More Family Fun

After all the wedding festivities, we still had a few more days to play with family and friends, so we packed in as much as we could!

Gingerbread cookies - a sacred Thorley family tradition! And while you may see a few cookie cutters on the table, these are not your typical gingerbread cookies...

These are more in the free-style art form category
The rabbit was made by Leah and the skier was inspired by the upcoming "boys" ski trip.

So, Andrew was able to head up to Park City with his brothers to get his snowboarding fix and I went with my parents down to BYU to see the Carl Bloch exhibit - which you must go see if you have a chance... it is simply amazing!

We were also able to meet Lisa's boyfriend Erich - who flew in from Switzerland to join the festivities - and was nice enough to babysit a couple of times (although he may or may not have been the instigator of a couple of pillow fights). The kids thought he was great!

Brent + Emily = Happiness

Today my dear brother Brent finally got married to the beautiful Emily.

We're so excited for them and the kids are especially excited to have a new aunt!

They got married in the Salt Lake Temple and by some miracle, our whole family was able to be there!

Three handsome brothers

All of us together, trying to stay warm!
It was a beautiful sunny day, but that granite is cold!

This is my favorite picture from the day - weddings are so much fun... especially when they're somebody else's (there's just too much stress when it's your own)

I just have to brag a little on my brother... that gorgeous burgundy velvet cape that Emily is wearing? He made it! Pretty impressive sewing, but even more impressive is that he was willing to make it in the first place. Anything to make his bride happy - seems like a pretty good way to start a marriage.








Last but not least, here are a couple of pictures from the reception at Wheeler Farm - which was apparently sponsored by the letter P (they served Pulled Pork sandwiches with Sweet Potatoes and a Pear, Pomegranate, Parmesan, Pecan salad with Poppy seed dressing)

Here I am contra dancing with Leah and then with Brent.

We had a great time! Thanks Brent, for giving us such a great excuse to get together and have a party! We wish you and Emily all the best as you start your life together!

Christmas #2

The upside to traveling to Utah on the 24th was that we got to wake up to another Christmas morning! We stayed with Andrew's mom in Salt Lake City, so the kids got to open all of their presents from Grandma Marynel as well as a few from "Santa".

The kids were super excited to get snow boots and ski jackets so we had to go out that night to test them out...

...and what better place to go on Christmas night than Temple Square!

We walked around until we were too cold to look anymore and hurried home to hot chocolate and warm beds.

This afternoon they were thrilled to see the snow start coming down and ran outside to really test out their new gear - as well as a few snowball makers they found down in the basement.

An Early Christmas

A couple of months ago, we got a surprise phone call from my brother Brent. He was calling to share the happy news that he is engaged to the lovely Emily! And that they would be getting married in Salt Lake City... two days after Christmas! After we were done rejoicing, we sat down to book our flights and realized the best option would be to fly to Utah on Christmas Eve. With four kids, bringing Christmas on the plane is not an option, so we sent a pleading message to Santa via our family Christmas Elf and arranged to have ours delivered a few days early.

So, on December 22nd, we sat down to our traditional Jerusalem dinner. This year we had pan fried tilapia, a cream cheese crab spread, olives, roasted nuts, roasted garbanzos, some orange/mango fruit candies, and a variety of cheeses and fresh fruits. It was a yummy start to the evening, getting us ready for the reading of the nativity story.

My family always read the story together, but Andrew comes from a slightly bigger family and they always acted out all the parts - something he would like to continue. So we give it a pretty good shot, but next year we might have to recruit another family to help us round it out. This year we had:

Mary and Joseph with the baby (not real this year) in a manger


and the three wise men with a little lost sheep.
We came very close to having a ladybug, but Andrew managed to talk Peter down from the edge on that one.

We woke up on the 23rd to find that Santa had received our note and it was Christmas morning!
This was the first year we've done stockings, so we started the morning by discovering all the wonderful goodies tucked into them... they turned out to be full of things that would be great fun for the plane ride to Utah!
After taking a break to nourish our hungry tummies, we opened more presents and then got down to the business of playing... here are a few of the favorites

And yes, that is a broom that Eli is opening - it was a hit! He's always stealing my broom and carrying it around the house (much to the detriment of my walls and other people since it's about 3 times longer than he is) so we finally got him his own Eli-sized broom and life is now much safer around here.

Gingerbread Galore!

After school let out for the Christmas holiday, Leah was able to invite a group of her friends over to make gingerbread houses. Each year I seem to get a little bit braver where this party is concerned... in fact, this year I may have actually lost all reason...

We ended up with 7 first graders...

2 third graders...

and 2 kindergarteners!

Things were pretty chaotic, but everyone seemed to have fun and we ended up with some pretty impressive gingerbread houses at the end of it all

Beautiful Girl

This young lady is now 7 years old!!!

We ended up celebrating her over several days.
We started on Monday with cake and presents here at home -
She asked for a castle cake... turns out most of the designs online either involve 4 cake mixes(!!!) or lots of plastic flotsam, so I came up with this minimized version.

Today she took these candied apple treats to school to share with her class.
And next week we'll have the annual gingerbread house party - so stay tuned to see how that turns out!


I know it sounds kitschy, but I really do remember so vividly bringing her home from the hospital and feeling like I was in way over my head.
There are still days when either Andrew and I will ask "What should we do?"
only to see the other shrug their shoulders and say "I have no idea!"

But really, Leah has made our job pretty easy.
She may be headstrong and opinionated,
but she's also responsible and caring and creative.

We are so glad to have her in our family to set the example for all the boys around here!
Happy Birthday Lovely Leah!