' answers or get a piece of bubblegum.  She did pretty good and only ended with like six pieces of gum.  She was able to blow a little bubble.

We stopped in the middle of the shower and ate some of the yummy food.

Another game we played was to make something out of toilet paper.  Everyone had to make something wedding related with however much toilet paper they had picked.

There were some real fun ones - flowers, and dresses, and a dove, and some veils.  Kylee got to pick the winner - a boutonniere sucker that Allison made.  Chas and Kylee used big lollipops for their bouquet and boutonniere.  Good job to everyone for being so creative. 

And it wouldn't be a bridal shower without some presents.

I loved this present idea and might steal it sometime.  There were separate boxes for 'Something Old', 'Something New', 'Something Borrowed', and 'Something Blue'.  

Anyway, the bridal shower was really fun.  I think Kylee had a good time too.  Congratulations Kylee!

New Year's Eve

We didn't do anything too crazy for New Year's Eve, just spent some time at home with my family.

Two of my aunts came for my sister's wedding.  They were here to celebrate New Year's Eve with us.  We played some fun Snake Oil game that my parents got for Christmas.  That game is really fun.  We also played some Telestrations.

If you haven't played Telestrations, it is really funny.  The best part is showing off your book at the end.  You get to see what your first picture turns into after everyone draws.  And you only have 30 seconds to draw, so you get some really interesting pictures.  

Only about half of us made it to midnight.  Here we are waiting for the ball to drop with just a few seconds left to wait.  We didn't watch much of the festivities in New York because we spent all night playing games and laughing.

We got some little poppers that we took outside.  The poppers weren't very loud, but that was okay.

There were some little prizes inside the poppers - a paper crown, a joke, and some little toys.  The fun inside things were more exciting than the actual poppers.

And here are how the girls spent New Year's Eve.  We turned on a movie downstairs and the girls were both out.  They had not been getting very much sleep, so they were pretty tired.  Good night sweet girls.

It was a fun New Year's Eve with my family.  And I got my New Year's Eve kiss - that is what is really important.

A Very Merry Christmas (Part Two)

I have been quite busy lately and not home, but I figured that now I better finally finish posting about our fun Christmas with my family.

Will's family each gets one name to do for Christmas.  So we gave presents to the Guptil group (I hope you liked your gifts).  And we were given presents by Will's younger brother, Dave.  We decided to open Dave's presents before going down to Pasco.  Here, the girls help their dad open his presents.  Thanks for the Avatar movies.

Whitney and Rachel love their new stuffed puppies.  Rachel keeps insisting that hers is really a kitty.  Thanks for all the presents, Dave.  It was fun opening them and seeing the happy faces.

While down in Pasco, we made our traditional present for Jesus.  I taught the Relief Society sisters in my ward and we made presents for Jesus in our December activity.  I knew that I would be doing it with my family, which is one of my favorite Christmas traditions.  This year, I want to give out two copies of The Book of Mormon and I want to work on some of my personal history.

Here is our family on Christmas morning.  It took a couple of tries, but we got everyone looking forward and not completely covering their faces.

The beginning of the present opening.

Megan opening her little foam sword.  At first, Megan was a bit grumpy and only wanted to open like two presents.  But then when she saw there were things under the wrapping paper, she got into the spirit of gift-opening.

The girls also got swords and had lots of pretend sword fights with their uncle Conner.

Whitney has been asking for some dress-up clothes.  We didn't have very much variety.  But now we have a lot.  Thanks Mom and Dad.  Those will definitely be a hit.

My sister's little baby, five-month-old Tessa, learned how to open gifts.  She was quite good at it too.

And not from Christmas.  But this big ball lives at my parents house.  Megan wanted it upstairs.  She wanted lots of big things to come up the stairs and would cry when she got stuck at the bottom of the steps because she couldn't climb while holding them.  

Anyway, we had a great Christmas.  It was fun spending time with family and just being together.

Our Merry Christmas (Part 1)

As tradition, we went down to Pasco for Christmas.  A couple of my siblings traveled to be there also.  We were able to do lots of fun things together.

But first, Will asked me what we wanted to do for 'Christmas' morning breakfast, which we celebrated the Tuesday before Christmas.  We made funnel cake that tasted pretty good.  Unfortunately, we were running out of time, so I turned up the oil too high and burned the last couple.  Oh well.  There were still enough for everyone to enjoy.

The legendary Griggs sale.  We went down to Pasco when Will got home from work and after quickly eating, we went to Griggs. My mom was nice and stayed home with the kids.  Here we sit playing games while waiting for the next hourly raffle.

The next morning was tree decorating time.  The girls all thought that was pretty fun.

Megan did pretty well.  She only pulled down a couple of ornaments that had already been put on the tree.

Of course, Christmas means baking.  Whitney and Rachel got to help Grandma make the traditional Danish pastry for Christmas breakfast.

And Rachel got to help make Jell-O. 

We always act out the Nativity story on Christmas Eve.  I was the narrator, so not in the pictures. But Whitney and Rachel were sort of sheep or wise men, depending on their mood.

                                     

  

And it isn't Christmas time without a little ding dong ditching/caroling.  Whitney and Rachel were very willing participants in the ditching and running.

My mom rented a kids movie for the girls to watch on Christmas Eve (I think to help everyone stay downstairs).

Anyway, those are some pre-Christmas festivities.  It was a fun holiday.  I hope everyone else had a great Christmas.

Rachel Turns Three

Rachel's birthday was last Friday.  I can't believe she is already three years old.  Here she will be going to primary with Whitney in a couple of weeks.  We celebrated with my family on Sunday.

I kind of forgot about decorating the house for the birthday.  So we decided to make a little poster.

The girls put on a lot of stickers, a lot of stickers.  You can kind of tell that it says Happy Birthday Rachel!

We decided to do brownies for her birthday because those seem more loved than regular cake.  All the kids were very good at taking turns stirring.

Lighting the candles (Rachel picked out her own candles and she was super excited about them).

It took quite a few blows, but Rachel finally got all the candles blown out.  Such good perseverance. 

Rachel got lots of presents.  Megan really wanted to help open them.  The promise that she would get to open lots of presents in just a few days was not tempting enough.

Rachel got toy cars and coloring books and some new pants and some crayons.  And some candy, of course.  Pringles and Whoppers are like the tradition in my family growing up.

Out of all the presents, the headbands were opened first.  I thought that was pretty amazing.

This isn't a birthday picture, but it was too cute to not put on the blog.  Megan had been feeling sick for a couple of days, so I didn't know if she would have a chance to wear this dress for Christmas because I didn't know if we would take her to church.  But she seemed to be feeling better Sunday morning.  Isn't it a pretty dress?

Anyway, we are all getting very excited for Christmas and for my sister's wedding.  Okay, bye!