Christmas Sunday

We went to church with my parent’s. Sacrament meeting was a beautiful musical program with the nativity story.

A quote by President Nelson really stuck out to me all day. “The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.”

Last year I was so excited for Christmas. COVID made things so bleak so I couldn’t wait for the light and joy of Christmas. We started listening to Christmas music earlier than normal. There was so much more excitement for the whole Christmas season. 

Compare that with this year. Christmas came too fast, too much to do, so much stress, and I didn’t feel joy and excitement. 

I thought a lot about that quote and how I totally needed to dig deep this year. I needed to look past the circumstances and focus on the joy of the Savior, serving, and being an example.

The even bigger challenge is doing that all year round. Focusing on the Savior even when in difficult circumstances is a 24/7/365 type of thing. Christmas season is a small snapshot of the year and should be the easiest time to focus on the Savior and serve others. It’s like a practice month for the rest of the year. This year I learned a lot and will definitely be more excited for Christmas next year.

Christmas Day

Christmas morning started around 7:45. 

Kade got to drive his RC boat at North Lake Park pond. James beat us at chess, Lynnlee built her Lego sets, Taggart and Marshall built his marble track, and Sienna took pictures of everyone with her new camera.

We went to my parent’s house for the rest of the day and for the smorgasbord. I took homemade creamy chicken taquitos, which I take every year. They’ve gotten easier over the years for me to make. It used to be so daunting and stressful.  We eat them all through the year now so I think all of the practice has made it as easy as any other meal.

Kasey’s family, Betsy and of course Charlie’s family were all at dinner. It was a lot of fun spending time with everyone! We missed Ali’s family (stuck home with Covid) and Katie’s family.

Christmas Eve Night

We are in the process of a new tradition on Christmas Eve night. For years we used to go to Grandpa and Grandma Lowry’s. Growing up we had a “Chowder Bash” at my Grandma And Grandpa Jarvis’s house. We had chowder and then sang songs and played the bells. 

Last year we had dinner and a talent show at my parent’s house. We continued that this year and I think it will become our new tradition. 

We drove home at the end of the talent show. Everyone got to open their Christmas Jammie’s. We watched Small One and then tucked everyone in.

It was a late night for Marshall and I. I usually have everything wrapped ahead of time. With packing and moving I had not wrapped anything. It also through me off having the kids home the whole week before Christmas. 

Christmas Eve Bowling

41 years of the tradition of bowling on Christmas Eve with my family and some of my aunts and uncles families. I’ve been there for 36 of them. Out of all of those times I’ve won top female bowler about 3 times but I’ve never won top bowler until this year! 146 isn’t that high of a score but it was good enough this time. Taggart won top little kid bowler bumpers, 113. Charlie won top male bowler 128 and Taylor won top youth bowler, 114.

I get to take home the traveling trophy. Each year the winner adds something to the trophy so I’m excited to spruce it up.

Sibling pic! Just missing Ali and Katie. I’m very blessed to have such great and talented siblings!

French Horn

James started playing the French horn a year ago in band. He started taking private lessons in June. We love his teacher and it has been going really well. He had his first recital this week.

His teacher gave them Radha present at the end. They each got a mini alphorn. 

Closing Time

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a house update. It has been a crazy and busy month like December normally is and then add on top of that packing, inspection, appraisal, etc. The month has flown by as I’ve barely kept up with everything going on. 

We closed on our current house this week. We get to stay here until our new house is done,  thank goodness. 

Our new house has had a few delays. The most ironic delay would be the garage doors. Marshall asked in the beginning stages if he could do our garage doors but Arive Homes wouldn’t let him. They don’t allow any sweat equity. Someone ruined for the rest type of thing where they used to allow it. So the garage doors were delayed and they still wouldn’t let Marshall come to the rescue. Sigh…oh well. 

So our current completion date in the very end of December. When the completion date first was moved back I was bummed. Then I realized it was a good thing. We could set up Christmas and focus on that, then clean it up, finish packing and move. So that is what we have done. 

It is fun to have one last Christmas here. We’ve lived here over nine years so there are a lot of memories! 

Christmas Feast with the Lowrys

Marshall’s parents invited us to a Christmas feast. It was very fancy with their Christmas china. 

It was a fun night of chatting, yummy food, funny home videos, silly kids and games!

Cousin Time

It’s so fun spending time with family! Kids are all entertained and even Chewie is too when Charlie’s dog and Jack’s dog are there.

Can you guess who the dogs’ favorite is? 😂 They did that all on their own, not staged or forced. 

Jack started playing some oldies but goodies on  Alexa. One came on and my mom said it was one of her favorites. Jack said it was his favorite too! 

There is a lot if snow in Heber!! 9 kids playing in the snow equals a ton of gear! My mom handles it all so well even when her house is taken over by kid stuff!

We played some great rounds of Werewolves! I love how everyone can play no matter the age.

Road Warriors

Growing up we would drive as a family to Chicago every few summers to see my mom’s family. It was a long drive!

One time we visited family in Chicago and then drove to Niagara Falls, Palmyra and then back to Utah.

So basically my parents love long drives. My brother Charlie and some of my siblings got those genes for really long car rides but they were lost on me. I can handle 6 hours or less but any longer and it’s just too painful. 

Charlie and his family are happy to drive from Texas a few times a year to visit. They left Texasyesterday  and drove overnight and got here this afternoon. 

(Angeline flew here for a wedding so Betsy flew to Texas to help Charlie drive here. She’s a road warrior too!)

We are so excited to spend the holidays with them! 

Christmas Band Concert

James had his Christmas concert. You can’t really see him in this picture. He’s just too short. Anyways, they played Christmas at the Movies which is a really pretty medley and fun to pick out the different movies highlighted. 

They also played a Ukrainian carol that sounded so great!

It’s fun to see him enjoy the French horn and excel.

Snow Day

We had a lucky day over fall break when we got into Arches National Park when they had been turning away people right before we got there. Today we weren’t so lucky when we went to Brighton to ski. 

We planned to go skiing and then it was a surprise when we woke up and found out the school district decided it would be a snow day. 

We were excited because James could now go with us. Originally he needed to go to school to finish up end of term stuff. 

We got up early, got ski gear loaded in the car, packed lunches and headed to the resort. Traffic was crazy. The canyon roads were snow packed. It would be a great powder day though!

We got to Brighton and they were full to capacity! They had no room to park at all. They said we could wait at a nearby fire station for an hour or two and check back to see if there was room.

We decided to head home since there were no guarantees we could get in.

Such a bummer ending!

The kids had to do school work when we got home which reminded me why we don’t do homeschool 😜

Then they got to play with friends in the snow so they were all pretty happy.

Minis’ Christmas Program

Taggart’s and Sienna’s class along with the other 2nd grade classes had a Christmas program. They loved practicing the songs all month. Their favorite song was Pinecones and Holly Berries.

I was grateful they were standing by each other so I could film them at the same time. Two years ago they had a performance and they weren’t by each other so it made it a little tricky.

Lynnlee’s Christmas Party

Lynnlee and her friend planned a Christmas party for their friends group. They made decorations, planned games, and created invitations. I got them printed off and they handed them out.

Lynnlee made sugar cookies and frosting, with my help, for the party.

Her friend was so kind to host the party since it’s a little tricky for us while packing up the house. 

They had yummy snacks, played games, swapped presents and laughed a lot! The party went well! 

Gingerbread Cabin

Every year my kids think decorating gingerbread houses is all for them but it’s just a cover. I love it way more than they do. I really like to get into it. I give my kids a hard time because they usually just squirt all their frosting on the roof and pile as many gummy bears and candy on top as they can. This year I kept telling them they needed to take it seriously and actually try to decorate it. 

I decided to make a little cabin. 

Lynnlee made the little shed/dog house next to it.

James really wanted to pile on the frosting but then held back. He put some thought into it and made a nicely decorated house.

Lynnlee made a gummy bear cha cha line on the roof and then decorated the rest of her house more normal.

Kade, Tag, ans Sienna did their own designs. They don’t get into it as much yet. They just want to eat the frosting and candy.

I didn’t take pictures of the finished houses right after. Before bedtime I decided we should take pictures before anyone stared snacking on them. Taggart was moving his house with one hand from one counter to another and accidentally dropped it. The whole thing broke into pieces before we could take the picture. Thankfully we had a bag of frosting still so I glued it back together for the picture.