December Snippets

I have a feeling this post might be a little disconnected. You know how when you have so many things to talk about but dont really know where to start?.... thats how I feel right now. First off, clearly we started off our December advent with a bang, but as December progressed we fell victim to the holiday/family/finals crazies. We did do a few more activities that I'll post later, lets just say one involves a glimpse into Mckays possible alternative career if Chemical Engineering doesnt work out... intrigued? so stay tuned for that. And CHRISTMAS. oh. my. word. I feel overwhelmed just thinking about it. I am one spoiled little girl and me sneaky hubby really pulled a fast one on me. I'll have to do a whole post dedicated to my surprise-filled Christmas, because I am in love love love. But here's a little hint... the following photo has to do with my new toy. no its not the dog...maybe next year :)



I'm throwing in this family picture just for fun. It's a little funny....which Jacobs is photoshopped in?? can you tell?

Every December my family goes to stay in Salt Lake for the weekend. We usually go to the Choir's Christmas Concert, shop, eat and lounge around. This year we were missing Adam and Marty :( but we still had a fun time. We had Christmas brunch where we ate our weight in food and met the big man.

We also celebrated Nick's birthday at Benihana's. I cant believe my little brother is 15! and apparently those Benihana's chefs can seriously cook but they cant hold a camera still.... oh well :)

December was a crazy/hectic/fun filled month and its not over yet! We are having such a wonderful holiday season. We feel so blessed. We hope everyone is enjoying the break and having a wonderful holiday season as well!

dec. 7

because of school this week we had to throw in some quick and easy Christmas time fun. Mckay has been spending a lot of time doing homework, and i mean A LOT of time, as in if he's not at school he's doing homework. basically i feel like a widow, and the chemical engineering department has taken my husband :( So we havent had time to do much this week, in fact we're a little behind on our fun-tivities, we might need to start doubling up. but we made a much needed cup of hot chocolate, (ps why does it have to be sooo cold lately?) Mckays cup of choice: Chocolate mint truffle. Mine: pumpkin spice. No one makes a better hot chocolate than Stevens and I'm telling you if you havent tried the pumpkin spice, do, its life changing.

dec. 6

Mckay was so great and donated blood at the blood drive for Chris' eagle project. I couldn't donate but I did get my finger pricked, which I hear hurts more than the actual needle, so that must count for something right?

Dec. 5

This is probably our favorite Christmas tradition. Every year Mckay's mom plays the harp for the Salt Lake Children's Choir Christmas concert at the Cathedral Madeleine in Salt Lake. Those kids are so amazing and we loved that Cami and Taylor came with us. We even stopped at The Bakery for a late treat. such a fun night :)

Dec. 4

We made snowflakes, the kind you make in 1st grade where you fold a square of paper and just cut away. This was so fun, I loved how different they all turned out.

Dec. 3

We bought our tree the day after Thanksgiving, we just couldnt wait any longer. I love love love our tree this year, it's my favorite one we've had so far. It makes our house feel so festive and cozy, I turn the lights on first thing when I get home. If i had my way it would stay up till April. We have a few special ornaments that family members have brought back from trips. This little lovely came home with us from Kauaii and now lives happily on our tree branch. :)

Dec. 2

Day 2 - "Go to the Utah Valley Symphony Christmas Concert"
This was also a cheat, we found out the concert was on Wednesday so we did some switching and this was day 2 of our Christmas fun :) we are so lucky that papa Rytting conducts the symphony (major perks ;)) and they put on a wonderful concert

Advent Calendar day 1: Dec 1

So we filled our advent boxes with fun activities to do every day to celebrate the Christmas season. Like the rest of the world we are so so busy with school, work, and church callings that we hardly have time for anything else. This is a fun way to take a small break every day and spend some time together. Day 1 was "make a gingerbread house" we kind of cheated and put that one in for Dec. 1 cuz we knew we would be making gingerbread houses with some friends that night. This is what we came up with:




This was so much fun! and I'll be honest those sweet tarts did not last long at our house.

The Ryttings take on a craft

This craft/activity came about rather spontaneously. I was looking around for advent calenders and hadn't really liked what I saw. I saw this idea for a homemade one on the buzzings of a queen bee's blog. I loved this idea and told Mckay about it, he's usually enthusiastic about my craft ideas but he really jumped on board with this one. We had it nearly finished by the end of Thanksgiving break. It was so much fun especially with Husband helping me :) He did the more manly things like cutting the wood for a frame and spray painting the boxes. I realize spray painting isnt really a manly job but I was a little scared to use it and mess up everything, hence, its a manly job.

The idea for this is pretty simple. We bought paper mache boxes at Roberts, I had no idea what these were or if thats what they were really called but I found them at Roberts pretty quick. The boxes came in different sizes and shapes so we got twenty five boxes in different shapes, one for each day. These boxes can then be decorated however you want, which is the fun part. You attach the magnet to the back of the box, paint a piece of sheet metal with magnetic paint and fit the sheet onto a frame.

This picture should be at the bottom of the post cuz its one of the last things we did but oh well. Once we had finished with all the boxes for the calender we figured it would be hard to find a frame to fit the exact dimensions of the sheet metal, so we went to Home Depot, bought a piece of moulding and Mckay cut it into a frame.


The boxes we chose to use were the middle-ish size, there were some smaller which would have worked too but they didnt have the variety of shapes I wanted. We spray painted the bottoms of the boxes a cranberry red.

Then we layed out the boxes and arranged them how we wanted and covered the lids with Christmas scrapbook paper.

We bought a piece of sheet metal from Home Depot and cut it to size, we painted the frame and thats it! I love it, and I love even more that Mckay helped me with it :)

Turkey Trot etc.

This Thanksgiving we started a new tradition. My cousin Jamie helped put together a turkey trot on Thanksgiving morning. When she first asked us we kinda said no, waking up at 9 during the break did not sound like our kind of fun. Then she told us they were doing it to support cancer research and that all the runners would pay a fee to run the race and that money would go to the Huntsman Cancer Foundation. We both said yes. With Mckay's dad currently fighting cancer and my mom being a breast cancer survivor (and conqueror! :) this was something we thought was so important, and a way to show our love and support to our wonderful parents. It was a perfect morning to jog/walk and the site of the run couldnt have been better. If you run around the Timpanogos Temple grounds 4 times its 5K. We had such a good time. The experience was so meaningful to us, we will definitly be doing this next year.

Our family who joined in the fun, my wonderful parents, Aunt Shellie, Cousin Jeremy, Cousin Jamie.

This year was a Rytting year for Thanksgiving. We had such a fun time gathering with the Rytting clan! It's always fun when we get together, the food was great (I ve discovered I kinda like going to other peoples houses for Thanksgiving, it means no leftovers, which I love....a little too much, so I'm happy to say we really didnt over indulge....except on pie but that doesnt count) then we got to go to my parents house and play with our family for the rest of the night. Our family is feeling kinda small right now with Adam and Marty both out on missions. Thank you family for a wonderful Thanksgiving. Now... Its Christmas time! :)