Rochelle Gifford

Giselle had a new Christmas dress on. Jenny wanted me to take a picture of her in it. This is what she did every time I pointed the camera at her. Today was not a picture day for Giselle.

We have very few ornaments left after the fire (yes, I know, years ago. We haven't replaced many, either). At least Jenny's ballerina survived! In other good news, I've managed to get out of seeing The Nutcracker this year!

We had some members of the Tabernacle Choir sing at the lunch I went to. Sorry soprano that the mic goes through the middle of your head! I was not willing to stand up to get a better picture.

I went with MamaLynne's office to have at Granato's. It was SO good. They have a mural of Tuscany painted on the wall to the right, so it felt just like we were in Italy (o:

We had our division Christmas party at work today. We were supposed to bring mugs for the mug competition. David forgot his, but that didn't stop him from creating a mug masterpiece from a Styrofoam cup, crayons and assorted office supplies.

Melanie gave me a gift for Christmas in this box. I carefully got my gift out (which was a struggle, because I would NEVER carefully open boxes to see what's inside!), put her gift in and made it look just the same. She carefully got her gift out and put her grandmother's gift in. We're getting a lot of use out of that gift.

My department had its Christmas party. Alexis and SueAnn were super-excited to be there!

The little star thing that holds stockings to our mantle. Also it snowed all day, but since I don't actually like snow, I didn't want to be outside photographing it. I did try braving outside to get to church, but the hill ("hill". It's kind of steep and curvy) down from my house was treacherous, so I went to my parent's ward (less hard to get to).

Kristen, Carli, Paul, Charisse and I went to the Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert. This was in the parking garage after. Our favorite part was the guy in the background shrugging. A lot of people had that reaction around us. Those guys are crazy.

Due to seating things, Paul and Kristen sat on the front row and the rest of us sat on the second row. Half the fun (after checking out Natalie Cole's 6 inch heels and sparkly mic) was watching Paul and Kristen's reactions to everything. Poor Carli sat between Charisse and me. She said we were like surround-sound with our comments because we kept mentioning the same things at the same time.

On the ride back, Kristen and Carli were sitting on the back of the cart and some members of the choir recognized Kristen. They hadn't seen her in years. It was a very small world.

The amazing part was how we went back to Carli's house after and Charisse reinacted not only the movie but the entire musical production of Xanadu for us. We're going to actually watch it next week.

Also, does Charisse look like Renee O'Connor to anyone else?

Becca, Josh, Michael and I went to the Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert. Here is Becca in front of David McCullough's dressing room door. (I'm going to the blame the fact that it's awesomely unfocused on us being surrounded by people and me feeling embarrassed.) After we went to the JSMB and got their autographs -- which is what all the cool kids do.

I had to run some errands today, so I did that in the afternoon and drove back downtown to get MamaLynne from work. There was a Jazz game, concert at the Tabernacle, concert at the Conference Center and general Temple Square visitors, so I had to take the back ways to get her which meant driving by the Salt Lake Capitol, of course.

I was home sick today. The most picture-taking effort I was willing to make was a picture of my oh-so-perfect grilled cheese sandwich. Oh, man, it was good, though.

Yes, I did have an entire day with gorgeous natural light and chose to take a picture of a sandwich. That should be a sign of how sick I'm feeling.

I bought an antique typewriter! I love it.

I left work early because I wasn't feeling well. As soon as I got home, I laid on the floor in the family room and fell asleep. Mom eventually came home from work, brought me my camera and sent me off to take a picture. I'm glad she's supportive, but next time I'll try to put more effort into showing off the coolness of this typewriter. I love it.

Hilary Weeks came and sang for my mom's office Christmas luncheon. I tagged along for the performance and shot a few pictures after.

From my seat at the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. I love the Conference Center pipe organs. I specifically asked if I could take pictures before/after and they said yes for the devotional but no pictures at all for the Christmas Concert (something about contracts?), so I'm sad there won't be any more inside the Conference Center shots this week. Maybe I'll suck it up to the cold and go on Temple Square for once instead of underground to everything (o:

Jenny's friend wanted us to take her family pictures at the Salt Lake Library. I loved the architecture, but it was also the biggest snow storm ever so EVERYONE was hanging out in the library that day.

Giselle and the Christmas tree. I was trying to take a Josh-shot (I try this a lot with varying degrees of success), but the light in our front room is SO awful that I just automatically want to make everything b&w so I don't have to deal with it.