December 2018

Christmas jammies are given on the first of December (as my kids are sure to remind me every year).  Kaden was so excited to open a present, and all he got was soft pants, so I told Dylan he better let Kaden open his gift too because otherwise he may get upset.  He liked the perler bead Zuma

 Kylee sang a beautiful song in Sacrament Meeting in December.  Her voice teacher chose the song and told her to contact our ward music leader to get her a date to sing it in church, ha ha.  She did wonderful!  And a few days later she sang it at the Relief Society dinner.  They had asked all the young women to volunteer to sing or play a musical number.  Kylee signed up.  I'm so proud of her!  She does such a good job.

 The girls had their piano recital too.  They both had to work hard on their songs and they did great.  I love Vicki.

Kylee sings in the ward choir.  They had been working on the Christmas program.  The day before the program the choir director texted me and asked if Kylee would be willing to sing the solo part because the woman who was planning to sing it got pneumonia and wouldn't be able to do it.  We were in Salt Lake at the time and Kylee had a headache and wasn't feeling that great.  I told her it was an honor to be asked.  She agreed.  She went over to practice at Georgia's house for a few minutes in the morning and then performed it that day at church.  She was great!  She's so awesome.

One of my least favorite Christmas traditions, ha ha.  Gingerbread houses.  Or "fit as much candy as possible" according to Dylan and Sadie.  Kylee is the only one who works hard enough to get it to stay together. And she's quite proud of her perfect house.

 Kaden's preschool program was fun!  They are just so cute.

 I put together Sadie's class Christmas party.  It was fun.  I got a book for every child, with some of them donated, and we did a gift exchange.  I had fun hanging out with my friends though.

Sherri, Jen and I found some time to go to the temple and go to lunch.  We brought our littlest boys, and at one point I gave Kaden my phone.  They spent the next 20 minutes posing while Kaden took pictures of them.  He took this one of us too.

 Dylan got an award for Student of the Week.

 Kylee's indoor soccer team along with the other half who were on the other team.  Most of these girls are also on the premier team, but there were too many of them so they made two teams and put a couple other girls on the teams too.

 Kaden has become a Jenga pro.  And he's so cute and funny.

This cute boy wants to cuddle in my bed every night.  Usually I'm just reading or doing something on my phone.  Sometimes he will doze off before I have a chance to put him to bed.  I'm going to miss these times at some point.

 My friend's and I drew names and got together for sushi to exchange gifts.  We've all been busy and don't see each other as much as we should.

6 months ago I never would’ve thought it possible to read the Book of Mormon in a month. I was intimidated by the 90 day challenge, but Kylee and I accepted the 90 day challenge back in September since she was working towards her YW medallion and I wanted to read it more as well. I started out reading but ended up mostly listening because I’m a multitasker (aka mom). In the middle of our 90 days we went to General Conference and the prophet issued the same 90 day challenge! Initially I thought I can just count what I had already read towards his challenge. But he had specifically asked us to mark the references to Christ, which I hadn’t done, and which I can’t do while listening. I finished my original 90 day challenge on Thanksgiving and decided what better way to spend my time this month than reading and marking the Book of Mormon. It was a challenge, but I embraced it. It meant 20 pages a day. It took all of my “free” time. I often fell asleep (being honest, it’s hard sometimes!) But what a blessing it has been! The prophet knows what he’s talking about. Marking as I read has brought a deeper understanding of this book and a stronger testimony. I’ve also felt more peace than I can ever remember feeling this time of year.  December is usually a really stressful month, and I try really hard to serve others and always end up feeling completely drained and exhausted.  Reading the Book of Mormon and also attending the temple more often, has helped me to feel more peace.  I feel like I'm usually antsy and have a hard time sitting still and focusing at church and at the temple.  I feel like my energy is buzzing.  But lately, I feel much different.  I feel like I am slowing down and can just be.  Just listen and feel the spirit.  What a blessing it has been!  I love our prophet and I love this book!

Somehow we've had some downtime this month.  Like I said, this year has been different.  So I have been playing games with the kids and doing puzzles as well.  This was a particularly fun game.  I was beating Dylan and Sadie too badly so I decided to make Harry Potter words only.  The other kids quit and started helping me.  And this puzzle was one of the hardest ones we did.

 It got REALLY quite cold outside, -5 or so.  And I guess that was cold enough that the bunny decided she needed the heat lamp.  Jaxon begrudgingly shared with her.  It was cute.  The bunny is the bully in our yard.  We had this other Siamese cat hanging out in our yard for months.  He would take the light sometimes.  Jaxon seemed to tolerate him just fine.  We didn't mind him, though he ate a lot of our cat food.

Christmas

I would say Christmas was pretty quiet this year.  We didn't travel any more than that quick Salt Lake trip.  We didn't try to do anything crazy, just hung out at home.  I finished the Book of Mormon challenge from President Nelson, and I ran for a long time on my treadmill with my new running shoes :)

We had Jeff and Brooke's family over for chocolate fondue a couple days before Christmas and exchanged gifts with them.  We forgot to get a cousin picture though.

I decided to make a yummy Christmas Eve dinner and remembered doing Steak in a Pastry one year and we've always loved that dish.  The problem is that it's gluten.  I googled gluten free puff pastry and there were no products for sale but there was a recipe.  The ingredients were simple, just a gluten free pie crust mix and butter.  A LOT of butter.  But the technique was complicated.  It took two days of folding and rolling out the pastry and refrigerating it.  In the end, the pastry didn't hold up quite like it was supposed to, as you can see from this picture.  But it was yummy!!  The pastry is good, but the bernaise sauce really makes it amazing.  Next time I'll skip the pastry and just make sure to have plenty of sauce.

Christmas morning before all the chaos.

 Santa didn't come until 5:30 am so the kids wouldn't be out of bed snooping all night.  I woke up early and sat on the couch reading and dozing a bit while I waited for the kids to get up, I wanted to see their surprise.  We had told them to sleep until 7.  Kaden came out of his room at 6:30 and kind of looked past me at all the presents.  Then he went to the bathroom.  He said, "is it okay if I go look at my lookout tower for just a minute?"  I said sure, and he pulled it out a bit to play with for basically one minute.  Then he went back to his room, taking a few last glances at the stuff on his way, and shut the door.  I sat there in shock for a bit wondering how he could possibly have enough discipline to go back to bed after seeing all that.  But he did. I doubt he really went to sleep, though.  It was still very dark and he clearly can't tell time so he must've thought it was still the middle of the night.  He's amazing sometimes.  Kylee came up about 6:50 and sat on the couch just looking around.  She showed no surprise or excitement over her snowboard.  She's stone-faced most of the time.  Dylan came running up right at 7.  They looked at each other and Dylan said, "I'll wake up Kaden, you wake up Sadie." And they ran off.  It was a good morning.  Everyone was happy.  There was at least a half hour before they started fighting (because everyone else's toys always look more fun than your own).  It was perfect.  The best part was that the kids wanted me to open my gift from them and Daddy very first.  Proving that giving is just as good as getting.  They picked out a necklace and some diamond earrings for me, which I love. (I haven't taken out the earrings and it's been three weeks).  They also shopped for each other and were excited for their gifts to be opened.  I like that part of Christmas.  (The part I didn't love was when Kylee came home from school every day telling me she needed yet another gift for a different friend, and they were all very specific.  She has been doing service trying to earn her Honor Bee which means she has not been paid for the last few babysitting jobs she has done, which means she wanted me to spend like $15 on six different friends for her.  Next year they are definitely drawing names!)