The Catch-Up post

I have been a horrible blogger recently (and by recently, I mean the last several months!) and to make it up to you, here is a HUGE catch-up post!

-Practiced my photog skillz on Sam for his mission pictures (this was one of the "fun" ones)



-Saw Twilight on opening weekend with Casey (and again this week with Cat)



-Cheered on the Utes as they beat BYU (again!) for a perfect season (again!)



-Made pies from scratch for Thanksgiving (my first time!) and watched John's cousin Joe play with fire (a Bailey family tradition)





-Hung out with Sam and Lily (Sam was home sick from school with me for a few days) playing of lots of Lego Star Wars on the Wii




-Was a narrator for the Primary's nativity play (I played the mom and Paul Clayton was the dad)





-Took our Christmas card photos at night, in front of the Christmas tree, by ourselves- seriously challenging my photography skills to get the lighting and settings right plus the added inconvenience of using a timer! (I hope Santa brings me that remote I've been wanting!)




Other activities without photo proof that kept me insanely busy:

-Making almost a hundred Christmas cards by hand. Silly, silly me.

-Participating in the Relief Society's Christmas Program which was a serious production of "The Ten Virgins." It was insane, road-show type involvement for both me and Cat. We had solos, speaking parts, costumes, and ACTING to do involving hours of rehearsals. The best part? Guess who was cast as a vain, insecure and unprepared virgin? Oh, yes, me, the large pregnant one. Hilarious.

-Participating in the ward choir's Christmas Program (are you sensing a theme here??) in which we learned a 40 minute Cantata written by a lady in our ward. Again, very involved with rehearsals and solos plus challenging music to learn. Amazingly, we it turned out great and it was very nice but whew, I was worried about our ability to pull it off!

And of course, just regular things that everyone deals with this time of year- Christmas shopping, Christmas decorating, wrapping presents, attending parties, etc.
And then there's the fun stuff about inheriting a large house for a while- shoveling, figuring out which light switches do what, plugging in the eaveswarmers, etc. etc.

I feel overwhelmed by the simultaneous feelings of having a mountain of stuff to do yet never "doing" anything (blog worthy, let's just say it.)

That all being said, I am looking forward to having a wonderful, peaceful Christmas. Because half of my family won't be here this year, I am finding myself with a lot of free time on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It will be nice to spend it leisurely with just John, and then with his family for a while, instead of juggling both families all day.