Kacie's 24th Birthday...

On Dec 29th we got up early to head to Rexburg to celebrate Kacie's 24th birthday.  After we arrived and unloaded the car we took a few pictures with Kacie.  After Cole got home from work we went to Texas Roadhouse for her birthday dinner.

Cole sent these beautiful flowers for her.

The night prior I made this Pina colada cake for her.   It's a coconut cake with pineapple filling.  I'm glad it made the trip okay. haha!  We gave her a black dress from Bohme and a drawer organizer for storage bags.  I was really happy she liked it. 

I can't believe she is 24!

 

Friday Cole had to work so the rest of us went to see the second Avatar movie.  We all really enjoyed it.  We got sushi for dinner that night.  It was really good.  Brady wasn't brave enough to try it so we got him some Costa Vida.  Saturday Cole went snowmobiling.  Brady got sick during the night so we went to Millhollow without him but we brought him back a sandwich.  We just hung around the house all day and watched the first season of Yellowstone since Brady wasn't feeling the best.  We all stopped to do a toast at midnight to celebrate the new year.  It was fun that Cole was able to stay up with us. (:

Sunday the 1st we packed up and headed home around 11:00.  We had a good time and really enjoyed spending time with Cole and Kacie.

Talbot Christmas Party...

We had our Talbot Christmas party the day after Christmas.  Everyone was planning on being there except Kevin got sick so their family wasn't able to make it.  Scott made another prime-rib roast.  On our way to Stacie's, we called to see if she had her oven on and she panicked because she thought the party wasn't until 3:00pm.  Everyone else knew it was at 2:00 but it all worked out just fine and we were eating by 3:00.  haha!  Everything was so yummy and I again had too many sweets.

We gave Lindsay this T-shirt because it is too small for us.  

She was so happy she gave me a hug.  It was pretty cute! (:

Love this picture!

Beau inspecting all the gifts.  

Gerald and Wanda took her sister some food and while we were waiting for them to get back we watched Tyler and Stephen's pictures from South Africa.  They had a pretty cool hunting trip.

Our gift exchange is always fun.  I think Tyson had the record for the most stolen presents.  I was able to finally get a nice set of mixing bowls and kitchen towels.  Scott ended up with the BSU coach's hat.  Cole got some tools and candy.  Brady got a blowup sled and hand warmers and traded Cole the hand warmers for some candy.  Kacie got a nice white blanket and a gift card.  It was a lot of fun.

Ron got these two fishing rods.  Steve gave Kuiu gift cards and Scott gave Oakley sunglasses and hand warmers.  

Ron blew up this hilarious picture and had it displayed on his wall.  During our game, we found out he added it to one of his presents.  Ben ended up stealing it from Wanda.  Too funny!  We always have a lot of fun when we get together.  

Christmas 2022...

On Christmas Eve I made two torts.  It took longer than I had expected because I messed up on the first two batches of crust.  I knew I needed to double the butter because I was making two but I ended up doubling for each batch.  So I wasted a lot of expensive butter which was really frustrating.  Oh well, it's just money.  The day prior I made more sugar cookie bars and two sour cream lemon pies.  We left around 3:00 to pick up Brandon.  We stopped at Costco prior to pick up two pumpkin pies and a couple of other things.  We were surprised it wasn't crowded.  Brandon seemed to be in a pretty good mood as he rode up front by his dad.  After we got home Scott made us some yummy french toast with some cinnamon bread we got at Costco.  It was so good.  Mom and Dad joined us and then we watched Home Alone 2.  We were hoping to finish it early enough so we could get Brandon to bed but I think we missed our window because he didn't sleep at all that night.

Cole and Kacie had a nice party with his family on Christmas Eve then they came out to our house on Christmas day.   I had to play the piano at church so Scott stayed home with Brandon and Brady.  I played for the primary children and also two piano duets with Mary Woodruff and Quinn Barnes on the organ as the congregation sang.  It was a nice meeting.  I just really missed having my family with me.

We gave Cole the Dewalt cooler.  Brady gave him a Mtn Ops T-shirt and a shaker bottle.  We gave Kacie a curling iron, shacket, Gilmore Girls T-shirt, green Bohme sweater and Brady gave her a black sweater.  We also gave them a 2021 blog book.

This was Brandon and Brady's Christmas...

Brady was pretty excited to get a new iPhone 14 cell phone.

We had Christmas dinner with Mom and Dad plus Valeda and Melissa came.  Scott made a yummy prime rib roast.  I made way too many desserts.  But everything tasted really good.  

I was really hoping to get a family picture but there was no way with the way Brandon was acting.  This was a close as we could get.

As the day went on Brandon got more and more worked up so around 7:00pm we decided to make the hard decision to take him back to his home early.  I hated doing it.  Mom and Kacie rode with me.  We had a nice visit in the car and we had fun talking to Mckinley and Rosie on our way home.  Scott, Cole, and Brady had fun watching a movie together while we were gone.  

Joseph Smith's Birthday...

Mom had her traditional party for Joseph Smith with all the cousins that could come.  We watched a ten-minute video about Joseph Smith and then played, "Do you love your neighbor?"  We then visited and I played Phase 10 with Tommy, Howie and mom.  It was fun.

We gave Tara a copy of one of the DVDs I got made from all our home videos.  

This one had her graduation on it.

Olivia made this cute snowman cheese ball.

Brady checking out the Blog books.

Mom gave every family a phone tripod for Christmas.

At midnight we sang for Howie's 18th birthday.

It was a fun night.