Burns Cousin Family Night: The Nativity

Every year since we moved to Arizona we have had a really fun Burns Family Home Evening with Brian and Mindy's family.  This year, Mindy and I decided to have Chinese food take out for dinner and act out the Nativity story followed by some fun present opening.  I have seen pictures and heard stories of other families acting out the Nativity before but had never actually done it myself - so it was a really fun tradition to start!  All the kids had special parts (and Brian did too... - he really wanted to be the star.)  He's such a ham, I love it.

Before we started I snapped this cute picture of Mindy and the girl cousins.

Brian was also the narrator.  We tried our best to read the story straight out of Luke.  This is a cute picture of Brian and Wyatt reading the Word.

Jill was a perfect sleeping baby Jesus.  Cora and Wyatt were Mary & Joseph, Carter was an angel who became a shepherd who became a Wiseman (we were low on actors). Charlie was a shepherd and a Wiseman later too.  My favorite part of this picture above though is that we had to have the door slightly cracked because we were hot.

This is Charlie becoming a shepherd.  Or a muslim woman?  We weren't sure.  The costume was confusing.  Atleast he was smiling.

Our little shepherd complete with candy cane crook and stuffed horse - because we don't have any stuffed sheep! Note to self - keep an eye out for stuffed sheep this year.

Here's Brian, the STAR!!

Cora as Mary with her baby Jesus (Jilly bean)

Carter was such a cute Wiseman!  (BTW - Brian really thought he should be a wiseman too)

I found some giant choolate gold coins to represent the gifts from the Wiseman to baby Jesus.  Charlie, Carter, & Wyatt (who also became a Wiseman after being Jospeh) were super cute Wiseman with their fancy pagminas I found at Walgreens.  As you can see they totally understood their role and kept the gifts for themselves.  hA! SO cute.

Dave isn't pictured because he was our wonderful photographer (along with Minners).  Kenny & Kristy facetimed (is that a word now?) with us during the present opening which was fun too.  My Mom bought us a new Belgian waffle iron that I had really wanted.  We have already used it several times.  It's the kind that flips over - and it makes a waffles on BOTH sides - so you can do 2 at a time.  I LOVE it.  Kenny & Kristy had us this year and bought us an iPhone doc thing that plays music.  I have it in my kitchen - it's awesome!  Charlie got a fun new limbo game and some new books from Brain and Mindy and some new vans from Kenny and Kristy.  Jill was also given was some pink vans from Kenny and Kristy and some cute silver shoes from Mindy and Brian.  Mindy also made Jill some cute mod podged letters that spell out JILL to hang up in her room.  They match great and are so trendy looking! I love 'em!

All in all, it was a super fun Family Night.  Looking back I know I'll remember this family activity more than any of the presents we received.  It was super fun to take some time to do something as a family to remember the Savior and the miraculous story of his birth.

Christmas 2007

So Christmas has come and gone. We had a great time in Sacramento visiting Dave's family. While we were there we went to the mountains for a night. Dave's parents and grandparents each have a property there. This is a picture of me trying to wear a snow bib. It didn't quite zip up around my middle which is getting bigger and bigger. I'd like to think that my belly was just too pregnant. However, truthfully, they probably wouldn't have zipped up anyway. For Christmas, we bought a new camera as our big gift to each other. We also received some nice gifts from family. We got a fondue pot, scrapbooking things, some cash, baby stuff, and of course Dave's favorite gift (other than the one in the above picture) Guitar Hero. I am about 4.5 months along. I can feel the baby kicking almost everyday now, which is really neat. Dave has also been able to feel a few kicks as well. It is amazing. We have a lot to be grateful for and look forward to a wonderful year ahead of us.

New Years Resolution: Get to church on time.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Or at least as much as it can here in Tucson. So there's no snow, or sleighs, or jingle bells, but people do put little chili pepper lights on cacti. But as I stated previously, I actually don't mind the lack of snow and cold.

But onto the real story. Today and yesterday, Jenni and I spent some time putting up Christmas lights on our house. We started out trying to use these little plastic clip things that we got at Target for a couple bucks, but I decided that it was worth taking the time to just use metal hooks like Jenni had originally suggested. It was a pretty big pain, but I think it will make this whole process a LOT easier next year (or at least I hope so).

Also, as you can see it was a "very cold" 60 degrees outside, so I had a jacket on.