December Trip: Visiting Friends and Family

 After all the events of my brother's wedding, we had a few minutes to visit with some friends and family.  We really wish we had had more time because there were so many people we wanted to see.  Sadly, we didn't even get pictures with everyone we actually did visit.  I'm especially sad that we don't have any pictures from the fun evening we spent with Mike's brothers' families.  We were having so much fun that we didn't even get the camera out.

We went to see the Christmas lights at the Salt Lake Temple with the Knoebels. 

 

We spent the night with them and had fun catching up.  Mandy is such a fun mom!  She helped the kids make chocolate chip cookies in the morning before we left.  They loved it!

Eliza and Allison are birthday buddies.  Apparently there was something going on that was a whole lot more interesting than the camera.

From Utah, we headed down to Arizona to visit my grandma for a day or two.  It was such a quick trip that I didn't even have a chance to call any of my cousins while we were in town.

 I made this apron for Grandma while I was there.  I used one of her old ones that was falling apart and threadbare as a pattern.  It's not perfect, but it was a great opportunity to learn the right way to use bias tape and to try out the fancy schmancy one-step button hole maker on my new sewing machine (which was my early Christmas present from Mike).

 We got to visit my Grandpa's grave.  I was one of two (I think) cousins who wasn't able to make it to his funeral, so I was especially happy to be able to visit his grave with Grandma.
 

 Notice five out of the six feet in the picture are off the ground!  Jumping in puddles barefoot is not what we do in December in Illinois, so it was surely a special treat. 

 Leaf crunching: another luxury of an Arizona winter.

 Eliza is fascinated with the violin and has been for a little while.  I even took her to a Suzuki violin concert several months ago which she loved.  She was in bed at Grandma's house, when my cousin Morgan (who is in 4th grade) came over and played her recital pieces for us.  Eliza heard the violin and couldn't stay in bed.  Since I knew she would love it, I let her come and listen.  Morgan let Eliza hold her violin and pluck the strings.

 Eliza was thrilled!  It was a small thing for Morgan to do, but for Eliza it was magical!