Thanksgiving was small but fun this year. We had dinner with a family in our ward who lives down the street. We ate lots of yummy food and went to the movies of course!
Our friend Tiffany turned the big 30 on the 30th. Not only was she celebrating a big birthday, it was also her golden birthday! She was in Utah with her husband Joe for Thanksgiving and they drove home on her birthday. We (meaning the mag 7 as Andy puts it, minus Joe and Tiff of course) Decided to decorate their new home. Oh, also forget to mention they bought a new home in November!!! Congratulations! It was fun stringing toilet paper and streamers all over their yard! Of course we helped them clean it up!
In December we celebrated our 2nd annual Christmas Ornament Craft Night, if that's what you want to call it. Here is how it works. Each of us (mag 7) had roughly 20 minutes to search the dollar tree and pick out 4 items. After we each picked out 4 items we gathered together, marked the items with numbers and then drew numbers to see which items we ended up with. After we receive our 4 new items, we began to make Christmas ornaments. We hade to use something from all 4 items that each of us got during the drawing. I have to admit that I was stumped for a while on how I was going to combine my items. I ended up making an angel wit a bazooka who was wearing a shirt that said "you've need naughty." I thought it was pretty funny. Ryan decorated a weird looking pink hippopotamus, Tiffany made a snowflake out of her funny items ( I wont explain, you just have to see the picture), Joe made festive parrot ornament, Kelly made a swing out of a wig, Matt made a stick figure and Andy made something that had to do with cats and little figurines. I can't figure out what it's supposed to be. I have to admit its a pretty fun activity! I look forward to it next year.
Christmas: Where to begin... Ryan's sister Jen, her husband Nate and their cute little boy came to visit for two weeks. We had lots of fun with them. Braden celebrated his first birthday with a trip to John's Incredible Pizza, and later with chocolate cake. 
On Christmas eve we split time with both families as well as Christmas day. We opened presents, ate tasty food and relaxed. I loved spending time with both families and I'm still convinced that we both have the best families ever! Ryan's Christmas present from me this year was awesome. It was a white button down Ralph Lauren cardigan. It looks straight out of Mr. Rogers, but he insists that it looks like something Roger Feder would wear to a tennis match. Either way it makes me laugh! He loves it though, so I couldn't help but get it for him.
Courtney sent us all pictures of our family dog Indy who we had to put down recently it was very sweet of her. It made us all cry.
New Year's Eve: This was a fun night. We (M7 + Andy's new girl friend Stephanie, and Paul... I guess now we can be called the mag 8) went out to eat at Ruth's Chris. Andy, our democrat friend, took us out for a wonderful evening of yummy steak and good company. Andy just finished a political campaign for Charlie Brown and to celebrate his new found freedom and hard work he let us all join him for dinner. It was nice to be with our friends to ring in the New Year.
Kelly and Matt
Paul 
Andy and Stephanie
Joe and Tiffany
Well that's my recap for now. I'm excited to see what 2009 has in store for us! Happy New Year! 