Holiday Season

Our Christmas decor is boxed up and back to gathering dust in the basement. We had an eventful holiday season.

We drove by Christmas lights and ate doughnuts. The kids devoured the doughnuts in record time. My jaw dropped at one of the houses. I guess the Piano Guys recorded a music video there. I can see why. Wow. I don’t think their neighbors in the cul-de-sac are thrilled about the traffic… they had a sign hanging from their porch telling people to keep their windows up and the volume down. The lights are timed to music and were spectacular. The line of cars to see the lights was manageable because it was snowy. I didn't know how well the kids would do sitting in the car for so long. They wanted more lights and we made 4 stops. Shout out to Best Buy for providing an emergency potty just in the nick of time. A distraught 3-yr old barely made it.

We kept the advent calendar and book tradition alive. The kids live for this! Each night, they open a wrapped Christmas book under the tree and enjoy a piece of chocolate while listening. This year James belly laughed at the chapter book, “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.” 

We took the kids on the “North Pole Express” train ride in Heber City. They got bells from the N. Pole, we sang Christmas songs on the train, hot chocolate and Suss cookies were served, and the kids met Santa. Those cookies made my night. My sweet husband even let me eat his cookie. The kids had endless questions for the elves. I'm glad I was persistent to get us tickets to this sold-out event.  I think our kids were the perfect ages. I don't see this being an annual tradition because it costs a pretty penny and my kids are growing up too fast.

Our neighborhood forgoes neighbor gifts. Instead, we buy toys for a local elementary school with needs. When you drop off the toys, Santa is there waiting with candy canes.

We continued our dollar store gift buying. The kids got to open these presents from each other on Christmas Eve. 

On Christmas Eve, we got Chinese takeout and rented the movie, “Lyle Lyle Crocodile.” Both the kids wanted seconds of Chinese food and James-- the bottomless pit--, even requested thirds. 

We had Christmas dinner at Jessica’s house. She is a fantastic hostess and also had her in-laws over. We sang Christmas carols, decorated cookies, and more. Jessica even had a hot chocolate bar. Oh and Chris made brisket. It was a top-notch meal and celebration. 

I was in charge of our ward Christmas program. This was a lot of work and I’m glad it’s over. There are many things you don’t think about that go into the program. The choir performed 2 songs (they practice in our home). We sang, “Were You There?” And “Can This Be the Child.” There was a beautiful piano duet of the song, “I Believe in Christ.” There was also a violin/viola duet of “Away in a Manger.”  I enjoyed picking music! The program ended with a piano solo by the best pianist I’ve heard (she has 3 master’s degrees), “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.” Luckily, I have my mom. I used an old Christmas program she had written and we tweaked it a bit. I had a practice at my house with those in the program. There were 5 readers. So many people in my ward thanked me and stopped me after church. It went well! My parent’s even tuned in from Brazil and my grandma also watched which meant a lot to me. After, I dashed off to accompany Jessica in her ward Christmas program.

We found the best sledding hill! It has been snowing soooo much here! Andrew said it's the most he's ever seen in Utah. Izzy and I enjoyed racing against Andrew and James. 

I chose themed wrapping paper again. Isabelle had pink unicorn wrapping paper and James had superhero paper.

Someone did “The 12 Days of Christmas for Us.” I’ll admit, this kind of embarrassed me. I thought they did it because I gave an emotional testimony recently about what a challenging year it has been. I later learned that others in the neighborhood also received the "12 days of Christmas" which made me feel better. We got a piece of a nativity set each night. It was nice of this family to show us love and much to my chagrin, we didn’t catch them. I have never been more tempted to buy a fancy doorbell with a camera and even looked into it. 

Santa brought James got a battery-powered car to drive and Isabelle got a giant sandbox. The sandbox is massive. 250 pounds only fills part of it. The kids have been entertained for hours.

I made a google sheet and planned events for my family. I did a lot of hosting. Jill, Rob, and Daisy flew in after Christmas. We met my grandma at "The Crack Shack" for dinner one night. Another day I went with my sisters and grandma to see the movie, "The Fabelmans." The boys watched "Avatar" and I was relieved I didn't have to sit through that. Of course, we went thrifting at DI. We played games galore and Jill gave me an early birthday present, a great and easy game called "Just One." We had our sibling gift exchange one night and got matching jammies, had pizza, and our kids dressed up for the nativity. To add to the excitement, Covid made a grand entrance. Ugh.

James and Daisy are BFF's

Nana and Papa sent a package that was so generous. The grandkids got world cup shirts and monkeys.

We celebrated our 10-year anniversary! We did something I have always wanted to do. We went to a different restaurant for each course. We stopped at Salsa Leedos for an appetizer. We had street tacos and of course chips and salsa. We made our way to Texas Roadhouse. The wait was too long, so we put our names on the waitlist and headed to do sealings at the Oquirrh Mountain temple. We returned to Texas Roadhouse and it hit the spot. Steak and rolls. We ended the night at Leatherby's ice cream. We were quite full at this point, but still managed to split Traci's peanut butter cup sundae. We were so grateful that Jess and Chris babysat. It took a few days for our food comas to wear off. 

We had tickets to go to the Ice Castles in Midway on New Year's Eve. Due to the weather, they canceled our tickets which was a bummer. We're looking forward to going another time. Instead, we went to the aquarium and grabbed dinner with my family. The aquarium had a 4:00 New Years' Eve countdown and James was thrilled about the confetti. He collected some and its remnants are all over the car. Yippee. Loveland Living Aquarium had a promotion going and our tickets were already so expensive we learned they could count towards an annual pass. We got a pass. We live so close and our kids really liked the aquarium this time. I hope we use our new pass lots.

 

Izzy was upset it was raining.

It’s no secret that 2022 was trying. My word for 2022 is loss. I lost a baby and my parents in a sense. At one point, I felt pretty maxed out. In addition to infertility/healing from a miscarriage, I suddenly had terrible hives and was dealing with behavioral problems at school. This much I know. I need Jesus and have felt him more than ever in my life. My life and plans have not gone how I wanted them to in 2022, but I know things will work out. Here's to 2023!