A Weekend of Festive Fun!

Our weekend began on Thursady night when Heather, Clint and I (Steve was in NYC on business) went to the Mo-Tab's Christmas concert. Natalie Cole was the guest singer. It was a beautiful performance and we quite enjoyed it even though we were on the very top last row in the Conference Center.
Friday Austin had a swim meet that Heather and I went to and that night Steve (back from NYC) and I took Clint and Heather out to Tepanyaki (love that place!) to celebrate Clint's graduation. You will have to check out Heather's blog for pictures cause I forgot my camera. We got Heather to try some Sushi and she liked it!
Saturday was Christmas cookie making time! Heather and I made the cookies...Heather left me a message in the flour... I love making sugar cookies at Christmas time and it was fun to have Heather helping me.

Clint joined in to help decorate...Thanks for the help!

Since this week is Austin's 17th birthday and everyone was here this weekned he got to celebrate a little early and open his gifts today. Heather and Clint gave him a Cold Play CD and Kyle and Han gave him a CD of the Killers. Steve and I got him an Xbox 360 - and a game to go with it.

Happy Birthday Austin!

It is also Kyle and Han's 1st year wedding Anniversary this coming weekend and again since we were all together we celebrated today. We gave them a gift certificate to go out to dinner and this funny card- Happy Anniversary ...you party animals!

It wouldn't be a proper 1st anniversary without serving the top of the wedding cake. It survived the year well and tasted pretty good,too.

But Saturday isn't over yet... we had our annual cone decorating competition tonight. No extra family this year, just us. This is a very serious competition and everyone gets pretty into it.
Han and Steve in serious concentration....

We had to have two catagories this year for winners because it was just too hard to chose. Heather won for best looking and Kyle won for most creative. Here are the our fine looking creations...

The one above is mine and the one below is Austin's. Mine is a traditional tree, white flocked, Austin's is a creature tree - at least that's what he called it!

Heather's winning tree. I loved the little train and tracks around the base. Cute idea Heather!

Steve's was a volcano tree.

Clint's was calles Hark the Herald Angel Sing. Very cute Clint!

Kyle's Most Creative winner was a view of Australia at Christmas with a surfer...

and a view of Utah at Christmas with a tree about to be cut down by an ax weilding gumdrop man.

And finally we have Han's which was a tribute to their upcoming Anniversary with a bride and groom tree.

These just get funnier every year!

Sunday brought a Christmas party with Steve's side of the family. I love parties at Christmas time! Even Wayne joined us this year. We all enjoyed some great food. I even got a few poses out of some...

like Adam who looks like he had a little too much spiked egg nog and we didn't even have any...

or Heather who can always bring a smile with the faces she pulls...and let's not leave Becca out puffing out her cheeks in the background!

Clint's always up for posing too although I missed this one and unintentionally cut off my husband, sorry honey!

After dinner it was time for some serious Christmas Bingo playing. Always a family favorite-

Seriously we all look like we need to loosen up and have fun but we really were despite what it looks like in the pictures. Grandma brought a bunch of wrapped presents and each time someone won they got to open a gift. There is always enough for everyone to get a gift.
Kyle is hanging his head here because he hadn't won yet ...

After we had our fill of Bingo I brought out my chimes and we all played Christmas songs. No pictures of that though because we were all busy ringing our chimes. It was a fun party.
Did I mention that I love parties at Christmas time?!