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.

Bring Back the Magic

Kurt Bestor’s daughter works for Marshall and so I jokingly told him he should ask if she could get us tickets to see her dad. We went to his concert two years ago and loved it so I thought it would be fun to go again. 

Marshall told his daughter what I said and sure enough she said she would have tickets at will call for us. 

They were great seats on the fourth row. Alex Boye performed with him. He was fun and energetic.I haven’t really liked his music but seeing him perform with Kurt Bestor was really great!