I can’t believe it has been less than a week since New Year’s Day. It feels like we have done SO MUCH! My sister, Christina, got married on Friday and the week was filled with festivities galore! But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Here is what Christmas looked like after Santa came!

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And here is what Christmas looked like on Christmas morning!

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We had the perfect Christmas day! We opened presents at home, then we went to Grandmother’s house and talked with Mary on her mission, and opened more presents and played with cousins, then we went to Grandma’s house and opened more presents and played with more cousins! So so happy!

I am usually super stoked to take down all the Christmas decorations the day after Christmas; but with our trip to Disneyland in December I was feeling like I had missed a week of Christmas. I could’ve kept the decor up until the new year, but Josh was ready. So I think we lasted through December 27.

We celebrated New Year’s Eve with the Monsons, though Fay and Carter were having a sleepover at Christina’s house. It made me feel better that Josh and I were not the only ones having a hard time staying up all the way until midnight; though a lot of the party consisted of parents, so whatever that means. 🙂 We celebrated New Year’s Day with the Muhlesteins eating the traditional black-eyed peas, rice, and collards along with the traditional frozen finger foods! So yummy!

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I know you all must be SO CURIOUS to know what my theme-verb is for 2019! So I’ll tell you! It is ………………… Laugh! My goal with this word was to sort of embrace the goodness of delight again, but also to really simplify things for myself. If I laugh or make somebody else laugh (especially my kids) in a day, I count it as a success. Fortunately I live with Portia, so it hasn’t been very hard to find a reason to laugh each day! Another element to the laugh goal is to laugh more about the little things going wrong instead of getting frustrated. I’m excited for some good ab workouts this year!

This past Friday, January 4, Christina and Colton got married! They are great together and we’re excited to add Colton to our family! We had a ton of fun with all their wedding festivities! It was a wonderful privilege to be in the temple with them when they got married and to have my own prince holding my hand reminding me how glorious it is to be sealed for time and all eternity! I can’t recommend it highly enough!

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Christina asked Josh and me to make her wedding cake, but Josh was throwing up on Wednesday and I didn’t dare let him make the cake and make the newly-weds throw up their whole honeymoon, so I made it! I did get help from Kathryn (thank you a MILLION for letting me use your house to make the cake instead of my potentially-contaminated kitchen), Michael and Natalie (though they claimed they were terrified of baking), and Josh on Friday after he had been “clean” for 48 hours. I probably wouldn’t have dared be the head chef except that she only wanted a single tier. Because of that I wasn’t really concerned about it coming together nicely. Josh pointed out that it is pretty impressive that I could feel that way about any wedding cake. I am pleased with how it turned out, and Christina’s wedding planner said that it was the “best ever” as taste goes, and she would recommend us! How fancy is that?!

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As you can see from the pictures, the wedding was in a beautiful venue! It was at the Capitol building, and I don’t think I’ve ever attended a fancier wedding. But people who live anywhere besides Utah probably have.

After we got home that night I showed the kids my wedding dress. They wanted me to try it on, which I did, then Fay wanted to try it on, which she did. She had gotten some flowers from the table decorations to take home and used it as her bouquet! It was so cute! I guess this is why I’m keeping this dress!

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It has all been so much fun these past few weeks! But I must confess that I am looking forward to going to bed on time a little more frequently this coming week. 🙂