2009 awards ceremony.

It's time for the 2009 awards ceremony. These awards rival the Emmys and are accepted with much pride in the Reader family.

The award for cheesiest grin goes to...

This little girl walks away with the best dressed award...

And the winner of most dramatic goes to...

Acceptance speeches will be cut short since only 1 of the 3 recipients really talk....

Here's to another great year!

snippets of christmas.

It was a great one!

the best christmas present ever.

We are ecstatic to announce that we are being sealed forever as a family this Tuesday.

I think that's the best present I could ever ask for. I can't bear the thought of not being with these amazing people who I love so much after this life. And now I don't have to! This has been a long time coming! L.J. and I were married civilly in 2003. Not because we didn't want to be married in the temple. We were both completely active. Both returned missionaries. Both attended the temple regularly. The problem was that L.J. had been married before and his x-wife was not cooperative in various things that delayed the process of their sealing being cleared so he and I could be sealed. After lots of pondering, praying, and tears, we decided we would be married civilly, knowing it could take a year or more for paperwork to be completed and approved. Since we have been married, we have started the process four times. First, we moved. Then our bishop was diagnosed with cancer and released. Then our stake presidency changed and the paperwork was lost. And this time, it finally worked. I'm so excited.

Dresses are bought. Dinner is planned. Heart is overflowing.

christmas fun.

Some fun things we've been doing the past couple weeks:

Grant got here Friday night. Yeah!!! They are schnuggling (as we call it at our house) getting ready to watch A Christmas Story. As cheesy as it is, we love that show!


Ellie and I had a little Girls Night Out last week and went and saw the Christmas lights at Temple Square.

We had a FHE (idea found here) on wreaths and made these.


We went the the Festival of Trees a couple weeks ago. The girls LOVED it - especially the dancers and the cinnamon rolls :)

This girls makes my heart squeeze something crazy.



The bubble machine! Despite what this picture looks like, Ellie actually loved it, and was trying to blow a bubble (while in a bubble) here.

LJ's favorite tree. BYU, Jazz, and Real Salt Lake (forget that little Utes plate in the tree and it's perfect). They also had a Star Wars tree he loved - wished he could have taken it home, but the vintage figurines on it were worth $28,000. He's a Star Wars nerd.

Hope your Christmas season is happy too!

my little bakarellas.

Speaking of Bakerella, have you seen her website? I love it. Gotta try some of those cake pops soon. :) These girlies are quite the little bakers themselves. They LOVE to help in the kitchen! Even if it's as simple as making smoothies for breakfast, they have to be involved in every aspect of it (or I get in lots of trouble :). This day, we made 4 dozen sugar cookies for a fundraiser. 8 batches of dough, 4 batches of frosting, and 8 hours later, they were still helping (could only cook 4 at a time, they were big!).

This is one of my favorite Addie smiles!

They feel so official in their aprons :) (and what cute aprons they are, Keiauni!)

The finished product

Who knows, maybe with 16-20 more years with such good helpers in the kitchen we'll all be gourmet chefs by then!

thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving 2009 - photos in no particular order (Blogger not cooperating).

We celebrated Thanksgiving at LJ's parent's house, with my parents and Jeff and Brianna. Erik & Allison and Sherina were in Tennessee and Trevor spent his first married Thanksgiving at the in-laws. Soooo, we all got together and had a shin-dig in Tooele. I love love love that we can do that. Love that both sets of parents are open and willing, and tthere is no akwardness. And our kids were in heaven with both sets of grandparents there! We enjoyed a fabulous meal - everything was just perfect. Have to say I think my favorite part is the stuffing.


My cute parents


Ellie and Emma making cupcake turkeys



The kids table



Justin and Karissa


Macie during dinner :)


Jeff and Brianna (one of my favorite people in the whole world!)




I just love this picture of Addie. It's so her. Upside down binky on purpose. She won't have it any other way. And I love those big brown eyes.

I think Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday for a few reasons. It's so stress free. You just get to be with family, enjoy great food, and relax. And be grateful for all of your blessings. And another reason is because I entered the MTC the week before Thanksgiving. Those were great memories by themselves, but then we got to hear about being grateful from general authorities all day. Those impressions and inspirations have stuck with me. I could go on forever, but I must run. Hope you had a great thanksgiving and continue to be grateful!