Tuesday, December 31, 2024

Christmas Time is Here

Happiness and Cheer
Fun for all that children call
Their favorite time of the year
 
Finally it was Christmas Eve. Our niece Lexi asked if she could come spend some time with us over the break. I suggested she join us for our Christmas Eve dinner and she stay the night for Christmas. She arrived in the afternoon of December 24th. We played some games and hung out while the food cooked. Then we set the table with our Christmas dishes and had a lovely dinner. We have been lighting the candles with the Savior's name on them since Sunday evening. Everyone lit 1 that night then 2 Monday night and then we each lit 3 Tuesday Christmas Eve. We talked about the names and the significance they mean to us.
 
After dinner we watched a Nativity video and talked about it. Then we watched Prep and Landing because it is just too cute! The boys then logged on to the Santa Tracker to see where he was. Then we played one more round of games before having our birthday cake dessert and leaving a slice out for Santa. Then we put the boys to bed. The girls hung out downstairs. I told them the boys would be up around 7:30am so they could be prepared for the morning. And like clock work the boys ran into our room at 7:30am. They said they had been up for an hour just waiting for 7:30 to come. 😂 We let them open their stockings while the girls still slept. Then of course they wanted to try their new gaming chairs and game out so we said go for it and I put breakfast in the oven.

we even got a skiff of snow to make it a white Christmas
 
I went into the kitchen to check on something and could smell something burnning. I opened the oven and smoke came barrelling out and set off the smoke alarm. I had noticed last night that the dish with cheesey potatoes had some running down the sides but didn't think anything of it. We must have taken them out of the oven before it caused smoke and smell last night. Steve opened the garage door and I opened the outside door and Steve started fanning the smoke alarm that was set off. Thankfully it only went off once and didn't even phase the girls downstairs. It did however wake up Miles. So the boys watched him look through his stocking.
 
After watching Miles we ate breakfast. Then the boys got out these lasso toys they got in their stockings.

Then Lila ventured up and loved the squish-mellow called Lilac. She says it is the perfect size for squeezing and snuggling.

Finally I sent the boys downstairs to awake the college girls and we began opening presents. Andrew said he told Marcus that the present from him would make him go then he would throw his head backwards. I thought it was pretty good since it represents shock and awe and it is also the move the rock'em sock'em robots make when they get knocked out which is what he bought him which is also funny because they are in the Red One movie.


Ironically we gave Miles a puzzle of Salt Lake City and he gave us a puzzle of Taipei. Then we just chilled for a bit and let everyone enjoy their new things. The girls put together the Lego sets and the boys put together Mystery Makers they got in their stockings and Lexi enjoyed building with the Mystery Makers too.
 
Everyone got a cookbook and the boys excitedly looked through theirs.

I decided to do a little brunch like thing for lunch by waffling the cheesey potato leftovers, frying some ham, and cooking some eggs to go with it. It was a little messy but yummy. Then we watched Red One with Lexi. Then we played more games just enjoying the time together. Lexi asked if she could stay another night to which we gladly agreed. Steve even offered to make aebleskivers one of Lexi's favorites for breakfast the next morning. After breakfast Steve helped the boys assemble and put up the new basketball game.
 
I was able to make a 12:30 baptism appointment for the girls. They have been wanting to go so I was glad we could snag a time. Lexi was getting ready to leave so they all got ready at the same time and headed out the door.

 
Friday, December 27th Steve took Ellie, Lila and Andrew skiing. Marcus actually really wanted to go but it was going to be a snowy day so when we showed him the forecast he opted to stay home with me. We ran errands together. It was lovely. We went to Smith's where we found some lovely candles on sale for $3. We have really enjoyed having candles going this month. Then we went to Sam's club to pick up a few other items. He has always been a good errand buddy, maybe it's because he is the youngest and he just doesn't mind chatting my ear off while we run around and shop.
 
 
Steve called us on the way home. They had fun, it was pretty deep snow and he had tweaked his knee a bit on one of the runs that had him pretty worried which of course worried me. I encouraged him to take Advil and wear a knee brace I had. He chilled and worried about his knee. The boys were getting a bit restless so we decided to take them to Shoreline gym where Andrew's competitive basketball team had a slot for practice they weren't going to use so we took the boys over to run out some energy. It was great. We played around for over an hour. Then came home and put the boys to bed.


Saturday, December 28th Steve worked on the office a bit. His knee was still hurting him so I went for a run by myself then convinced Lila to do a Strength Yoga with me where we did 10 pushups and she wouldn't let me hear the end of that. 😂 I took Andrew to a basketball workout and Marcus to the library to pick up a bunch of books he had placed on hold. Then I helped Ellie setup the serger so she could modify a skirt. Then Miles had plans to go to a party with his host family for second semester. We decided to go to Red Robin with the family before taking the boys to the Jazz game. We had fun at Red Robin and beat the rush. Our service was way better than when Steve and I went at the beginning of the month. Andrew ordered off the adult menu and I think he ate too much because I thought he was going to pass out at one point. We cam home and started watching the BYU Football bowl game. Then we headed out to the game. We managed to find event parking really close for a reasonable price and got a good spot. So we got in to our seats and were able to watch the teams warm up. The Jazz were crushing it during the first quarter but then things started to go down during the 2nd quarter. It was close and a fun game but unfortunately they lost. We could tell where it was going with a minute left on the clock that of course takes like 20 minutes with fouls and time outs. I tried to convince the boys to go but Marcus insisted we wait until the end which was fine. Some others left early and our seats were close to the exit so we still managed to get out on the road before too much traffic.


When we got home the girls came up and we talked and laugh for probably an hour. I cannot even remember what it was about. I remember thinking I'm so tired I should go to bed but this is so fun and I love my girls I can't go yet.
 
Sunday morning the boys made us breakfast from their cookbooks. Andrew made Huevos Rancheros and Marcus made chocolate chip muffins. It was fun and yummy. Then we got ready for church our last Sunday with 12-2pm church. Next week we move to 9-11am which will be nice but I know Lila will miss sleeping in but hopefully she can squeeze in a nap.

 
After church Steve took Lila driving while the boys finished watching the BYU bowl game. We decided to go to Idaho to visit my parents on Monday, December 30th. We had planned to go the Monday before Christmas but my Mom and Anson were both sick so we postponed and with Steve's knee still healing which it seems to be on the mend thank goodness, skiing was out for the day. The boys slept in so we did not get on the road very early putting us at my parents house around noon. Lila drove us the whole way there adding up some good driving hours. We played some games when we first arrived. Andrew was the first to make a match and he won the skibbity toilet with a bath bomb. All the boys wanted to get the pokemon cards but couldn't make the match happen and at the end Lila and Ellie were desperately trying to get the match for the sugar body scrub and not get stuck with the pokemon cards. Ellie got the cards and kindly divided them up amongst the boys.

Then we played some card games. After which Steve and went around the house helping with little projects, connecting things etc while the boys played and the girls visited with Grandpa.

We eventually hit the road for around 6:30pm. Lila decided to drive us to Tremonton to get some night time driving in. At which point we grabbed some dinner from Wendys and Steve finished the drive home while I turned on Planes, Fire and Rescue for the kids to watch. It was a fast trip but a good day.

I felt like we have kind of grown out of our New Year's Eve tradition and was trying to decide on something fun but low key we could do. I decided we would take everyone to the grocery store they could each pick out an entree, a drink, an item to share, and one other item. It turned out to be really fun. We had a great time at the store together and ran into neighbors and friends. The kids all enjoyed eating the items they picked and we had a lot of fun snack foods from the share items. Lila got pretzel bites, I got a cheeseball, Steve got fortune cookies that was kind of fun for New Years.
 
 
We played some games after lunch. Then we went downstairs and watched The Wild Robot. It's fun to have family movie time. After that Ellie got ready to go to a party. So the boys invited Miles to play on the switch with them. I came out to make dinner, at which point I noticed Miles was not looking well. I asked him if he was ok and he said he had not been feeling well the day before while we were in Idaho. He definitely was running a fever so we gave him some Advil and told him to go to bed and rest. We gave him more Advil and told him what time he could take it if he was still not feeling well. Then Steve and I watched a countdown with the boys and they did poppers something they still insisted on doing. And I had bought calendars for everyone so I put those out on the table so everyone could pick one. That was the end of 2024 for us!
 
 
Christmas time is here
We'll be drawing near
Oh, that we could always see
Such spirit through the year. . . 

Monday, December 23, 2024

Dashing

we wish we had more snow to be dashing through but we are currently dashing through the final week before Christmas. Saturday, December 14th the boys had basketball games and we managed to convince Lila to join us for both of them. She did a little drive time before Marcus's game at 11am and then drove us to get smoothies at Orange Peel afterwords. Then we came home and worked on a few projects, Steve patched and painted and I canned chicken and Lila did homework. We headed out for Andrew's basketball game. It was really fun to have Lila along, the boys talked with her about reading and what books she would recommend and she was helping Marcus with a friendship bracelet. I told her we really love it when she comes with us. After Andrew's game we decided to drive up to see the Ogden lights. However when we got there it was slammed and we couldn't find parking so we decided to make a quick Costco run, I had been trying to make it back to Costco all week to grab another thing of Cranberry Jalapeño dip that everyone enjoyed and a few other items. It was fun and a bit chaotic. Unfortunately they were out of the dip but everyone picked out something to snack on. Then we decided to brave the crazy parking again and managed to find a spot and walked over to enjoy the lights and displays.




there was quite the line for the giving machines and they were actually being restocked while we walked by so in the car on the way home we went online and chose an area: clean water and the family decided to buy a well for a community





Sunday, December 15th Steve drove down to pick Ellie up. She finished finals on Friday was scheduled to work Saturday evening and wanted to attend a farewell here in Layton Sunday. Since the train doesn't run on Sunday Steve was kind enough to pick her up. The kids all gave her big hugs. After church I took Lila driving to deliver a few Christmas gifts. Then we came home and watched Red One as a family. We really enjoyed it and I'm glad we could spend some time together.

 

Monday, December 16th,we started the week by dashing through the snow on the ski slopes. Everyone but Lila could go because she had a couple of projects and tests at school. Well I had to really work on convincing Marcus to go. I told him he could skip all day of school and we would only ski a half of day then he could play on the switch for a bit and that convinced him. The boys were in all new gear and did really well. Andrew flies down the mountain right behind Steve and Marcus did really good. 

When we got home Steve and I went out and blew leaves out of the park strips. This is the latest in the year we have ever done that. We had such a warm Oct&Nov that they just didn't drop their leaves. That evening the girls went shopping and around town together for a little bit. I love it when they spend time together.


Tuesday, December 17th, was a pretty standard day. Ellie picked up an parking event at the U so she headed down there for the day. I went to the temple and I sub coached Andrew's last volleyball game. It was a rough season of volleyball and we're not for sure if we will do it again. They combined 4th & 5th graders and boys and girls. Andrew and his friend signed up but they wouldn't put them on the same team and they ended up being the only boys on their team but we played teams that had 4 boys on them. . .WHAT?!? And the discrepancy between 4th grade girls and 5th grade boys is quite a bit. Oh well, he had fun and learned a few skills we can use this summer with our outdoor volleyball net.


Wednesday, December 18th, was our 21st wedding anniversary. I'm not gonna lie it was a little bit of a rough day. Things have been rough for Steve at work lately with the company being bought out again and things changing, thankfully his department was not touched with layoffs but we recently found out that one of Marcus's friend's Dad was employed by the same company but was let go with the new company takeover. YIKES! Anyway, just a lot of change and pressure to get somethings done and yesterday they told him they may want to send him to Singapore again in January so he was stressed and in a lot of meetings and I was hoping for a lunch date since the kids schedule was pretty crazy after school. Anyway, we just didn't have the chance to really connect and we were both feeling stressed so it was rough. The boys managed to have some fun after school though. Marcus had piano lessons then I took him to his super activity days where they went to Classic Fun Center for 2 hours, bless his leaders for being so patient and loving of these excitable rambunctious group of boys.


 

Andrew had a friend birthday party at a laser tag place in the mall then had a white elephant gift exchange with his activity day group at the church.

Andrew was super excited to explain the present he bought to his friend, I thought it was cute.

 

Ellie also went to a white elephant gift exchange for the young single adults in our neighborhood. It was really sweet of those leaders to put it together and reach out to everyone who is home for the holidays.

 

Ironically, Lila was also supposed to go to a white elephant gift exchange for her youth activity but she was determined to finish the Honors Math module so she can do honors math next year. Steve was a trooper helping her finish that up. After she was done I let her open a little gift telling her that we were going to see Derek Hough's Christmas show the next night. Ellie has known for a while because she has recently gotten into Dancing with the Stars and asked if we had anything the night of the performance. I had bought tickets for the 4 of us months before so I caved and told her we were going but not to spoil the surprise for Lila.

 

Thursday, December 19th, I let the boys open a present after school. The whole week has been Christmas dress up stuff and they have had fun participating and Friday was wear pajamas to school so I let them open a new pair of pajamas.

Then I took Andrew to violin after which we got them settled in their new pajamas and told them they could watch one show and then they were to go straight to bed. They had a phone they could text us from then we headed to Salt Lake for the Derek Hough show. Steve and I had discussed the parking situation ahead of time. We tried parking in the City Creek Parking but after we turned in it went really really slow so the girls and I got out and walked over to the show. They looked at his Mirrorball Trophies then we found our seats.


A local dance team was sitting behind us and they were able to perform on stage with Derek which was so cool. They did great but it was funny because they were yelling things like, "Let's GO!!" Which is totally a dance competition thing to do which made us all chuckle.

I worried about Steve and I couldn't track the Tesla because the underground parking blocks it's signal. He finally showed up about 10 minutes after the show started. It took him 40 minutes to get a parking spot and come to find out he was lucky to get one at all. Everyone was circling and he was about to follow the long line of cars back up to the top and out when a man came out to his car right in front of him so he backed up a little to let him out and the truck behind him honked at him. Steve turned on his blinker indicating that he was waiting for that spot and the dude honked again, mind you you could still see the line of cars weaving their way back up, I bet the guy just really wanted the spot for himself but Steve got it and hustled over. Afterwords we were talking about how when I took Marcus to see PJ Masks Live I just parked at the event parking and I was glad I did because it wasn't stressful at all. I looked it up and ironically it was 5 years ago to the exact date on Thursday even, just so ironic.

We had a fabulous time at the show. the girls were stoked when they performed this dance they did this season in Dancing with the Stars.


Derek came out into the audience and ran right past Steve our seats were tucked a little in so he didn't get a high five but it was fun.


 

Everyone was tired but I told Lila she could sleep in. They had a modified schedule Friday and she really only needed to be there to perform for the assembly so that is what she did. I took her to school then did a little shopping for her Christmas party then  I ran in and helped out with Andrew's class party. Came home and finished setting up for Lila's party. I think they had a lot of fun and they got a few little gifts from us in a fun way.

 

The boys enjoyed playing the soda stack game and did it for hours that evening.

Saturday, December 21st, I signed Andrew up for a Shoot 360 workout then took Marcus shopping for a bit. He managed to find some really cool Jazz blankets to give Andrew and Miles for Christmas. I dropped him off at home after our shopping experience and Steve helped him wrap stuff. Then I picked up Andrew and we went to Five Below for him to pick out a few things for the sibling gifts and I wanted to snag a few more things I had bought for Lila's party that were really big hits. However that store was insane so I was glad we had most of our shopping already done and Andrew and I were quick about it. 😆


That evening Marcus had his last basketball game and we went and watched as a family. It was fun. Marcus was really doing well and being aggressive in getting and keeping his hands on the balls to get jump balls.



Sunday, December 22nd, we enjoyed our ward's Christmas sacrament meeting then we came home and relaxed and played games. Marcus taught us this left right center candy version he played with his class on Friday and actually we all enjoyed it. It was fun and funny. Marcus was a good roller and kept getting to eat all of his chocolates which of course he loved.

 

Monday, December 23rd Steve and Andrew decided to go skiing for a couple of hours. It was a wet and foggy day but they still had fun. They met up with our neighbor Brett Ashmead and had fun skiing with him. Marcus and I played games and started a new Christmas puzzle with Christmas music in the background. He was so cute to sing along and bob around while working on the puzzle.

 

There you have a crazy fun week. We may not have been laughing all the way but we found fun along the way.

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