Ugly Sweater Party

A couple weeks ago we went to an Ugly Sweater Christmas Party that our friends Jillian and Jonathan had. We had a pretty hard time finding ugly sweaters since we went to the good will store last minute but others had some pretty good ones.

The hosts, Jonathan and Jillian

Marc and Chelle
Marc's sweater reminded me of a costume from Blades of Glory.

Liz and Scott

Baby William (Liz and Scott's baby) wore a Christmas elf suit

Janis and Troy. Troy won the contest for Ugliest Sweater. He took branches off a real Christmas tree and glued it to a sweatshirt with 2 candy canes. So creative!

Thanks for a great time!

Decorating for Christmas

Choosing our Christmas tree this year was so easy. We went to the gym one night and then stopped at Mikey's Christmas tree lot which was in the same parking lot. They had great trees and it only took us a few minutes to find this one.


Decorating the Tree

The finished product

Aaron getting out the decorations

We still put out our little Christmas tree we had our first Christmas married

Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving we were able to go to Manteca and celebrate at the Carter's with the Hoffman's. We went down Wednesday night and I spent the night making pies, while Dee prepared the potatoes.

For some reason the crust just wouldn't stay together! Notice the side that fell off. It was very frustrating but ended up tasting delicious.
The finished products

Hillary also made delicious pumpkin bars

Here is what Aaron spent the night doing

playing on his i phone, which he does a lot these days
Thanksgiving Day
Dee with the yummy turkey

The beautiful table. Notice the sugar rimmed glasses. Mmmmm.

Hillary pouring the punch

Lori and Hillary

Carla and Buzz

Me and Aaron

Jim and Dee

Aaron and Eric

After our delicious meal, we played Apples to Apples. It was so fun that even after Aaron won we continued playing.

By the end of the day we were so full all we could to was lay around.

Pumpkin Carving

just a little late...
Even though we went to the pumpkin patch when we were visiting Alamo, we didn't get pumpkins because we thought we would go again and could get pumpkins up here. Of course it never happened. We decided we were going to carve pumpkins with Wes and Lani the night before Halloween and we still hadn't bought pumpkins. I don't recommend doing this because we had to go to 3 stores and even then, only found the bottom of the barrel pumpkins. Luckily you can't see their deformities.
Here we are carving

The finished products

Wes and Aaron mimicking their carvings

Lani and Me

A close up of my ghosts

A close up of Aaron's goblin holding a trick or treat bag

On Halloween we went down to the Carter's and had dinner with Aaron's immediate and extending family. We didn't make it in time to see the trick or treaters but here is a great picture of tiger Landon.

Hillary's Volleyball Game

Aaron's little sister Hillary recently finished her last year playing varsity volleyball at East Union High School. She has played since her Freshman year. Her games were always too early for us both to make it down to watch, but Aaron was able to go after school one day and got some great footage. In this clip, the other team is serving. Hillary is the first to touch the ball after the serve, #12 on the left side of the net. Then watch her get the point.


Team Huddle


Her name up in the gym on display - Carter #12


Aaron and Hill after the game


Her games have always been so much fun to watch--we're sad it's over! Congrats on a great volleyball career Hillary!