Merry Christmas Month!

As seems to be pretty normal anymore, time is flying by.  December has pretty much come and gone already, and I feel like I just finished washing my Thanksgiving dinner dishes!  

We started out the month with Grant's choir concert.  I loved this.  I really love watching/listening to my kids perform.

 As soon as the concert was over, we raced over to our Ward Christmas Party.  We made it in time for some food, listening to singing from the Madrigals, and a visit from Ol' St. Nick and the Mrs.

 The next night was the Christmas band concert for Maren and Ryan.  They both sounded wonderful!  Ryan plays the clarinet and Maren plays the euphonium.

 Another day was date night for Dustin and I at the Salt Lake Temple and lights.

 And a couple of days later our family got to go to the First Presidency Christmas Devotional.  That was pretty cool.

 Some fun with tape later that night.

 Just a day later, we were back at Temple Square for a concert and lights with Gramma Lana.  That was the third time.  Luckily for me, it is one of my favorite things to do at Christmas time.

 A couple of days later it was time number four for Temple Square lights.  This time it was the youth of our ward.

 Avery had an orchestra concert, which was beautiful.

 Our last Temple Square time was later that week, when we all went to the Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert.  It was so good, and worth the wait in the stand-by line.

 We did a puppet show nativity with some of our friends for Family Home Evening.  Fun fun!

 Maren tried out and made the basketball team for the Junior High!

 We had a party with the deacon's of our ward, plus a few extra (Grant and his friends).  They built gingerbread houses and played a white elephant game and then played tag in the freezing weather without coats.  Ahh, to be a 12 year old boy.  They feel no cold.

 Grandma and Grandpa Shurtz stopped by for a quick visit to bring us some Christmas presents and that was fun!

 They were in town long enough to help celebrate Jen's daughter's birthday.

 The kids and I made gingerbread houses one day after church.

 It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!  We did a service chain and that made it all the way around the room this year (for the first time).

 We went to visit Donna one afternoon.  She is 93 and doing so well!  It was a fun visit.  We love her.

 And then it was finally Christmas Eve!  My favorite day of the year!  We spent some time helping the kids finish up their homemade gifts to each other, and then we did a little Christmas bowling.  A Christmas miracle occurred when I broke 80 in my bowling score, and a second miracle occurred when I won in Christmas bowling!  The bowling alley worker spelled my bowling name as "Medge" instead of "Madge" and I think that must have been my problem all these years.

We got home just in time for Dustin, Lana and the kids to go buy some Bethlehem fried chicken for our Bethlehem dinner, while our friend Amy, and I transformed the living room into Bethlehem.  Everyone got home and we did the Nativity, and then ate our Bethlehem dinner.  The kids opened up their present (new pajamas) and we played a game and visited for a bit.  It was a happy, fun Christmas Eve.  The kids started a new tradition this year of sleeping together in the same room and watching a movie on the laptop, which was fun for them, but caused them to go to bed very late, which made for a very very late night for Dustin and I.  Oh well.  They were happy!

Maybe it was because of the late night before for the kids, but no one was awake at 6 a.m.!  Except me, of course.  I woke up at 5:46, and laid there waiting for Avery to come in at 6:00 on the dot, like she usually does.  Finally, at 6:11, I got up and went to the bathroom, turned on the Christmas lights and waited for some kids to wake up!  And, it worked!  Yay!  And, Santa had come!

 This is the picture progression of Maren getting her first phone.

 Dustin got an air fryer he has been wanting.

 And all the kids went in on a new boyfriend for Avery (she has to grow him first).

 These are the gifts they made for each other: Avery made Maren a friendship bracelet, Maren made Ryan a basketball and hoop, Ryan made Grant a light up G, and Grant made Avery a cool container.

 That night we went to dinner at Gramma Lana's house and played games.  It was a fun, happy wonderful Christmas!

A couple of days later we loaded up and headed down to Cedar City to my parents house.  They are actually in Seattle (for my nephew Ammon's mission return), but our good friends, Jacque and Tyler, met us there.  We played games, went sledding, played pool, ate at Brad's Food Hut, and laughed a lot.  It was so much fun!  We love them and wish we lived closer!

We got home last night, and today was a nice Sabbath, which included the boys having foot washes and playing with our new Christmas games.  I love this season!