It's Christmas Day In the Morning

We just had such a fun Christmas! I hope everyone else did as well. We had my parents and little brother come down from Mesa to spend the weekend with us. And it was fun filled! We saw Tron, played games, ate de-LI-cious food, read the Christmas story on Christmas Eve and had a wonderful, magical, miracle filled Christmas day!

Christmas Day started at 7am with James and I doing the waking up. As they were coming into our bedroom we sang our Christmas Cheer Song (sung to the tune of the BYU Cougar Fight Song). Here are the words:

Rise and shout let Christmas hang out
Now that we've read the Christmas story

Rise and shout our cheers will ring out
As we all celebrate His glory

On we go to make some cocoa
Make sure to add lots of marshmallows

As we join in song
For all day long
Our Faith is strong

Fun and joy at Christmas we do
So Merry Christmas to all of you!

Ho ho ho ho ho! Ho ho ho ho ho! Ho ho ho ho ho!
Meeerrrry Christmas!!!

(catchy huh!)

We came down stairs to find that Santa had magically moved our love seat from the family room to the front room. He'd also left our stockings there! Whoo hoo!

Lots of goodies, candies and fun stuff in our stockings!

James and I got some fabulous books this year - he got the complete set of the Hunger Games and I, (so exciting!) got the entire set of the Tennis Shoes series! Awe-some!

James and I hilariously gave each other the same movie :)

I got another awesomely home-made advent calendar from Holly. It's made of felt and all the little ornaments stored in the numbered pockets stick to the tree. It was so cool because we had a Draper temple one, a Y, a cruise ship, a cactus, a rocket, and Jason put his own touch in there by adding a computer with a little Windows symbol (He works for Microsoft). Thank you Jason and Holly! I LOVE it!!

Jordan got his fill of movies and a Christmas miracle yet to come, a Lego Rigatoni, I mean, Linguini...no...Pastaroni? Ah...it's some fancy shmancy cool Italian car that I can't spell the name of.

Mom got a brand new sewing machine! It's a computerized embroiderer at that! I got a sewing machine too - her old one :) Now I can practice my skills! Dad had another great Gator Christmas filled with all kinds of swampy paraphernalia.

And of course we had the treasure hunt. All got to participate and it was fun seeing everyone run up and down the stairs, be excited to find their clues and their gifts!

James reading his clue in one of his favorite spots

He found it though! A nice new golf visor!

And the best treasure hunt find of all...
A remake of the last 30 years of marriage!
Santa wrapped the DVD remote and hid it for my parents to find. When they pressed play they found their last 30 years before them in pictures and songs. Happy 30 Years Mom and Dad!

Love, J, H, M, J, and J (Your kids)

These are pics of us playing Koob. It was nice and warm (68F!) for our Christmas!

And one of the best parts to Christmas day, the food!!

That's ham, mashed taters, green beans and rolls. We had chocolate creme, cherry, and pecan pie for dessert! YUM!

And a fun time was had by all.

Some changes also happened around Christmas time for James and I. James was released from his Primary teacher calling and was called to be in the Young Men's presidency. He's now the YM's secretary for our ward. When Brother Iverson called him to be secretary my stomach did a flip flop. I knew it was right but I was sad at the same time. I've been so spoiled this year getting to attend EVERY meeting with my husband. I've had his company all three hours of church and I liked that! :) But now, it is just me. And I get a new class this next year too. I will have 6 bright-eyed eager-for-learning 4-year olds to teach and watch grow this next year. All the kids missed Brother Hall this last Sunday though. They all asked where he was. So for a little "goodbye" for Brother Hall we all took a picture for him. These are just half of the kids we taught this year. We sure love them!

Sydney, Caden, Jackson, Jack, Clark, Nathan, and our visitor Oliver

This year has flown by with so many good times and great memories. We truly are blessed to be where we're at and to be surrounded by so many great people and friends. The Lord is looking out for us. We hope you all have a safe and Happy New Year and James and I look forward to many memory making to come!

Joys of December

Oh hello there! Just a quick update from the Tucson Halls and their fun and festivities of the month of December. We certainly have been blessed this Christmas with being able to spend time with family, playing Santa and making some great memories!

The above photo is from when I went up to my parent's house for the weekend. I went by myself because I did a lot of shopping! I couldn't let James see all his Christmas miracles! :) While there it was my parent's ward's Christmas party. My dad had been asked to play Santa Clause so Mom and I decided to be his helpers. My co-worker let my Mom borrow the Mrs. Claus suit and I had so much fun wearing my elf hat and socks! It was a lot of fun to play dress up and make lots of little kiddies happy :)

These are some of the goodies that James and I passed around this year. The ones on the left were for the sisters I visit taught. The message talked about what the different symbols of Christmas are. The picture on the right is of the goodies all 12 of our little kids in primary received. We sure loved teaching all of them. What a joy each of them has been in our life and they taught us probably more than we taught them :)

We again were so lucky as to go to El Paso to visit the Andersens in celebration of the New Mexico Bowl (football game). Before we went to Albuquerque we had some fun and festivities to attend with the Andersens. The kids got to see Santa more times than I can remember! At their apartment complex there was a pizza party and the kids got some good treats (where they were so kind to share with their Aunty). Then they got to see Santa again at their ward Christmas party! Those kids musta done somethin good! :)

And here we go to the bowl! Jess and I got to be travel buddies in the middle seat. We were in charge of the snacks!

Gooooo Cougars!

Walkin' to the game; Cheering on the Cheerleaders!

The best marching band ever! -- Playing hard! Get them Miners!

Lexi was tuckered out from all the excitement! - - It got cold there too by the end of the game. But we didn't notice too much because WE WON!!! WHOO - HOO!!

Hooray!! - - James and I got to walk on the field in celebration of the win.

The scoreboard at the end. - - We also ran into some of our fellow Sahuarita friends at the game! Small world!

As I write this blog on Christmas Eve I can't help but reflect on our year in Tucson. It's been really great and we've been able to do a lot and make fun memories. I am so grateful for the blessings in my life. I have a wonderful husband, we both come from fantastic families and were raised of goodly parents. We have jobs, we have a home and we have had our needs met on many occasions. I'm so grateful for the Lord and His watchful hand and care over us. We're so blessed to have His gospel in our life and the blessings that come from it. Isn't life wonderful! Thank you to our friends and family that make our life so rich and full! We love you and wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

James & Melony

Christmas in the Air

For Thanksgiving this year James and I went to El Paso, Texas to spend time with the Andersens and Mom and Dad Hall. It was such a nice visit! So good to see everyone and stuff our faces and be together.

I'm so grateful for the blessings that we have in our life: family, warm home, car/transportation, jobs, food, clothing, temporal needs being met, the gospel, temples, scriptures and so much more. We are truly being taken care of by the Lord.

While in El Paso we experienced Black Friday shopping (which I probably won't do again and I didn't even go at midnight) but it was fun shopping with and for others :) Also we experienced frigid weather! Our lil' tosies were so cold! And my husband is the one who thought of this idea below:

Let's stick our feet and legs in the water when it's 60 degrees outside! However, 60 was definitely warmer than Kevin & Debra's house - it was only -8 degrees(f) in Tremonton on Thanksgiving! In the middle of the day too! Brr...


Then he got everyone to do it :)

It was a great visit and thank you Andersens for letting us come and enjoy the time with you!

We made it home in great time - just over 4 hours to get home from El Paso. I was so excited about this, and the fact we still had time before bed that I made (yes made) us put up Christmas decorations. I thought it would just be the tree but it turned into doing the whole house. We went to bed at 11:30 that night :) Bless my husband!

We picked out a pre-lit 9ft Christmas tree at Home Depot a few weeks ago. It looks fantastic in our formal front room. This is James putting on the tree his Sexy Leg Competition medal that he won on our cruise.

This of course was our second most important ornament on the tree. The first most important was the one of Christ. I love how the blue stands out in the picture.


James is exhausted by now, having finished the tree but I had one more thing for him to do...

Risk his life and climb up onto the bump-out wall and put more decorations up! My husband is a trooper isn't he?

But it turned out beautifully!

Isn't this a fun little mix? I picked up the plate in El Paso on Black Friday.

This is an advent calander that my best friend made me - she did SO awesome on this! It's all cross-stitched. I loved it! I love it still! Thank you Erika :)

We have to have the count down to Christmas going - and thank you again Chalyse for my wonderful multi-season blocks :)

And this of course, the representation of the most wonderful gift of all. "For God so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten Son..."

Merry Christmas :)