Jonathan's Christmas Concert

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend my brother's Christmas band concert.  They did a very good job and performed a fun variety of songs.  One song even had them dropping several sets of cymbals on the floor!  It was so awesome to be able to see him play!  He did a great job and I was very proud of him.

While we were there, I happened to run into my old band teacher!  His name was Mr. Shook and he is now a college professor that specializes in student music teacher education!  It was kind of funny because I remember him being very strict and mean but he was actually a super nice guy.  Maybe he just wasn't meant for teaching annoying little middle school students.  He was even nice enough to let me take a picture with him.  (I know, I'm shameless...)  All in all, to attend a band concert and see my old school again was awesome, and had me being very nostalgic.

I hope you had a great Christmas!  I will probably be spamming your feed for a little bit, sorry about that!

Love,

Courtney

Ornament Exchange 2014

This was so much fun!  Basically, in the middle of October I asked these fabulous ladies to each make enough ornaments for everyone in the group.  Then, we got together the weekend after Thanksgiving and exchanged them!  So each person received about 11 new ornaments.  Here are all the ornaments and the people who made them.

 Gauchay joined the exchange and we were so happy to have her!

I thought it might be fun to share a picture of each participant too!  This is Gauchay! :)

Her lovely ornament.  She actually had quite a variety of different types, but they were all adorable!

My aunt Alysa and her baby Mirren.

She made these super cool terrariums!  I wish there was a picture of each individual one because they were all so fun!

My aunt Wendy.

She made these sweet lollipop ornaments.  They look good enough to eat!

My lovely Mom.

She made these super cute penguins!  She also had a few other cute ornaments.

My sister Miranda.

She made these awesome color swirl ornaments!  Each one was unique and had its own design.

My sister-in-law Melissa.

She made these cute painted wood ornaments.  They were all so intricate and detailed!!  There were a variety of adorable shapes which were all painted beautifully.

My aunt Alyson.

She made these disco ball ornaments.  They are so pretty on the tree when they catch the light.  It is so cool!!

My sister-in-law Jenni.

She made super cute, sparkly ornament shapes out of clay/dough.  They were all so cool looking with sparkles!

My sister-in-law Tawnee.

She made these cute poinsettia ornaments, which are also sparkle-full.  So cute!

My sister-in-law Heidi.

She made these cardinal/dove ornaments!  She painted them and put feathers on them.  They look so, so awesome!  

Finally, these are the ornaments that I made:

I made a variety of different ones, they all involved burlap in some way (love/hate relationship there).  My Mom totally saved my bacon at the last minute!!  Thanks Mom!

Here is a picture of all the ornaments!  

Hopefully you can see all the names!

This kind of allows you to see the variety of different ornaments that people made.

Loved all of the ornaments.

I cannot tell you how much fun this was!  We had some treats, played holiday taboo and admired all the ornaments.  It was so cool to see all the creativity involved in each persons ornament.  Thanks so much to all who participated and helped me out, it wouldn't have been possible without you!  Hopefully, we can make this a yearly tradition!

Love,

Courtney

Christmas, Christmas Activities Etc.

So, since I'm super behind I am kind of combining several posts into one.  

Putting up the Christmas Tree

We lost one of the little prongs on our tree, so we had to jimmy-rig it to stand up.  

We lost one of the sticky-outy things (our tree only had 3).

We finally figured out the stand and Cameron started fluffing the branches.

Just sorting through the ornaments.

Our finished tree.  

Cameron and I were lucky enough to have two trees this year.  (Thanks to a clearance sale at Wal-Mart).

Cameron standing in front of our finished mini-tree.

The finished tree.

Cameron looks proud of his work.

 Decorating gingerbread houses at Heidi's house.

Cameron working very hard on his section of the house.  We watched the new Percy Jackson movie while decorating.  For some reason we thought that would be extra Christmass-y.  

 Christmas Day

We got to talk to Shane in Africa!  He had a bit of an accent, it was awesome!  

Everyone gathered around the laptop.

Later on, Jenni, Landon, Cameron and I played Just Dance.  

Landon chilling out after his turn.  

I felt like this Christmas season went way too fast, but it was still very nice.  I loved spending time with family and doing all of the Christmas activities.  I didn't take many pictures, but I also spent Christmas Eve over at Wendy's house.  It was a lot of fun.  I really need to try and take more pictures this next year.  Anyway, I hope that you had a great Christmas as well and that your new year has been amazing so far.  

Love,

Courtney

Thanksgiving

Needless to say, I am sohooooo behind on my blogging.  But, that's okay.  Here is my Thanksgiving post, for your reading pleasure.

This year we spent this holiday in Spokane and Coeur d'Alene with my parents.  First, we went to my Mom's house.  We had SO MUCH FUN!  Here are some of the fun things that we did:

Miranda and I gave Lylah a bath and decided to give ourselves all crazy hairdos.

Miranda multitasking.

Mom and I did a LOT of different crafts.  Here we are making snowflakes.

We also made these really cool bead ornaments.

This is our "gingerbread" house.

This shows pretty much all of the ornaments that we made.

Here are pictures of our actual Thanksgiving Dinner.

Cameron making cranberry sauce.

This is the yummy blueberry pie.  Cameron was responsible for the spill, in case you were wondering....

Yummy cranberry sauce.  

Happy Cameron 

Mom cooking away.

Jeremy setting the table.

Here is all of our food.  It was so yummy!!

I had such a fun time over there!  We also went Black Friday shopping together.  The Post Falls Wal-Mart wasn't very busy at all, so we made out like bandits.  Afterwards, we helped Mom set up her new TV.  Then we had to leave.  That is always the hardest part.

Then we headed over to Spokane to spend time with the Alder side of the family.

This is all of us helping to set up the tree.

Cameron and Jonathan helping out.

Putting the lights up.

Grandpa and Lylah.

Love that tree!

We had a great time!  Miranda and I made some wreaths together.  We also watched the new Hunger Games movie.  It was so much fun to see everyone and spend time with them.