ward christmas party

lets still play catch up why don't we. and now we are to week 3 of december, which = the busiest week ever. with my parents living in japan, they don't have much time to do any shopping, and obviously don't have the resources for presents like we do here. so i had a list of things that were wanted/needed and went shopping. i got everything packed up and organized in a big suitcase and a carryon suitcase that my 16 year old sister got to take with her back to japan.

next on my list was my RS lesson. i know it doesn't sound like that should take up much time, but i always need to feel like i am more than 100% prepared to avoid getting worried/nervous. i dont know why but the past couple months my lessons have always fallen during super busy weeks. luckily i was able to devote some time and got my notes ready so all was well.

lastly we had our ward christmas party that saturday night... which pretty much was put together all that week. i've never had to feel like i was in charge of an event for 200 people. all went smoothly, and i wish i could say i got to sit back and enjoy it, but unfortunately eli was acting like too big of a stinker to stay in the kids room so i got to chase him around the whole time. tanner mc'd during the musical program and from what i heard from the hall, he did a great with keeping everyone entertained, which of course isn't surprising.

one morning that week we had to stop by disneyland to get disney dollars to give to my nephews for christmas. they are getting here tonight (i'm so excited!!) from utah and spending a week at disneyland, so hopefully the boys will find something fun to spend their disney dollars on. we went in for a couple hours to make our trek worth it so we chilled in toon town before we left. ps- eli is still scared of mickey.

because i am a total space case, i didn't get a picture of the whole gym for the christmas party. yep, i don't have a picture to show for it. i did however take a picture of some flower arrangements (unfortunately not good pictures) that we made for all 14 tables that all looked like this (i didn't take a pic of two tall vases filled with this pretty silver stuff and holly that were my favorite that we had on the food table/entry table). luckily i have a friend in the ward that does flower arrangements for a living so i was able to meet her in the flower district in downtown la to get all the supplies, and then we went back to her place and did them all. it was time consuming, but i think it made a big difference in the room so i was happy with them.

eli wouldn't go to santa ... surprise, surprise. so keeping a safe distance from him, we got a family shot.

so the party/clean up ended, then we had church the next morning and i did my lesson, and then we came home to pack up some things for eli, and headed up to santa barbara. we only were there for a few hours, but we needed to drop off eli because early (and i mean early) the next morning we took a flight out to vegas. but i guess that can be my next post : )