Holidays

I've gotten behind again.  As you can imagine, lots has been going on this time of year.

We spent Thanksgiving in St. George with the Melton's. It was a very relaxing 4 days of food, laughter, football at the park, shopping, playing with our little cousin, red rocks and football on tv. It was wonderful!

Those handsome Melton men...

...and beautiful Melton women

We drove through the first snow storm of the season getting back to Salt Lake, and since then we've had several good winter storms drop about a foot of snow, putting us all in a festive mood. In contrast to recent years, we've had a lot of beautiful white stuff this December. The snow blower is getting a workout and the kids are having a ball, spending hours every day sliding on it and building with it.

Mike at the controls...one of the best purchases we've ever made - we'd never get this giant drive way cleared without it.

I love this picture of Sully running next door for his piano lesson - snow and Christmas lights on our cozy street.

With our backyard hill finally sodded this past summer and the rock wall finished - our dreams of backyard sledding have finally come to fruition. 

With the backyard sledding hill and this 6 ft high x 12 ft long snow cave that Noble and the Dos Bros (the two boys next door) worked into the night to build (they used almost all the snow in our front yard - see the grass?) - our house has become a winter recreation destination for neighbor kids from far and wide. I'm just a little nervous about a cave-in risk as the weather warms up - that is a LOT of snow.  

Getting ready for Christmas. This year Mike's wish for a taller tree was granted with an 11.5 ft alpine fir from the Peterson Farm tree lot. I know I say this every year, but this is my favorite tree ever. We each decided on a "gift to the Savior", a commitment to improve something in our lives, wrote it on one of these paper angels, and hung them on the tree.

Sully and Abner putting on their own Nativity puppet shows. 

This year's ginger bread creation

And thanks to the older kids  (GRACE), the little boys are treated almost every morning to a new elf adventure. I totally don't have energy or patience for this kind of thing...I only bought the elf a few years ago - NOT the official Elf on a Shelf - because I thought it would be a cute, stationary, addition to the decor. Grace has brought us to another level. Here is the elf (it doesn't have a proper name as so many do) - Mission Impossible-ing over our dining table. The boys love it...so kudos to Grace on her care and attention. It won't be many more years before this type of magic at our house is a thing of the past.

Other winter goings on - these two cooking it up in the kitchen with Grace, and Abner falling asleep in my arms one afternoon (that is very rare these days - I savored every moment)

Grace and Emory started basketball. Grace loves it! 

We made it to Logan for little cousin Maven's blessing. What an amazing day! (Her dress was so lovely.)

 We also made it down town to see the lights (in a down pour of rain) which made standing in line outside the Lion House for dinner impossible - so we opted for the empty Jimmy Johns across the street, and did a speed tour of the lights on our way through Temple Square to the newly designed Church History Museum instead. (The kids LOVED it!). We didn't get any pictures in the bustle and  the rain.

Today I got to enjoy the school Christmas programs at the Montessori school. Tillman's class hosted a  Central and South American cultural / holiday presentation. They sang Christmas songs in Spanish and Tillman was blending and handing out samples of Dulce de Leche.  Here is Sully's class doing "Boogie Woogie Blitzen".


Christmas program from Angie Melton on Vimeo.

But THIS is why we rejoice... the gift of Christ and his atonement, the gift of the spirit that fills us with wonder and hope and gratitude and JOY. I took this picture at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple yesterday after I walked out to this glorious winter scene.

WE ARE BLESSED. SO BLESSED!