December

Speech therapy has been very fun during the holiday season. There are so many cute activities and crafts to do and it gives me the excuse to read my favorite childhood Christmas books. The downside to the holiday season is that a lot of people cancel or no-show for their sessions but I didn't have the worst of luck.

Candy sleighs that I made for my kids

For my aunt's birthday, we went to Disney world with the family. Blaine and I got seasonal annual passes. I have been dying to get them ever since we moved here. It's definitely worth it considering how often we go. So it was an early Christmas present. We went to Epcot and Magic Kingdom. While we were at Epcot, Kim and Jonathan joined us :) Disney was awesome as always and it was nice to have the whole family there. When we got back, we got together to cut a cake and sing happy birthday to my aunt.

Dragon slayers :) 

It was a gorgeous day and evening

New favorite thing to eat at Disney - waffle sandwiches!

Turkey-leg enthusiasts 

Jonathan & Kim had never ridden Figment before.

We went to several holiday parties this year. My job had a company party that was very nice. Blaine was able to get to know my work friends better and also meet their boyfriends and husbands. We danced a little bit and talked a lot like girls do :) It was a lot of fun to hang out outside of our typical work setting.

Most of the north staff

The next morning, we went to a holiday fundraiser for Best Buddies that was sponsored by one of the dealerships Blaine works with. It definitely made us miss Devin and all of the Best Buddies activities we'd go to with him. It was at Gulfstream Park, a race track for horse racing. We went for free and ate at their delicious buffet while watching the horses race from the inside. It was a really nice experience. I had never been to a racetrack before.

We also had our ward Christmas party. The young women were in charge of decorating and it all turned out nicely. Blaine was part of the Christmas play/program last minute as a Nephite. Somebody didn't show and the bishop's wife asked him to fill-in. If you know Blaine, you know that he hates doing stuff like this  especially without any prepartion. It wasn't a big deal at all but he wasn't excited about it. I think he did a great job  :)

That Sunday, Ivan was baptized. Now everybody in our family is officially a member. Ivan had been preparing for a while to be baptized. We are so happy he made the decision to be baptized. 

I also went to watch Ivan sing in his school Christmas show. It was really cute. I love watching little kids perform. Most of the songs were Spanish holiday songs, which I thought was a little strange and also hilarious. But I guess that's one of the things that happen when you live in Miami.

My mom's birthday was also in December. My aunt and her are the same age every year for about a week. We took her out to lunch at a nice restaurant called the 94th Aero Squadron restaurant. She's always loved that place ever since we were small. I hadn't been to it in years. At night, family and friends came to her house to sing happy birthday. Blaine made it right in time. He had been in Puerto Rico again.

For the last mutual of 2013, we had a Christmas dinner with the young women and their parents. We had a good turnout and had a lot of fun together celebrating the real meaning of Christmas.

We went to the Trochez 2nd Annual Ugly Christmas Sweater Party (its official) this year. Dinner was delicious and we had a ton of fun in the photobooth. We took the sweaters off immediately after we were done because it was hot and no matter how many times we washed them, some of them had a weird stench to them (the mystery of ugly Christmas sweaters is real). Valentina and Oscar were nice enough to let Rue come and play with Millie (their tiny Yorkie) so she was part of the fun too. 

She's a little too big to be carried, but Blaine is in denial. 

Aren't these hilarious? 

the boys

the girls 

We ALMOST went to the theaters dressed up like this, but decided not to in the end. It was a great night with friends. We miss our Utah friends a ton, but we're so grateful for the friendship of the friends we're making here! 

We visited Orlando the last weekend of the year. Kristin and Kathy were in town. Kristin just graduated from BYU-Idaho so we went to P.F. Chang's to celebrate. She's now working in Downtown SLC as a digital marketing intern for Deseret Book Co., so I was so happy to see her before she left again. We're all so proud of her.