Christmas Cheer

The Bakersfield fog.

This is our neighbors house from our front door. The fogs here get SO bad. I get scared driving in them and Jeremy and I agree they kindof cause a sense of claustrophobia. Now we are realizing why some of the highway things are set up like they are. For example, almost all the roads are divided by a median, which helps because you can hardly see lines on the road in a heavy fog, and almost all the lights have a green arrow, which I thought was stupid until one of the fogs and I thought "I'm sure glad I don't have to yield to oncoming traffic based on what I can see coming because I can't see anything coming!" On some of the back roads you can even get lost just driving straight because you don't know what you've passed. The other day Jeremy said "did we go through a light already?" Sad thing was neither of us had seen anything. They even have fog delays for the schools where they start two hours later than usual. In one week there were three which all the locals said was pretty unusual.


Here's what all that moisture in the air and a few dirt storms can do to a door mat. (That would be grass growing)
The ward Christmas party


Ellia did pretty good with Santa - after he bribed her with a candy cane, which of course neither Jeremy nor I could get away from her so she ended up a sticky mess.

Patrick and Jeremy with their little girls!

Our house decorations, requested by mom and Emily! Thanks by the way, it was a good excuse for me to clean things up and take the pictures so I can remember how i did it for next year!

Our first family Christmas party the day after we arrived in Utah. Here's a story. The day before the party Jeremy went fishing with his brothers who then came to my house to say hello. A commercial for the Snuggie (blanket with sleeves) came on and one of Jeremy's brothers (who shall remain nameless, chm Travis) started making fun of it. Then he went on to say, "Have you seen the one for the Amish fireplaces, that one is hilarious." and my mom chimed in, "I just bought one of those for my mom!" So here it is...

(we tried to get as much use as possible out of Ellia's Christmas dress!)

Grandpa and Ellia playing with the first Christmas toy of many.

The traditional Nativity. Although the cousins were somewhat more cooperative this year, the uncooperative ones were worse than usual. The Angel (Ellia) kept popping in and out of the scene because she was obsessed with the stroller - which by the way was NOT carrying baby Jesus.

We had to tuck the Angel dress in Ellia's pants because she kept tripping over it, and there's Sara ducking behind the "Shepherd" just so we could get ONE picture of all of them...turned out great didn't it!

At least a little better than last year right? Can you pick out the differences?!

Nativity

After Nativity Chaos

Ellia's shopping cart and doll were a big hit Christmas morning! Except she got really frustrated trying to maneuver it around all the gift wrapping at Grandma Laura's!

Giving shots with her Dr. kit.Pooped. It snowed a few feet on Christmas day at my house in Midway so we bundled up and tested Ellia in it.

She was really too tired at that point to care much.

A few more presents at Grandma's Carol's.

The snowfall was so gorgeous and had perfect Christmas spirit timing...we had to take a little walk in it. (This is my mom's house, I told you California's I grew up with a lot of snow! This isn't even the worst year of it)

Some mailboxes

Some posts where the snow had been gathering

Our backyard the next morning. That's a shed to the far right, and a patio set on the bottom.