"you know it's a good christmas when you're covered in sparkles"

so i didn't blog yesterday...it was a long day and i was tired. here are some highlights.

1. breakfast with chloe and sasha
i got to see the girls one last time before i left. we went to the bakery and we all had chocolate almond croissants. i had been craving one of those little guys forEVER and was so happy to finally eat one. ha. and it was fun to spend the morning with two of my favorite people :)

2. we drove to la
so now we're here! with everyone! yays!

3. grandpa ed
yesterday was grandpa ed's 78th birthday. i love him to pieces. :)

4. family
i got to see all of my family. we're all here together, and it's wonderful. it's the best! last night was "christmas eve," so that means today is....CHRISTMAS!!

so on to today. merry christmas again! it's the hughes family's second christmas muahahaha.

1. christmas breakfast burritos
we have them every christmas morning! what can i say? i love them. everyone loves them. we put all kinds of things on them (except if you're walker, and then you just put bacon on yours).

2. second christmas!
in typical hughes fashion, we put off opening presents for a long time, because we are always running a bit late around here. but it's good times. always good times.

3. bray'd's funny faces
my cousin brady (sometimes spelled bray'd because that's the cool way to do it) is very nice. he lets me take pictures of him even when he doesn't want me to. granted, he always makes faces...but they're funny. and they make me laugh. so that's good.

4. games
my family plays a lot of games. we like that kind of thing. today mark and uncle mike and i played bananagrams. we love that game.

5. cranberry pudding cake
oh man. my aunt carrie is currently baking some cranberry pudding cake. yuuuuuuuummmmmmmm it's my favorite and i look forward to it every year. and she makes this vanilla butter sauce stuff...i die.

6. return to me
"this is bob. his wife's dead." we're watching "return to me" right now. hughes family classic.

here are some photos of yesterday and today!

a photo of grandpa laughing, about to blow out his birthday candles. plus some bananas and salad dressing.

christmas morning!

our christmas stockings. santa comes twice for us! :)

i don't think we had enough chips.

walker and bray'd fought with the "mothers make memories" pillow.

grandma played santa and passed out presents.

face #1

face #2

face #3

face #4

grandma has red velvet vans.

auntie carrie got a book that she loves.

my family knows me so well.

like i said. sooooo well.

and the crowning glory: the hughes family portrait of 2011

merry christmas, everyone! again :)

a day in photos

today i was playing around with my camera. here are a few of the shots i got that i actually like. these are all things i'm grateful for. enjoy!

1.

yeah. i guess i kinda trespassed a little. just don't tell.

2.

dead grapes.

3.

some grape vine trunks. or as my aunt carrie would say, "grape bushes coming straight out of the land!"

4.

mustard.

5.

my bikeeee! i love my bike. i won it at grad nite, you know :)

6.

panorama of the sunset.

7.

good ol' calistoga sunset.

today was my last day here in the valley before either my roadtrip (this is if it happens, and i'm crossing my fingers!!) or summer. i've loved every minute of being here! home is such a pretty pretty place. i'm so grateful that i grew up here. it was perfect. it still is. ♡

"when people say secret ingredient, i always suspect it means they secretly sneeze in the food"

1. bakery food
today i told myself i could have whatever i wanted at the bakery. it was my last day there this break, so i let myself go crazy. i had a lot of shortbread...some bouchons (think dense brownies with chocolate chunks)...some hot chocolate with caramel...you know. all the foods necessary to stock up on before i leave. it was very good for my heart. not so good for my body, but oh so good for my heart.

2. going to the temple with cammie
tonight i got to go to the oakland temple with cammie lambie dingie dongie! she was very patient with me on the drive there, since i have a small bladder. she also is an excellent direction giver. we didn't even get lost once! (and that is a miracle, people. we ALWAYS get lost.) it was a very nice time. we also got to walk around and see all the christmas lights. and we went up to the top of the temple and we got to see the twinkly lights on the bay.

3. laughing
i laughed a lot today. i laughed with michelle at the bakery. i laughed with chef matt at the bakery. i laughed with cecy and andrea and jessica and jamie and lots of people at the bakery. i laughed a whoooole lot with cammie. we said dumb things like "stoo dill" instead of "still do" and things like "when people say secret ingredient, i always suspect it means they secretly sneeze in the food."

4. i get to sleep in a little tomorrow
i'm excited for bed. i'm not gonna lie. i got up at 6 am this morning, people. that's early.

5. getting up at 6 am and actually being awake!
so last night, i woke up and was convinced that i had slept forever. i knew it must be time for me to get up, so i looked at my alarm and it was only 1:45! score! i rolled over and went back to bed, and when i woke up, i was totally awake. none of this "ten more minutes. twenty more minutes. well i don't really need to shower today. well i guess i don't have to take time putting on my make up" stuff. it was the real deal. i'm grateful for that!

so here are a few photos i took of some of the christmas decorations at my house. i'm still trying to figure out lighting with my camera...hopefully i get the hang of it haha.

mama's favorite nativity

some entry way elves and an angel with a sparkle wreath around its head

a unicorn farts christmas + the day after

christmas was not the typical christmas, but it was so good. every year i say, "this was the best christmas ever!" and it's true, because any christmas is the best christmas. here are some of the amazing things that happened!

1. murmuration
yesterday morning, when my family was looking at what santa brought us, we heard this crazy noise. it was so loud that it we heard it over the christmas music playing. we dropped everything and ran outside. not too far away was a hot air balloon overheard, and so many birds were chirping and flying from tree to tree. suddenly the fire in the hot air balloon turned on, and all the birds fell silent. thousands of birds were swooping and swirling over our heads. it was so crazy and so amazing.

the murmuration we saw looked like this, only on a little bit of a smaller scale.

2. church at the branch
church at the branch, like i have said, is always exciting. yesterday we only had sacrament meeting. it was full of musical numbers. first the "world renowned" priesthood choir sang "with wandering awe" (which will forever make me laugh after that one year daddy announced it as "with wandering eye"). then the primary sang "stars were gleaming." the morgans/morrills sang "rocking" and "o the holly she bears a berry" with their guitars. jon garate played his guitar and sang the basque version of "the first noel." finally don vinnucci played "o holy night" on the trumpet. it was amazing. i can't even tell you. it was one of the best sacrament meetings i have ever been to.

3. a christmas miracle!
when we were driving home from church, we found a strange raccoon thing with a santa hat on. we were going to turn around to look at it again, but we decided not to. because we decided not to, we were able to see a house on fire. that was a weird sentence. but. it was a really good thing! we turned around as fast as we could, dad ran up to the door to tell the family, and i called 911 to report the fire. it turns out it was something in the chimney that was on fire, and the flames we saw were shooting out of the top of the chimney. once we had stopped, the flames weren't there any more, just a bunch of glowing embers and some soot. we drove by at just the right time. if we had driven by a few seconds later, we wouldn't have seen the flames at all. who knows what would have happened to the house? it was a very stressful five minutes or so, but such a good thing that it happened!

4. church at the veteran's home
the yountville veteran's home is a part of the st helena branch, so this sunday we got to have church with them, as well. it's always a little wacky there, too, but so sweet. it was so nice to be there, to listen to some of their testimonies, and to sing "away in a manger" a capella with the mutzes!

5. grandma's house
we got to see grandma coco, too! it was fun to be at her house again. we ate leftovers from christmas eve, watched "mrs. miracle," and opened presents. it was quiet and nice. and fun. and happy.

6. skype with auntie maryn
we also skyped with auntie maryn! we opened presents together over skype. that was fun! she always gets the funnest things, like she gave us an inflatable shark...that flies!! it FLIES. and i got unicorn farts chapstick. yeah. be jealous.

did you know that unicorn farts smell like spearmint? sometimes they even smell like bubble gum!

i would upload more photos...i took them with my camera, so the files are taking forever to load. still trying to figure it out... i'll try it again tomorrow.

yesterday was such a nice day! merry christmas everyone!

okay and now on to today!

1. sleeping in
i have been working early mornings and then going going going going going. it was nice to sleep in today, especially since i've had a killer killer head ache.

2. spending the day with my family
it's so nice to spend time with my family. i love being here with them. just sitting around the house is really nice. we don't have to do anything special to have a good time together.

3. "we bought a zoo"
this evening we decided to watch "we bought a zoo" in theaters. it was such a good movie! heart warming and entertaining, for sure. i definitely recommend it :)

4. bed time early
yeah. i'm going to bed now. so excited. sooooo happy. yay.

well, good night everyone! hope it was a wonderful boxing day!

all my heart this night rejoices!

happy christmas eve to everyone!! :)

1. working at the bakery
even though it's christmas eve, it was great to work at the bakery. i love doing things to make people happy, and the santa hat man came in again. al came in again (just like every day). have i talked about al? he's a regular. same thing every morning. anyway, it was a good time, even though my knuckles were so dry they were cracking, even though i got in a fight with a baguette (seriously, i have the cuts to prove it - those things can be sharp!), and even though i stayed later than i was scheduled for. example of a happy thing: michelle and i were restocking the buche de noels, sometimes just referred to as buches, when one broke. oh well, happy christmas eve to us! we got to snack on it in the back. it was delicious.

"bite the buche!!" -michelle and me. that may or may not be my bite mark.

2. the gift from al, a tender heart moment
so as i mentioned before, al is a regular at the bakery. every morning he comes in around 8 for the same thing: the san francisco chronicle + a small coffee + the mug discount. he knows us all by name, and we sure know him. today he got his usual order, we chatted, and he left. around 2:30, he was back again with an envelope for everyone with their names written on it. i thanked him and told him merry christmas, but i didn't look at it's contents until i got out to my car. i was so tired, a little cranky (i worked some overtime today), and ready to go home. then i remembered the envelope in my apron pocket. i pulled it out, opened it up, and saw what he had placed in it for me. it was twenty dollars. i had to take a minute to have a tender heart moment and cry just a little bit. it was the sweetest gift. i'm so grateful for the reminder that this holiday season is about giving, and in remembrance of the gift that our savior gave to all of us - the gift of eternal life.

3. seeing my family
this afternoon when i got home, we drove to santa rosa to grandma coco's house. we had our usual christmas eve celebrations with grandma and the cook family! they are so funny, i just love listening to them tell their stories and have little conversations. it's always so nice to see family and i don't get to see them very often. yay family! yay for temples! yay for being together for time and all eternity! :)

4. christmas pj's
this year i got the most AWESOME christmas pj's evah!! yeah, i just only got a leopard print onsie, no big. i know you're jealous. you should be. but it's okay. i know santa will bring you something almost as awesome. haha. tomorrow i'll try to remember to post a photo. you definitely want to see this.

5. all my heart this night rejoices
this is the title of a christmas hymn written in 1656. this line, my dad and i think, is one of the most beautiful lines of christmas music ever written. this christmas season really is a time of rejoicing. my heart rejoices because our loving heavenly father sent us the gift of his son. it rejoices because christ was born. it rejoices because he died for us. it rejoices because through his death and the atonement, we are able to repent and return to live with him and our heavenly father again. it rejoices because we have been given the gift of eternal life. these two gifts alone - the gift of the son and the gift of the atonement - are the only gifts that i think i will ever really need (though others are lovely and appreciated, of course). i am eternally grateful to my savior and my heavenly father for all they have done for me and my family.

i'm grateful for the gospel in my life. i'm grateful for a family that loves me and that i get to be with for time and all eternity. i'm grateful for this holiday season. merry christmas, everyone! have a wonderful day tomorrow! :)