Preparing for Christmas festivities

On Black Friday Marcus and Miranda and her sister crashed at our house around 3 a.m. after doing lots of shopping Thursday night and Friday morning. It was good to see them and visit for a bit.

Olivia and Miranda making muffins on Black Friday.

On Saturday the 24th we had a busy day. I went to the temple in the morning with my sister Elizabeth. I took her to lunch at Famous Dave's since she'd never been. Of course I bought some ribs to take home for Jaime and the girls. :)

We spent the rest of the day prepping to entertain guests. I had decorated the house for Christmas already and Jaime and I put the lights on the house Friday.

 We had Jaime's parents, Marcus, Miranda, Bel and her fiance Chris, and Chris' parents Sharlotte and Richard, brother Charlie and his family over for a huge dinner at our house. We had such a wonderful time. There's lots of visiting to do when there's 20 people in the house. It was great to get to know Chris' family. His parents came up from California.

He has a great family and we thoroughly enjoyed the evening with everyone.

One night for Family Home Evening we decorated the tree. It looks so sparkly!

I'm so excited for my tree skirt. I didn't have one last year. I found one online a few months back that I fell in love with immediately. I had shown it to my mom and said I'd like to see if we could make it sometime.  I honestly didn't think we'd get around to doing it this year!

I spent an entire day at mom's just sewing. First I sewed up a gift for my mother-in-law (it was a nice quick project.) Then we got started on the skirt. I measured out the strips and mom serged them on her serger. I then took the strips and pinned them around the circle we'd cut out and then sewed the strips on one by one! Then I sewed a ribbon around the open edges around the tree.  It's so frilly! I love it. I love the satiny feel of the fabric. I could wrap myself up in it. It took about 5 yards of fabric and some hours out of one day. It's elegant but chic. I had such a good time working with mom and finally sewing. (It's been awhile.) Even better, it feels so good to love something that I made! 

(I almost don't want to put the presents under the tree!)

I showed the girls how to make snowflakes and they took off with the project.

They'd come home from school the next few days and get to work. I hung them from the ceiling.

Jaime likes to get a chance and relax from work stresses and play with the kids.

Look how happy he is playing with his boys. Aidan and Tyler have a blast playing with Nerf Blasters.

Party Time! We usually have a Christmas party every year at our house. We took a break while living at my mom's and the first year in our house. We decided to start it up again and had a wonderful turn out. With 18 people you're bound to have some fun. Those who couldn't make it due to previous engagements were really missed. 

Some guests didn't know each other but it's fun to find out how others have connections to one another that most of us didn't know. Or others seeing old friends they hadn't seen in a long time. 

You see? We're all closer than we thought. 

The guys congregated around the kitchen...food.

Look out Justin's doing a cartwheel!

We played simple games to get to know one another better.

It strikes up some interesting conversations and creates lots of laughter. 

And of course a party during Christmas is a great reason for me to make my chocolate peanut butter balls! This is all that's left! So sad. Wouldn't it be awesome if I could make a self multiplying recipe? Maybe it's better I can't. :)