December started and ended with a visit from the Craguns. Nicole went down to Cedar City to spend some time with my parents and brought her two littlest ones. After, she came up for a day or so to visit us. We always enjoy any visits from babies! We even made it in to see Maren at work!
Everyone is smitten with Flora. We don't have babies around anymore!
We also had another visitor... Snow!!!
It snowed. And snowed. And snowed. And it is currently snowing outside again! We will take it. We need it!
That's our ruler, mostly covered up.
Grant sang with the madrigals at the Capitol building. I had Meals on Wheels, so Dustin went and watched him.
We went to Logan for a Christmas concert with Rod. It was really good! Gentri and the American Festival Chorus.
Avery ran into my niece, Khalina at their Stake Conference up in Washington!! And then she took her and her companions to lunch a couple of days later. Avery's current zone is the same area where Khalina lives. So fun!
A little later in the month, my brother Chad and his family all took Avery and her companions to lunch again. It is so amazing to me that she is serving right up there with our family living so close! Strangely, I don't think anything has made me miss her more than seeing pictures of them all together. Although, we definitely missed her a lot this season!
We had our Ward Christmas Breakfast. The bishopric got called up to compete for Santa's helper. They were good sports. Andrew beat out the bishopric for the position. Maren and Ryan also participated in the live nativity. Maren sang with the chorus and Ryan was a shepherd.
Some of us got together with friends.
Grant got braces!! He has been waiting for this day for a long time. As he says, "I want braces so that I can get done with braces."
Grant had a choir concert. Ryan had a band concert (no pictures) and Grant missed his band concert because he was sick. Busy time.
We organized a neighborhood hot chocolate night and had a great turnout and a nice time visiting with neighbors and friends.
We taste tested caramels (a gift from a friend). A good job to have!
We keep plowing away on our family room remodel. We are so close! We are just waiting on a contractor to do our hearth lid and mantels and then we will be done! We got our tv installed and the dresser refinished and a new set of bookshelves installed.
Before we knew it, Christmas week was here! The kids worked on gifts for each other (Ryan made Grant a Guess Who Family Edition game, Grant made Maren a laundry bag for college, and Maren got Ryan a shelf for his shoes). Maren had to work every night during the week of Christmas, but she got Christmas Eve off, so that was nice!
On Christmas Eve we had Aebleskivers for breakfast in the morning and lots of yummy food throughout the day.
In the afternoon we went bowling. Rod came down and even bowled with us. And no one was injured! Yay!
We came home and had our Bethlehem dinner with our little family, Rod, Lana and our friend Amy. After dinner there were games to be played and pj's to open. (Ryan gave Dustin his awesome pajamas, and Grant gave me that sweet, soft robe).
We went to bed, Santa came, and we had a wonderful Christmas morning! I wasn't sure if the kids would wake up early without excited Avery waking everyone up, but Grant took over that duty and we were up at 6:00 A.M. on the dot.
Christmas was on a Sunday, so after opening presents and a quick nap (thank goodness for 12:00 church!), we got ready and went to a really nice Sacrament meeting. Maren and I both sang with different choirs. It was so nice to have that extra focus on the Savior on His birthday! Lana and Rod both came with us and that was nice. We got to talk to Avery during the day and then again the next day (because of her P-day) and it was fun to hear about her first Christmas on her mission! We even got to watch her open some of her presents. She has such a happy, joyful attitude and had a fun day!
Avery even sent us a picture of her presents.
The day after Christmas, Maren got her wisdom teeth removed. So she has spent all last week recovering from that.
Towards the end of the week, we had cousins in town again! The Craguns came for a few days, so we spent those days packing in fun with all the local cousins. We partied at the Classic Fun Center.
We played at the SeaQuest aquarium.
And we spent New Year's Eve ice skating and then partying at our house (it was both a Christmas/New Year's party and a birthday party for Addie and Olivia).
And just like that, it is a New Year! Time flies!
No comments:
Post a Comment