Happy New Year!!!

I guess I will start with a little Christmas review since I didn't get in here to post!  We spent the holidays down in Phoenix visiting Matt's family and my cousins.  It makes things interesting, living out of a hotel room with two dogs...and my mom, but we had fun.

In preparation I made...

Finnish Pulla

and

Dark Chocolate Raspberry Truffles

YUMMY!!

I was a little sick while we were down there, but I managed pretty well.  We spent Christmas Eve over at Uncle Greg's house...where we had a lovely time visiting with everyone and watching Amare and Tragen opening their Christmas presents.

Christmas day we had dinner at my beautiful sister-in-law Aimee's house with my in-law's, Judi and Paul, and my nephew, Amare.  After dinner and visiting, we left to visit Eve, Skye, and Brian Moore...my cousins.

We passed out presents to the cousins and watched the babies play with their new toys.  We got Jenna a new baby doll.  We bought some legos and foam darts for Jeremiah.  And for baby Sierra we bought a pink Glow Worm.  They all loved their new toys!

From there we ventured over to the Mesa Arizona LDS Temple Gardens to look at the lights and the International Nativity exhibit.  We got there pretty late so the lights really were not the spectacular twilight lights most people post, but I decided I would try to see if I could shoot a mirror...without a tripod.  This is my first attempt ever...and I'm only using an old Sony Cybershot which takes 7.1 megapixel images at best so, I don't feel too badly about the results.  Although the critic in my brain won't let me post these on G+!  lol!

Mirror #1

Mirror #2

My Sweetheart!  <3

Palms Up!

What's a palm to do after the lights go out?

We stayed there until the bitter end...seriously!  They turned the lights off on us!  Hahaha!  We had a great time though!  Oh yeah...the nativities were awesome!  There is one I have been seriously searching for the name of the artist for days...and I cannot find it!  Let's see...

Artistic detail of the Holy Family from the Italian Nativity

Mary and Baby Jesus

I have been searching for the name of the painter for days.  You can barely see his signature on the painting on the right hand side.  The lighting made it so hard to get a picture of the image at all, trust me!  This was a feat in an of itself!!!  

His same is David J....????  It ends with an "nn" and I have done countless Google searches trying to find him.  I think I will try contacting the temple next week.  Hopefully it isn't too late.  I think the exhibit closed today.  

I want so much to share this image for SacredSunday, but I can't without the artist's name.  C'est la vie, n'est-ce pas?  Well,  I've been up far too long now and I should really get some rest.  Thank goodness for afternoon church!  Goodnight...and...