Christmas Decor

I was pretty excited to decorate for Christmas this year. I guess it's because it's my first year to decorate my own space. I've always been in an apartment (or at Kara's) and headed home for Christmas. So this year was exciting. Here's some of what I did for decorating:

My first real Christmas tree!

Paper star from a Pinterest DIY.

Gold pinecone (and I collected all the pinecones!)

Cinnamon ornament (Pinterest, of course)

I have a mantle this year!

Wreath - with bows and pinecones!
First attempt at making a wreath, it turned out well, I thought. 

Balcony garland - I had no idea what I was doing, but it looks ok.

Merry Christmas!

What a Christmas it has been so far!  It's been very fun to share it with future sibling-in-laws.  Lindsay already knows quite a bit how crazy we are, but I think Cameron might have been a bit surprised.  Or maybe not. He is engaged to Lisa, after all.  for Christmas Eve, we had our Bethlehem dinner, watched the family Chrismas movies (still as hilarious as ever! I can't believe I agreed to my part!), and got our Chrismas Eve matching pajama shirts, courtesy of Lisa!

They were all greatly appreciated and enjoyed.  The kids also watched Muppet Christmas Carol while falling asleep.

On Christmas, we had to wait for Andrew and Lindsay to get done with Christmas at the Bagley's and come over to our house.  It means that we got to sleep in.  Alyna had the honor and adventure of breaking through the paper….

only to find that the door had been partly closed.

Everyone had fun opening presents and watching others open presents.  I’m very much excited about my new scriptures!  And Andrew got me a big box of Goldfish crackers I’m pretty happy about.  Mindy even joined us via Skype! 

And, to finish off the holiday cheeriness, I’ll post the great videos of Alyna and Lisa “boxing.”  Enjoy!

Hanging in Elst

For the last three days or so, I've just been hanging out with my family, mostly in Elst, although Mom and I did take a trip to Westervoort to run some errands on Tuesday. I loved driving though the Dutch countryside. It's so pretty here! Even if the trees have no leaves, and there's a thin skiff of snow - it's still pretty. For Thanksgiving, Mom invited many neighbors and church friends. The house was pretty packed. It was fun, except I didn't really know anyone, and that was just kind of awkward. The food was delicious, but it didn't quite feel like Thanksgiving because it was missing the whole big "Briscoe" get together. No bizarre dinner conversations this year. Instead, I think I explained at least three times to different people that I was going to college at BYU, not living at home, and majoring in Landscaping. It was fun to see some of the different foods that people eat here. I had to laugh when I got the whipped cream out of the fridge - it was in this huge metal canister and weighed two pounds or something.
My favorite food to eat was the stuffing. I haven't had stuffing in so long!!! And even if the sausage wasn't spicey, it was still excellent stuffing and made me happy to eat it. The rest of the food was pretty good, too.