Christmas Eve With the Taylor's

James' family has a tradition for everyone to be together on Christmas Eve.  We all gathered at his parent's home for dinner and a little Christmas program.  At everyone's place at the table, there is a Christmas cracker.  When you pull the ends, the pops open and there is a prize inside and these Christmas crowns.

Max, Brandon, and Randall

Sondra, Devon, Max, and Randall

Hilary and Noelle

We all took turns reading verses in Luke 2.

Baby S

Sondra's infamous gingerbread boys and sugar cookies.  Yum!

Brett and Jenny

Liz and Matt

It was amazing to reflect on the past year in the Taylor family.  It was a hard, trying, wonderful, miraculous, and incredible year full of many trials but also many, many blessings.  I feel so blessed to be a part of the Taylor family now.  What a great way to spend Christmas with all these people I love so much!

Temple Square

We had to make our yearly visit to Temple Square to see the Christmas lights.  We carefully planned it for a night that wasn't supposed to be crazy frigid.  It is so magical!

My favorite lanterns!

A kiss in front of the big red tree!

Then we walked around City Creek afterward and I captured this gem...

We have the best time together!  Marriage rocks!

Stockings for FHE

With Thanksgiving being so late in November, we got home from California and jumped right into Christmas.  James and I looked a few places for stockings that we liked but just didn't find any that hit the mark.  So we bought a bunch of felt and made our own.  This was our FHE activity on Monday.  My husband can sew!  How awesome is that?!

My stocking is anything but red, of course!

All in a night's work!

The finished product...

It took a couple of weeks to get the letters on, but we are ready to stuff stockings now!