Merry Christmas

I love that there is a special time of year especially to remember Christ and his birth

and spend time with family.
Oh that I could keep more of the Christmas spirit all year long.

Trial and Error

For the first time ever I tried making Candy Cane Bread. (This is a special bread with filling that my mom usually makes every year around Christmas). Um...

...better luck next year. They didn't turn out too pretty, good thing I wasn't submitting them in the fair or some contest. All I could think when they were cooking was "these are such a joke". Luckily, after taking them out of the oven I was able to put them all very close together on the pan and that helped to close them up a little. The good news, they tasted good! I gave them to people at work and those that ate theirs at work liked them a lot. Now, I just have to get the look down.

C-O-W-B-OY-S

Yea for the Cowboys and their New Mexico Bowl win yesterday against Fresno State! I was cheering and singing (the fight song of coarse) and texting Beth (so it could be like I was watching the game with her) while I watched the game. The end of the game drive, the 1st overtime goalline stops and the 2nd overtime were all very exciting, but my favorite part of the game was probably when I got a phone call from my neice Caitlin.

Her: Hi Annie. Are you watching the game?
Me: Yes. I'm watching the game.
Her: What are you doing? (because she cannot have a phone converstation without asking this most important question)
Me: I am watching the Wyoming football game. Are you watching the football game?
Her: Yes...Dad, are we watching football?
Him: Yes.
Her: Yes, we're watching football too.

Then the rest of the conversation was mixed with a lot of things I couldn't quite understand, but I was glad that she called :)

Winter trip to Wyoming

In November, my mom and I found a killer deal that Southwest Airlines was having, so we decided to take an early December trip up to Wyoming to visit Beth and fam. It was definately a winter trip, as the weather was bitter cold. However, since we left (last weekend) it has only gotten more cold in Wyoming. I guess they pulled out the warmer weather while we were there :) In explaining the fun trip, I will talk about each of the pictures above (in order as if you were reading a book).

1. I felt like I needed to show proof that it was so cold...on Sunday night (and Thursday night) it was below zero. All I can say is Brrrrrr.
2. Ashlee loves climbing on things, including my mom's, Grandma's, suitcase. She was also checking out what she can buy her mom for Christmas.
3. Caitlin and Ashlee like to dance so they were having a little dancing party with Beth.
4. We had a nice dinner on Sunday night. In case we can't tell in the picture, we were famished.
5. Chris and Caitlin pulling a cracker. They are doing '12 Days to Christmas' this year and making and pulling crackers was one of the activities. A cracker is a Scottish present that you pull and the winner gets the gift inside. We each had our own cracker, filled with candy and awesome Christmas rings.
6. Making Scottish shortbread was another of the 12 Days to Christmas activity; which Ashlee was helping to make.
7. Mom, Ashlee, Beth and Caitlin making gingerbread men ornaments (another 12 Day activity).
8. When Beth and Chris lived in Scotland they got some plaid fabric. My mom made jumpers out of the fabric for Caitlin and Ashlee and they were posing in them before we left for church. They are super cute jumpers.
9. Me and Ashlee. She liked me and mom being there because we would hold her a lot.
10. Caitlin concentrating on making her gingerbread man.
11. Caitlin taking her turn at helping with the shortbread.

It was a fun trip. I am thankful that there are such convient (and sometimes quite cheap) ways of traveling now so it is much easier to visit family and friends all over the country.