Will this never end???

Okay so sunday, it snowed like CRAZY at our house. We have 9:00 church and since Emma & Maggie had a cough, I decided to keep them home. So Nick went solo. He comes home at 10:30 and says they've cancelled church because of the snow. I thought he was lying. But no really, they cancelled church, it's just around the corner. But people couldn't get out of their driveways and so there really weren't a lot of people there. Insane! So I got on my shoveling gear, and went out to shovel. Nick stayed inside and made a cake...no joke. But there is a reason for that, his back goes out pretty easy and the last thing we need is for it to go out on him. So I shoveled the driveway with the help of a couple neighbors. But as I'd already shoveled what felt like every day that week, I was pretty sick of it. So I gave nick an ultimatum..... (1) we buy a snowblower or (2) we put our house up for sale and move to St George asap. I really wish he took me seriously. Well, we ended up with 14 inches, it felt like 24. But I don't want to hear anything about a drout this summer, ezpecially since it's snowing as I type.

St George/New Years

So we had already decided that we'd go to St. George, like we do every year. But we switched from going on Christmas night, to going on January 3rd. Randy & Kim went down first & Nick stayed home to keep the lot open. We sunday, December 30th, Nick's mom calls us and says, "Where are you!?!" "Um...at home." So she asks when we're coming down and I told her on the 3rd. So she put Randy on the phone and I put Nick on the phone & they made an executive decision to not work on new years eve. So we went down on Monday, the 31st and got to enjoy the warmer weather until tuesday Jan 7th. It was a much needed break and we so much enjoyed our time there with Grandma & Grandpa Powell. We did a little too much shopping (as always), a little too much snacking (again, as always), and we even sneaked in a couple of date nights. It was great. Emma got to paint with grandma and she loved it. We really did enjoy our time down there and are grateful that KP & Sherry were so kind and generous.

Christmas catch-up

So I've been slow on posting our Christmas pictures, sorry. But it was an awesome day. Here's the review. Maggie woke nick and I up at 8:00...whew we got to sleep in!! We tried to wake Emma up, but she was pretty dead to the world. Hence our awesome picture, she'll hate me for that later. Once she woke up and we reminded her it was Christmas day, she had no problem getting into the spirit of the day. She opened lots of her own presents and probably all of Maggie's. What are sisters for right? After we all had a good morning, we decided to clean up a little bit and we headed to Grandma & Grandpa Cook's to visit with Mari, Aly, James & Jerrica. We'd already spent Christmas eve with all of the Powell family and they were all headed to St. George. We enjoyed lunch at the Cook's and then all headed to Chris & Patricia's for games and visiting. We played a game of dice, and Keaton so kindly demonstrated how to steal every single one of Nick's hard-earned points. All while Emma, Maysen, & Jacey played dress up. It was a very fun day and we enjoyed being able to spend the holidays with our family members. I hope you'll understand that I didn't post a picture of myself because I look like, well, like I just woke up....fancy that.

Gingerbreat houses

I almost forgot to post our gingerbread house, thanks to Nick you all get to see it :) So here it is the beautiful and amazing Powell Family Gingerbread house. We had a lot of fun making it and putting it together. Emma insisted on wearing a princess dress while doing this, I'm not sure why. Pobably because she knew there would be pictures. It took a little bit of work and a lot of patience, but we got it all put together and we had a good family home evening learning about the first christmas.

Santa Claus

We visited Santa Claus and the picture says it all. Emma was in heaven and Maggie would love to be anywhere but on Santa's lap. Emma reminded me in line that there are in fact 2 santa's. The one in the North Pole and the one in the mall who remembers what we want. I love hearing kids' theories on how Santa works. Emma is still working it all out, but I'm sure she'll let us know in the next few days. She's excited for christmas and ask every morning, just one day until christmas right? Poor girl, it's been a very long month.

James & Jerrica's Wedding

Last saturday, (December 15th), James and Jerrica were married in the Salt Lake Temple, bright and early. We had to be to the temple by 7:50, we barely made it! The ceremony was awesome and they had to add 2 rows of benches to hold everyone, I think we set a temple record. It was so neat to be there and share that with them. Of course we had to do pictures afterwards, but then we rushed back to Sandy to get the luncheon going. Much to my protesting, Mom decided to make all of the food. And she did a wonderful job! Someone even asked who had catered it for us. Made us feel good! Mom did an aweseom job decorating and the church looked beautiful. We had just enough food for everyone, truely. I was the last to sit down and I got the last piece of chicken. It was a nice luncheon. Then we rushed to take things down and get down to Nephi on time for pictures and the reception. We didn't make it on time, but we still beat the bride and groom. Whew! The reception, like the whole day, was beautiful. It was so nice to have our whole family there. We got some fun pictures and made some great memories. Just a quick one to share, Emma had decided earlier in the week that she wanted to have a pajama party instead of going to the wedding (who knows where that came from!), but I told her there would be dancing and she immediately changed her mind. She went and loved it. Her only complaint was that she didn't catch the bouquet. But Alyson being the awesome aunt she is, gave Emma her flowers. Like I said before, the whole day was beautiful and I'm so excited to have Jerrica as part of our family. Congrats James & Jerrica, we love you both.

LET IT SNOW!

So here we are in December and Emma is loving the snow. Everyday it snows she thinks it's Christmas Day. So last saturday when it snowed, her and Nick went outside and built a snowman and played. They even tried to ring the doorbell by throwing snowballs at the door. They were never successful. But they had lots of fun and made some good memories. .