It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

This household is all about waiting till AFTER Thanksgiving to start Christmas.  So you better believe the day after Thanksgiving, we started busting out the Christmas spirit!!

Tyler was bound and determined to get a Christmas tree, even though we'll be gone for Christmas. So we bought a life one from SAMS for like $20.  I have one happy husband! 

Christmas lights are so magical! 

Here is our tree before decorations. It's got character. :) 

My cute snowman light

Our Christmas mantle decorations 

We LOVE candles around here, and Balsam and Cedar might be our favorite scent. Mmmmm! Between our live tree and this candle, our house is smelling pretty good these days! 

 To wrap up the month, we got to celebrate by teaching the combined YW/YM 5th Sunday lesson on Eternal Marriage! Woo! Haha.  Let me tell you, co teaching with your spouse is not easy. It was hard to plan it together, but I think it came together well. I used Barbies as part of the lesson, and I think they were a hit! Haha

For Family Home Evening, we decorated our Christmas Tree!! Every year growing up, my parents bought us a new ornament to put on the tree so by the time we grew up and got married we would have ornaments of our own to put on our tree. I have to say, I got pretty teary eyed pulling out my ornaments out of their boxes.  I have a lot of memories from growing up and playing with/finding my ornaments, so I'm glad to have them on my own tree <3 

We had YW activity of decorating ginger bread houses.  I got to decorate one with Keasha. We had a lot of fun! 

I decorate my door for the holidays.  Since my students don't all celebrate Christmas, I decided to do more of a winter theme.  I had my students help cut out the snowflakes too. 

Tyler loves looking at Christmas lights, so we drove around one night and looked at the lights in our neighborhood.

This one was our favorite:

Poor Frosty is feeling overwhelmed by the season ;)

People in Ohio love Ohio State!

These last two cracked us up. The struggle is real. 

I think their rope lights fell down or something. 

This tree looked like they spun a web in the tree of lights. Looks cooler in the picture than in real life. It's still cool though. I mean it's still cool, it's a glowing bush. And it's Christmas. And we love Christmas! 

Thanksgiving 2014

Since Michael's wedding was so close to Thanksgiving, we didn't do anything crazy for it. We originally thought we would spend Thanksgiving in Utah, but because of work and school and such we had to come back.  So Tyler's parents ended up going to Florida for Thanksgiving (which sounds so much better than Ohio).  Luckily, Elizabeth and Andrew live so close so we got to spend Thanksgiving with them.

Thursday morning, we slept in a little bit and watched the Macy's Day Parade. Then we started cooking.  We really underestimated the amount of time it takes to make the food we were supposed to make. So by the time we cooked everything and then drove to Columbus, we were a little later than planned. But it ended up being ok. (I think. Right, Elizabeth? :))

 This is all the stuff we brought just to spend the night.  Haha. Have to be prepared.

Tyler improvised to keep our food warm during the drive. It worked! 

I didn't get a picture of the spread, but there was a ton of really good food!! 

After we ate, I got to hang out with 3 cute little boys! Serious cuteness in one room. 

After everyone left, we realized we forgot to take pictures. So Elizabeth and I decided to take some by ourselves. 

Then the others decided to jump in and take some pictures with us. 

After pictures, we watched Free Birds.  It was pretty cute. Dumb, but cute :) 

Poor Tyler burned his arm on the oven making his dressing. (Which is different from stuffing. Which he did an AWESOME job making!! It's a family tradition for him, so he really wanted to make it and he did his family proud!) 

The next morning Clark and I got to hang out together.  He is SO smart! He is starting to read, he knows his letters, and his numbers, and is just so fun to be with! I love spending time with him!! We also did some Christmas shopping, which I cannot post pictures of until AFTER Christmas of course! However, I am VERY excited about the presents I am giving! 

I can post this picture I took while shopping at Old Navy on Black Friday- 50% off baby!! I didn't buy it, but it's true! I feel loved and very blessed this Thanksgiving!! 

I have so many things to be grateful for!!! I am grateful for my wonderful husband who works hard at school and takes such good care of me! <3 I'm also grateful for the rest of my family! It was so fun to spend time with them in Utah for Michael's wedding! (And I'm excited to spend time with them again at Christmas!!)  I love having the Sanders close so we could spend time with them on this holiday! They're so great! 

I've also been feeling really grateful for my job lately. It's been really crazy lately, and kind of stressful, but I just really enjoy working with kids and the kids I work with are so sweet and I get to see them in small groups which helps me get to know them all really closely and it's really fun to me! And I feel really blessed to have a full time job, which is not easy to come by these days. Really blessed! 

I'm especially grateful for Jesus Christ! The knowledge that comes from knowing His plan of happiness brings such peace and joy, and I feel blessed to have the knowledge of that in my life! I love Him and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints! It makes life so much fuller and happier! What a blessed life I lead!!