Laura & Brant's Wedding Weekend - photos from Grandma Hallstrom

 Dad, Mom, Emma, Jenny, Seth

 Mom & Dad

Ryan, Amy, Dad

 Alice & Michael 

 Grandma Hallstrom & Michael

 Ryan, Alice, Michael

 Ryan, Grandma Hallstrom, Michael

 Alice & Michael

 Jenny & Ben

 Ryan with his nephews, Brian & Tyler

 Laura & Brant - The Newlyweds

 My cousin, Nathan

 Brian, Sam, Tyler, Lisa, Katie

 Laura

 Uncle Neil & Aunt Nan

 Lisa & Ryan

Glenn, Grandma Hallstrom, Geraldine, Jack, and Bev

 Brant & Laura

 Amy & Nate

Jenny, Seth, Emma

 Laura & Brant

 Lisa, Laura, Amy, Jenny

 Dad, Michael, Lisa, Laura, Amy, Jenny, Ryan, Mom

 Michael, Laura, Ryan

 Laura & Lisa

Laura & Brant dancing at sunset

Family Visitors from Georgia!

Aunt Janette and Uncle Eric came over for dinner a few weeks ago.  They were in Utah to visit Grandma Hallstrom and Uncle Calvin.  Nathan, my cousin, drove up from Provo.  We had pulled pork and gravy sandwiches, pasta salad, grapes, zucchinni bread, and corn on the cob.  It was fun to catch up with them and visit.  The guys were so kind to offer to do the dishes and clean up the kitchen so Katie and I could go on a walk with Aunt Janette.   After the kids went to bed, Nathan entertained us by telling us about his experience playing Joseph Smith in Boise's Institute production of "My Servant Joseph."  He showed us a slideshow and sang us a couple of songs that he sang in the production.  Nathan surprised all of us with a CD of all the songs sung by the cast he was in this summer.  Wow!

Uncle Eric's birthday was the day after he came to our house.  We sang to him around 10pm and each had a big piece of the homemade chocolate applesauce cake that I made. They drove up to Rexburg the following morning for their first grandson's baby blessing.  My cousin, Ryan and his wife, Jessica have a baby boy named Braxton.

These pictures are ones that I "borrowed" from my Aunt Janette's blog.

December 2009

December was such a fun month full of parties, shopping, family visitors, and holiday celebrating.

At the beginning of the month, we went to a friend's surprise birthday party. Our kids were with us and had fun yelling out "Surprise!" as the birthday boy entered the room. It was great to hang out with other families in our neighborhood and get to know them better. Plus, I tried a new treat, White Christmas Popcorn, which is my new favorite. (I posted the recipe on this blog recently). Our Ward Christmas Party was fun. All of us met at the church in our best pajamas for a pancake breakfast (served at dinner time). They had a hot chocolate bar, a cookie decorating room, and we sang Christmas carols.

Christmas shopping was time consuming. I tried to get a little bit of shopping done each week when I went out grocery shopping. I had all of my shopping done and gifts wrapped by December 11th, which is my goal every year. It's always nice to have the Christmas shopping and wrapping done. We took the boys on a couple car rides to see the Christmas lights around town. It's fun to hear them "oooh" and "ahhh" over the light displays.

We let the boys open an early Christmas present... Polar Express in 3D. Here are my boys before the starting the movie:

The weekend before Christmas, we had Grandma Hallstrom over for dinner. Later that evening, my cousin, Ryan and his girlfriend (now fiancee), Jessica came for a quick visit. It was fun to see them and chat. The last time I had seen Ryan was when he was 12 years old and I spent two weeks visiting his family in Georgia. Ryan showed me his fancy new digital camera and even let me hold it. (If you know me well, you know that I love cameras. I was secretly hoping that Ryan would forget his camera and that I'd have to babysit it for awhile). Ryan and Jessica are currently students at BYU-Idaho and are engaged to be married in the Seattle Washington Temple this April!

I enjoyed decorating for the holidays. The snowman arrangement above my kitchen cupboards will stay up all winter. Sam bought me these beautiful poinsettias on Christmas Eve.I spent most of the day on Christmas Eve cleaning our house before all of our holiday visitors arrived. My sister, Amy came late on Christmas Eve and spent the next couple of days with us. Christmas was wonderful. It was fun celebrating Christmas for the first time in our house. Amy's boyfriend, Mike joined us for Christmas dinner. We made up my mom's homemade macaroni and cheese and had a couple side dishes. After the kids went to bed, the four of us watched Sam's new movie, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince."

Sam's parents and younger sister, Laura arrived on December 27th. They came bearing gifts. They spoiled us. The boys' favorite gifts were their new walking/growling dinosaur toys and their coloring books and puzzles. Sam and his dad built a combine out of Legos with the "help" of Brian and Tyler. Sam and his siblings bought the Lego combine for Fred's Christmas gift. Sam was very proud of his Lego man that he built. We watched a few movies while they were here, played with the kids and their new toys, played a new game we got called Buzz Word, and ate good food. My favorite meal was my Manicotti Formaggio with Chicken dish I ordered at the Olive Garden. It was too bad that I didn't get to sit and eat it all at the restaurant. Brian and Tyler were super fussy and we were in a rush to go pick up my sister, Emily at the airport. We're so glad Sam's parents and sister were able to spend a few days with us. We can't wait for Sam's parents to move out to Utah.

Emily was here when Grandma Hallstrom had surgery to get her thyroid removed. We went to visit her in the hospital a few hours after her surgery. We brought her flowers and some music to listen to. Grandma's surgery went well and she's home now taking it easy. Emily was a big help with my kids. They loved hanging out with her. Brian nicknamed her "Bud." It was fun having Emily here to celebrate Tyler's birthday. (She was in town for Tyler's 1st birthday too!) On New Year's Eve, Sam went to bed before midnight. Emily was tired and wanted to go to bed too, but I insisted that she stay up with me. She was a good sport and layed on the couch and chatted with me while I made some cards for Card Club. I hope she had fun visiting us even though we didn't get out of the house much.

So now all of our holiday guests are gone. We gave the house a good scrub down and are starting to get back into our normal routine.

Grandma's Early Christmas Gift

Here's a video of Grandma Hallstrom opening her early Christmas gift from her entire family.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Thanksgiving Weekend 2009

We hosted Thanksgiving dinner at our house. It was the fourth year in a row that we've hosted. Grandma Hallstrom helped a ton. She brought some extra chairs, a table cloth, fancy china, silverware, and goblets, and lots of food. Our guests were: Grandma Hallstrom, Joyce Jacobs (Grandma's friend), Uncle Calvin, Nathan (my cousin), Amy (my sister), Mike (Amy's boyfriend), and Laura (my sister). It was fun being together as a family. The meal was so tasty and definitely worth all the time in the kitchen. We were in charge of the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, rolls, drinks, corn, and a dessert. For dessert, Grandma made two apple pies and Sam and I made a pumpkin roll. Here's a picture of most of us enjoying a conversation over dessert:After dinner, we enjoyed a power point presentation by Nathan. Sam hooked up Nathan's laptop to our big tv so we could see larger pictures. This past July, Nathan returned home from a mission to Mozambique. He is a funny guy and told us about the culture in Mozambique as well as several mission stories. After the presentation, we enjoyed our dessert and then presented Grandma Hallstrom with a few early Christmas presents. The gifts were from her whole family and I put the gifts together. You can enjoy the video a little later once I get it posted:

In addition to the large collage frame full of family pictures, I made Grandma a scrapbook version of family photos. I also created a slideshow of family photos that I posted on my blog recently. Grandma was very touched by the gifts and can't wait to get the collage frame hung on her wall.

After our boys went to bed, we rearranged the furniture in the family room and Sam set up our Christmas tree. Then, Sam and I watched the new Pixar movie, 'Up' with Laura and Nathan. It was my first time seeing that movie. I enjoyed it. I could tell that the people who created the movie had big imaginations. Laura, Nathan, and Amy spent the night.

The next morning, I did a portrait photo shoot of Amy. My Mom wanted a good picture of Amy to hang on her mantle above her fireplace. Here are some of my favorite photos I got of Amy:

Amy and I stopped by for a quick bite to eat at McDonald's. We had chicken nuggets and chocolate milkshakes. It was fun to hang out with my sister.

Like last year, Laura is performing in the church production, "Savior of the World." Sam and I were lucky enough to get to see Laura in the play over Thanksgiving weekend. We drove Laura back for her Friday night performance. Sam and I were lucky enough to get standby tickets and awesome seats (3rd row from the front on the left hand side of the theater). I was hoping Laura would look out into the audience and see us. At the very end of the show, Laura glanced over and gave me a big smile. It's such a great show! We wandered over to Temple Square and saw all the Christmas lights before heading home. Thank you, Amy and Mike for babysitting for us!

On Saturday night, I hung out with my second cousin, Angela. She lives in the same town as me. I picked her up and we headed off to see the new movie, 'The Blind Side.' We arrived at the theater and found out that the tickets were sold out. So we went to another theater. The movie was sold out there too. We purchased some tickets for the 9:45pm show and did a little Christmas shopping for a couple hours.

On Sunday evening, I went on my date with Brian. The two of us drove to Layton to visit my cousin Jerry's family and my cousin David's family (who were visiting from Arizona). Brian loves playing with Jerry's son, Hunter. Hunter and Brian are only 10 days apart in age. Brian wasn't as interested in playing with Hunter this time. He was more interested in the food and the fancy bathrooms they had. Oh well. I had fun catching up with my cousins. The last time I'd seen my cousin David was in 1998 at the Van Wie Farm in New York. Anyway, here is a picture of the Van Wie Cousin Reunion of 2009:

Jerry & Marla's kids with their Arizona cousins

David, Amy, Lisa, Jerry