Happy New YEAR

We will be enjoying our next few days relaxing in warm/hot springs in Idaho. Hope you all enjoy your holiday and have a safe and fun time. Happy new year. Here's to a great 2011!

There it goes.

Christmas came and went. Now it's on to new years. HEre are a few shots from the weekend.

Christmas Is Coming

Ready or not here it comes. I still have two packages to mail. They may have to be New Years gifts. Also I am quickly putting the finishing touches on a few gifts. Lots of baking happened at our house and making to go right along with it. If only we still had a few weeks to finish everything that we still have on the list of "to do's" Oh well. I guess that's where prioritizing comes into play. Christmas will still get here on the 25th ready or not. Merry Christmas

Deck th halls with Danish Pastry

Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas with our a ring or two of Danish. A lot of my family traditions include lots of good food. Thanks goodness we had a lot of people to share Christmas with this year. Now that Christmas is really upon us life is settling down and we have just come to realize that on Christmas Day we will be all alone the two of us. Maybe a day at home maybe a day on the road.

O holy night

we picked the perfect night to see the lights at temple square, we took the train so no one had to park, we looked like a big crowd so people moved off the sidewalk for us, the weather couldn't have been better for December. The unperfect part was, it was super crowded at dinner because of some basket ball Ute and BYU game, temple square was way past the limit of people it should have on it and they all wanted to be right with us, and trying to get 21 people through the lights all together wasn't going to work so we broke into small groups and picked a meeting time. We all made it and we enjoyed the heck out of being together as a family

Caroling Cousins

Don't worry we really didn't sing but we did laugh and get really loud and talk and enjoy one an others company. We got together to enjoy dinner and visit. It's the busy time of the year and yet we still made time and got together. We invited the Aunts along this time which was a lot of fun. Life gets so busy that we don't always get to spend as much time visiting as we would like so I am thankful that we did get to see each other one last time this year.

Deck the house with lots of jolly

Here it is. Shots of our 2010 Christmas house. These are at least my favorite parts. Because I did the decorating this year I only put out my favorites. I guess that's fitting because we are having a back to basics Christmas this year. Focusing on what is important. Don't worry we have filled up the calendar with what we want to do this year and we have left a few spots for new things to try for added Christmas Cheer. With that said we are reflecting on what the season is all about and trying not to get so wrapped up in the commercial side of Christmas. So sit back and enjoy your virtual tour of the Garcia's house....



Don't feel left out. We start the month off right. Adorning our table with our favorite place mats.

Our card basket always starts the month off with these two cards on top. They are the last Christmas card I got from my mom in 2006. They always start on top just like I just opened the mail. It's always fun to break out the decorations and find these two cards waiting for me.

The top shelf is the angel and creche' shelf and the middle is the continuation of the village. It out grew the mantel last year.

Here it is. The Christmas Village. I usually put this out at Thanksgiving time but I was a bit slow this year. Next year the village may take over the buffet for the season.

Here are the two Christmas trees. This real tree is the most beautiful tree I have ever had. Maybe John had better be in charge of choosing them from now on. We contemplated the artificial tree this year after going out on a cold day to choose our tree, but once we got it home and inside and smell it as soon as we come home, I threw that idea out the window at least for one more year. The second tree is our palm tree in the corner with multi colored lights on it. When we lived in St. George the first two years this was our tree because it was fitting for the area.

And of course you can't forget the mistletoe. Christmas wouldn't be complete with out it.

Merry Christmas to you all. This has been a great year and we are anxiously awaiting 2011.

Happy Cookie Day

Today is national cookie day! What better way to celebrate than to help 4 little kids make cookies? We tried to stall them long enough to get a few batches done before breaking out the cutters but they were pretty smart and soon figured out that we were busy in the kitchen and they should be helping too.


Trust Pablo to figure out if he used the end of his rolling pin he could shoot cookies out of the end of it like a marshmallow gun.

Ruth getting ready to make a double batch of pumpkin bread...Yummy

Kids with cookie dough. They can't wait to get their hands on it and they also love to cut many things out of dough. There is always a first for cookies.

Note the safety glasses. You can never be to safe in the kitchen.

Good work kids!
Julia helping cut and roll, cut and roll

Ready or not we are cookie ready.