Home, Home on the Range!

Oh, how I love being home! I know I said that last time, but its still true :) Good thing huh? My mom and I finished my skirt last night. It took a long longer than we thought because, genius me, picked an extremely complicating pattern, apparently. Way to go, right? haha...its okay though...my mom is like a sewing fiend, so with the two of us workin together, we finished it in time for church today. YAHOO. It was kinda fun to get compliments on it since I actually halfway made it! :) I was quite proud with how it turned out.

Yesterday we went to Casa Manana to see the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer production they put on. For those who don't know what Casa is, its a children's theater where kids come to learn theater, dancing, singing...yada yada. Mostly just theater tho and then they cast the kids in their productions. There are quite a few adults too tho so its still fun and cute for kids to go see. It was fun to go back. I hadn't been there since I was around 10 years old when I used to go with McKenzie and her mom...McKenzie and I would be volunteer ushers to get free tickets. It was great. We had front row tickets this time so it was fun to see how excited Malla and Syd got when they were so close to the actors. I really think Malla enjoyed it more than Syd! haha. I know Puden and I enjoyed it thoroughly...mostly because we took turns scratching each others back the whole two hours! haha. Love that!

Afterwards, we went to Mercado Juarez...one of the BEST Mexican restaurants around here. We used to go once a year for drill team and that was the last time I'd been. I'd forgot how much better Mexican food is here than it is in Utah. *sighs* The tortillas....they melt my butter. My brother, sister and I have this weird tradition with tortillas at Mexican restaurants. I'm not sure how it started, but we all start with one, and we rip pieces off and hand them to one another. If the pieces are big, we rip parts off of those and trade with each other. It sounds dumb, but its a fun little weird tradition that usually confuses everyone else that is there with us. I just love it.

We also decorated Grammy's traditional Christmas sugar cookies last night (or cuger shookies,r right Em?). Its one of my favorite parts about Christmas. It's usually just me, Meredith, Syd and Grammy...and we bust out the frosting and go at it...plus we get to eat a few during the whole process which is an added bonus. We usually sneak in a good 4 or 5 "Mavs" themed cookies too. Anything from green and blue candy canes, to stockings with Dirk's name painted with frosting on the top. :) Three years ago, my parents bought Grammy this HUGE barrel (seriously...like 50 Christmas cookie cutters) and we were going thru them and there was this one that we couldn't quite figure out what it was. It looked like an eyeball. Not even joking. So, we decided to make a few and ask around. No one could tell, so I decorated it as an eye...we then realized that it was an ornament. haha. But, now its happened, and each year, Grammy makes two and I decorate them as eyeballs even though we know the truth. I love random Christmas traditions and inside jokes. :)

Today was Sunday, obviously, and it was fun to be back in a family ward. Definitely strange for sure, but still fun. It made me appreciate the 3 minute drive to campus for church. During our 30 minute trek, my sister, Syd, Malla and I jammed out to Primary Songs and laughed that Meredith and I seriously dont know the same parts to the same songs. It was pretty classic. We'd be singing and then we'd suddenly both get really quiet cuz we didn't know the words. Did you know that they added another value to the Young Women's theme? What the heck? As if adding "strengthening home and family" to the end wasn't bad enough...now there are 8 values...VIRTUE is now lucky number 8. My ring of all the value colors is now out of date. It makes me feel old. haha but not too old, so its okay. And really...its kinda cool. :) After church we decorated/made our traditional gingerbread house, complete with ghetto windows and roof. Last year was the ghetto snowman and the year before that was the ghetto lump of car we made. This year's definitely turned out special for sure. :) I think I'm gonna take Syd cardboarding one of these days. We cant go sledding here cuz there's no snow, so we always used to get cardboard boxes and slide down the dead grass. Good times...someone has to introduce her to that, you know? anyway, this is a HUGE post, so I apologize...but I hope everyone has a great Christmas week! XOXO