Merry Christmas!

We were playing around with our new camera and trying to get a great Christmas Pic. These are a few of the photos that turned out. :)



And our camera has a smile detector, so while I tried to set it, Justin said he wanted to be angry in the next picture. I clicked the wrong button, it captured these three amazing faces of my man right in a row....









Justin and Ruth Blazzard

Temple Square

A couple of weeks ago one of my best friends, Amy Petersen came home from her mission. We had her over for dinner and she had a brilliant idea, to go see the First Presidency Christmas Devotional and see the lights on temple square.



I had never seen the lights before and have always wanted to, but for one reason or another something comes up every year we try to go. With the possibility of moving away from Utah in the near future, I decided nothing would stand in our way this year!

I invited my younger brother Kevin to come with us and my little sister Rachel to meet us there. Kevin drove since he has my grandpas four door pickup. We figured it would be the most comfortable and safe of the three vehicles we had to choose from. We probably should have printed out directions to the Triad parking garage before we got there because traffic was horrible and we didn't know exactly where we wer going. When we finally made it to temple square we were on standby for a while waiting to get in.





When we did make it into the conference center, it was awesome! They had it decorated beautifully and with so much more than you ever see on the broadcast. My nephew who lives in Oregon told his mom that he was very dissapointed he didn't see us on the broadcast.

The lights were also a sight to behold. We all agreed we were thankful that was not our job to string those lights around every single last limb! I loved the nativity depicted on the reflection pond. It was very tranquil.



We even got to hear an awesome caroling group inside the building where the Christus is. There costumes added to their overall effect, but without them they would have still been superb!



We did see Amy on the square, but weren't able to meet up with her before the devotional. She brought her way cute cousin, so we talked a while but they went their way and we went ours. Still fun to see her for the little bit we did.

I am so grateful for all the work and effort the church goes to for the Christmas season, but I am even more grateful for my Savior Jesus Christ and that we get to celebrate His Birth. It truley does bring Joy to the World!


Justin and Ruth Blazzard

Baby Jesus or a Space Ship?

This is a picture of the gingerbread cookie I figured was Baby Jesus for the Nativity cookie cutter set, Justin said it was a space ship.


Justin and Ruth Blazzard

Why I am Not a Decorator

We were invided to a neighborhood party and were asked to bring a treat. For some reason I thought it would be great to try and be festive for the holidays and decided to make gingerbread cookies. Before I began I had this great image of having perfectly shaped gingerbread boys with red hots for buttons and cute white icing to accentuate the legs and arms of the little boys.



What really occured: good tasting gingerbread cut into some weird looking nativity characters with no icing.

I made gingerbread when I was like 12 and remember liking it, so I thought this would be no problem. Well, I didn't have a gingerbread boy cookie cutter, but I did have a set of nativity cookie cutters from my wedding. They were interesting looking. I showed Justin what I thought was supposed to be the baby Jesus and he said it looked like a space ship and refered to those cookies as such the rest of the day.

The icing- really runny, until I added too much powdered sugar and then it didn't decorate very well either. At this moment I realized why I don't decorate cupcakes, sugar cookies, or really anything. I hate the little details and spending so much time on something that is just going to be eaten! I told Justin I am never making them ever again.... I guess we will see.

I took them to the party anyways and some even got eaten. We will be enjoying them with our hot chocolate this week. Justin informed me he only had to eat 8 cookies a day for them to be gone in a week, anybody want some gingerbread cookies?

Justin and Ruth Blazzard

Christmas

We found this beauty the Friday after Thanksgiving in the dark with a flash light. Because of the lighting, you will notice there is a spot where it needs another branch, but overall I don't think we did to bad.

We really love this time of year. It is great to have the Christmas decorations out, and my favorite is our nativity.



Things that Christmas means to me:

Another reason to celebrate the birth of our Savior
Time to spend with family
Excuse to eat lots of cookies and hot chocolate
Coming up with what to give to those you love(and I may be selfish but I do like getting a gift too)
Magical Snow (not the yucky stuff you get in March when it is time for snow to be gone)
Christmas music
Great cheezy happy ending christmas movies
A happy magical fun time of year!

Merry Christmas everyone.

Justin and Ruth Blazzard