December

December was jam packed.  It is hard summing it up in one post, but here it goes...

We started off the month of December with a family trip to Disneyland.

Almost all the Farnsworths were there....except the the two most important members, Mama and Papa.

Tom's dad is slowing down and it is difficult for him to travel.  

So I lugged my big camera around so I could capture some moments for them.  3 hours into the trip, my battery died and I did not bring a replacement or charger....shocking.  

That is the typical way I do things.  

(New Year's Resolution for me is to plan better for success...but that will be January's post)

I made a little movie with everyone's pictures of Disneyland and watched it at Ross's 81st birthday. 

I can't contribute a special musical number but I can put a slideshow together (:

 We didn't plan on Cole coming with us because of his heavy school load, 

but he worked it out and joined us for the quick 2 day trip.
He is a nice teenager to be around.

I realized on this Disney trip that I don't have littles any longer.
sigh
My baby is now carrying around other babies....

and we are now surrounded by a lot of zany teenagers.
We, adults, had to talk them into going on the Peter Pan ride....just for old time sakes.
No more time spent in Fantasy Land and we didn't even step foot into Toon Town.

(Ike looks ready to pounce...?)

My favorite part--World of Color show.
Lights, colors, water, and music make a great combination.

Celebrated Ross's 81st birthday

We are grateful for every year we have with this man. 

We had an adult dinner all together with a short program to celebrate.

It was a sweet evening.  

I came home motivated to be a better person and with a greater

appreciation for the family unit.  

 This picture sums up how all his 12 children feel about him.  

They love and respect their father.

Winter formal Dance came next...

I hate being the bossy photographer mom but I was that night.

Cole went with cute Shanni Davis.  They have been friends since junior high.  

My favorite shot of the night is with my long time friend, Julie, and her daughter Nicole.
I love her!

A few YW highlights in December. 

Our ward does a "Dessert -n- Devotional in the Desert."  

For the Devotional part, our Bishop spoke to the youth about "Light" and

at the end of the night we launched 20 lanterns into the dark sky.

I absolutely love Elder Bednar's series on "Patterns of Light" .

I have been thinking about it all month.

You can find these lanterns online at http://www.birando.com/eco-colored-wish-lanterns

The next week we had a really nice member of our ward 

take us on a caroling hayride in the back of his semi-truck.  

We paraded down the streets of our neighborhood blasting the horn and singing to Christmas music.

Annual Adult Christmas Party
More than 1/2 of my brothers and sisters live out of state,
so we always look forward to the holidays
and our adult party each Christmas.

Tom and I host the dinner, my sister Aryn is in charge of games
and then we do a gift exchange/yankee swap.  This year's gift theme was
"Favorite item of 2012"

After we made pizzas, we started the games.
My sister comes up with some good ones.
Simple but very entertaining.

See how many cookies you can move from your forehead to your mouth in 1 minute.

Toilet Paper Hike.
A couple works together to see how many rolls they can get in the box.

One hikes the roll, the other catches it with their feet and then drops it over their head into a box.

We weren't quite ready for the night to end...so we started another game.
Oh boy beware!  Tom and I played this once before with friends and boy does it get the heart pumping.
If you want a group game this is a fun and intense one.
I placed it on youtube for our family, but if you want the see
how it is played check it out here.
(At the end you will see what the consequence we decided on for the loser)

This game can be heavy because you do NOT want to lose.  

There is not a better feeling when you get out --you feel like you made it to heaven.

The next night was our  Cousins Christmas Party.
For crowd and sound control...we did age-group rotations.
Photo booth, Charades, and Flag-Making.
The flags were for their camp-out later in the backyard.
My brother Chad ( above) hosts this fun tradition.  They have a camp fire, set-up tents and
have a sleep over in grandma's back yard.  Chad also puts them into groups and they do
competitions, come up with a camp skit, and tell ghost stories around the camp fire.
It is freezing cold and nobody ever sleeps but it is their favorite tradition by far.

Charades

Santa coming down the chimney,  Snowball fight, Wrapping Presents, Baking Cookies, Sledding.... 

Nothing fancy with the photo booth.  Just a blank wall and some fun props.

Even the littles had fun doing it.

We ended with opening pjs from Nana and a visit from old St. Jack-- then the kids grabbed their sleeping bags and headed outside to the campsite.  

The next night, we spent Christmas Eve with the Farnsworth side.  I was a bit sick of my camera by then...so no photos.

We always have mexican food, a talent show

 and then a big breakfast on Christmas morning.

Christmas Day

 Brother and Sister gift exchange--my favorite

 Opened Gifts from Cousins.

Opened up a trip to Hawaii.

We later took the older kids to see Les Miserables with a few other families.

I loved it.  Some of the vocals were not strong...but who cares with a story like that!

I am so grateful for a season full of family, friends and most of all to remember our Savior.
The older I get the more beautiful His birth is to me:  the star, the angelic announcement to the humble shepherds, the journey of wise men, his young mother Mary, the manger--all these beautiful symbols mean more and more each year.

Also, thank you for all the wonderful Christmas cards!
It is like receiving gifts all month long via the mailbox.

YW Stuff---D.O.T.S.

Evening in Excellence

We decided on DOTS for our Evening in Excellence theme.   
(DOTS=Daughters Obeying the Savior)

My friend and Mia Maid leader, Melody Larsen, 

came up with so many great ideas to help develop this theme.

She said she woke up in the middle of the night and they all came to her.

We held a Polka Dot Picnic at the church and 

asked them to wear polka dots if they had them.

This was our program 

(front and back cover)

I snapped photos (head shots) of each girl right after church. 

 It took me about 3 Sundays to get everyone.  

I love having a picture of them all grouped together.  

I keep a copy on my phone and love to look at each of those beautiful faces.  

However, the real reason I took the photos is so that I could make a dot-to-dot picture of each of them.

I found a website that made it easy.  If you're interested click here.

I found that if I downloaded the photos into Facebook and copied them from there it worked

(It only took me hours to figure that one out)

Dot-to-Dot

"When we connect all the dots through obedience we can clearly see the whole picture"

I have 30 yw so this took about 2-3 hours to do. 

 I did a few each night over a week.

 

We displayed the dot-to-dots on a refrigerator box opened up and covered in wrapping paper.

We went crazy with our polka- dot theme and picnic. 

 It was so fun.

Thanks to Summer for grabbing my camera and taking some photos 
while I was preoccupied with other things.

Melody made these centerpieces to hold the balloons.

Really everyone needs a Melody to work with.  

The picnic dinner was placed in these polka-dot bags.  It included a turkey/ham sandwich,

chips, pasta salad, and a chocolate chip cookie.  We had water bottles to drink.

 dressings and condiments were served on the side.

It made for an easy and quick clean-up at the end.  

As they were leaving we gave them a box of DOTS candy.

It was packaged with a polka-dot flower clip for their hair.

I am sorry I did not snap a photo of it.  

Melody did a great job putting them together.