MERRY CHRISTMAS!

This has truly been a wonderful holiday! Every year Christmas Eve is always the start of the holiday in our home. This year was no exception. We started the festivities at Betsy & Abe's for dinner. Betsy made a delicious ham dinner. One of the traditions in their home is that every place has a Christmas cracker. Abe served his mission to England and that is a tradition over there. I ended up with the only orange crown! How crazy is that! The kids enjoyed the little toys that were in them.

Faith didn't want to leave my side! She told me she wasn't letting me go!

Abe & Faith were our Christmas elves!

After dinner Abe read some Christmas stories to everyone. We started out with I Believe in Santa and ended with Cajun Night Before Christmas. That one had everyone laughing! Abe had the accent down!

One of the things that made this holiday so very great was being surrounded by my loved ones, especially my amazing nieces & nephews.

Next we sang Christmas songs as Betsy played the piano. Then we enjoyed a delicious dessert of Santa's Favorite Cheesecake that Brig made. It was delicious!

After leaving the Fox home we headed down to spend the evening with the Lamoureux family. We exchanged gifts then played the game "Things". This had everyone in stitches as we laughed at the creative responses.

Then we hung around and posed for photos by the fireplace.

Today was a quiet day at home where we opened presents and had a wonderful dinner. Then Mom, Grandpa & I went to the movies to see the film "The Blind Side". I totally recommend it if you haven't seen it!

The full collection of pics from Christmas Eve are found here.

THE NINTH ANNUAL CANNON FAMILY PARTY

Each of us has a family. Some of these families come in the traditional way. Others are the products of blended families. My family is the product of love and experience. I am blessed to have been given two sisters, two brothers, two sisters-in-law, two brothers-in-law and eight wonderful nieces and nephews by way of the Cannon family.

Every year the Cannon's and the Sherman's gather together for a night of delicious food, gifts galore, and to share love and friendship. This is the ninth year that our family has come together to share in the holiday season together.

Originally the party consisted of a sit down dinner but as our family has grown space became more limited and so we introduced a fiest of appetizers and treats. We have mini hot dogs (everyone's favorite!), pizza fondue, water chesnuts, veggies, chips & dip, nachos, crackers and yummy chapolte sauce, fudge, egg nog cookies, gingerbread and delicious punch.

The kids love getting together with their cousins. Faith made sure that Brigham was watched over.

Elinor & Bethany are two of Aunt Ali's favorite girls. They spoil her with hugs and gave her fun gifts. They picked out my giant giraffe that is now lovingly named George.

One of our traditions is that everyone gets an ornament. Faith is modeling her newest addition which features her name.

The gifts are everyone's favorites. As soon as you are old enough to open your own you quickly learn what fun gifts Grandma Barbara picks out for you!

This year everyone got a Webkinz stuffed toy ... including Aunt Ali. Clark got a gecko, Elinor a cow, Faith a pig, Bethany a leopard, Takara a elephant and Aunt Ali a giraffe.

Each toy is specifically chosen with the recipent in mind. You couldn't have found a better gift for Cannon than his ball. He didn't want to let it out of his sight!

Abe got this lovely new sweater vest made especially for him. He had to model it for us!

Barbara was especially surprised by her fabulous gift of five sets of Utah Jazz tickets. The perfect gift for the die hard Jazz fan! (Maybe if I am good she will take me with her!)

The Fox clan all had matching outfits ... even for the girl's dolls. Everyone looked gorgeous!

Faith and Takara especially loved their matching babies!

This was definitely the best night of the year so far. But as much fun as it was there was definitely a few faces missing. Matt, Misty, Peter, Laura & Kaylee were all missed as this year is the first time we haven't all been together. We love you guys and hope that you all have a Merry Christmas in your new homes!

To see exactly how much fun was had you can go see the rest of the pictures here.

A DAY FOR A CORPORATE TRUST SPECIALIST

So I have been a slacker lately about writing on here. Well today was a fun day at work and so I decided it would be "take your camera to work day". I took pictures through out the day and decided to share what I do at my job. I work at a bank and am a Corporate Trust Specialist. This week is mostly like any other, but we have a few extra fun things going on that make it more fun than usual. We had Treat Days and Secret Santa (or for some people it is called Not So Secret Santa).

Cindy got some Polar Bear books from her Secret Santa and then we spent the afternoon playing with what Kassie got ... a S'More Maker!

Yum! Yum! Good!

This is my friend Raylyn. She is a great listening ear and always makes me smile when we talk. Raylyn keeps me sane!

Every day Kassie and I go down to the vault. We file things, pull bonds for the administrators, and read in new issues.

When we go down to the vault we often run in to other friends in the building. Rulon (left) works in Property Management and Louis (right) is one of the maintenance guys.

Everyday I take the bus to and from work. Jamie & Sandy are two of my "bus friends". (Can you tell how much they wanted to have their picture taken?!?)

So that is my life at the bank. I enjoy what I do and work with some great people. To see more of the results of "take your camera to work day" go here.

THE SNOW WHITE BALLET

My three year old niece had her very first dance recital a week ago. She was a bunny in the Snow White Ballet that her dance show put on. She was pretty proud of her costume and did such a great job. Check out her performance:

If you want to see pictures go here.