December 2023

Kylee and Kaden are a little too obsessed with pickles...

Kaden says some funny things but he is fun to hang out with.

Playing soccer twice a week has been wearing on my hips and knees!  Soaking in the pool at the gym is okay for a few minutes.  But the night I felt really broken, I took a couple pans full of snow and sat in my bathtub for 15 minutes or so.  And it seriously worked!  I woke up feeling amazingly not-broken.

Kaden played a small 3v3 tournament and had fun.  But he also had a basketball game, lol.

Sadie started physical therapy for her feet but then we told them it was her knee that was bothering her.  They basically told her fixing her hips would help both.  Also stretching her calves.  I swear all they ever do is tell people to strengthen hips.  That's what they told me for both injuries I've had.  And Kylee for her hamstring.

Sadie finished up basketball and had a few parties with her bball friends.  She was really glad she did basketball even though she wasn't really keen on the idea at the start.  School sports are just fun.

Winter has it's beauty.  This is humidity and fog in the freezing temps.

Dylan has been having a lot of success with his Capcut job.  He has multiple phones running multiple accounts and making thousands of dollars every week.  He won a giveaway and Capcut sent him this little gift package.  He uses the water bottle daily.

Christmas festivities.  

Sadie's cute young women's group came caroling to my house.

I got to spend time with Ingrid and Liza helping them wrap presents.

Our ward went all out with the ward party.

A couple kids did gingerbread houses.

We got together with Ryan's siblings' families for dinner and games. 

Kaden won Left Right Center.  One round anyway.

Christmas morning!

Kylee filled out this end-of-year questionnaire that I thought would be good to save.

Arizona

 Kaden, Sadie, Ryan and I went to Arizona for a few days over Christmas break.  The weather was perfect and we had a great time.  Golf was on the schedule every day, but now that I'm a golfer, I enjoyed that.  Between the three of us, we switched off after 9 holes, usually with Ryan playing 18 and Cheryl and I switching to hang out with kids.  I played surprisingly well considering I hadn't been playing for months.  Which is good because the course is very busy and they send us out with two other people.  So it would've been embarrassing if I was hitting it out of bounds all the time (only a few times).  By the 4th day of golfing, my forearms were SORE though.  I'm not conditioned for that.  I barely made it.

This is how they decorate for Christmas in the dessert, lol.

My favorite part of going south in the winter is running.  Although I have never been super impressed with the scenery in Arizona (it's all brown and dry and dead and sharp) I found a lot of beauty this time.

And of course we hung out with the kids.  We took them swimming, in the afternoon and at night.  We played Pickleball, which everyone loved (Grandma has bursitis in her knee so she has a hard time playing).  We went to the movies to see Wonka.  We went out for ice cream. 

The only unfortunate thing is that I ended up getting sick.  I rarely get sick!  We went to dinner and were heading into the movie.  I had felt bad for awhile but at that point it was clear that I was coming down with a fever probably.  My throat had been sore but other than that I was fine.  Now I had a bad headached and getting body aches.  I was trying to play it off like it wasn't a big deal because I didn't want Cheryl worried about getting sick.  I wasn't coughing, sneezing, snotting, etc to spread germs so I just tried to stay a few feet away from Cheryl.  Ryan and I walked over to Target to purchase Tylenol because we had time before the movie, and I didn't think I was going to make it.  But as soon as I took the Tylenol I was much more functional.  I slept in and didn't run that next morning, but I still got up and went golfing.  No big deal.

Kylee and Dylan enjoyed having the house to themselves for a few days!

Dance Comp Season Starts

Having both girls dance is a lot, but it was also pretty great.  Of course, this was one of the only competitions they did together, but I thought it was going to be nice seeing them both at the same time.  This one was nice at least.  This was Pocatello.

The dance girls are a fun group.  They are good to each other.

I proudly wore my Dance Mom shirt that I had purchased a couple years before and never really wore.  I was ready to embrace it.  But right off I messed up...  I was there so early.  I was at least 20 minutes earlier than their first dance was scheduled to start.  The way this competition was run was different, they had two sets of judges who were judging different groups.  So they were able to move faster, they didn't have to wait 3-5 minutes in between each dance for the judges to finish writing.  But they also had the judges sitting on opposite sides of the gym, so basically every other dance faced the opposite direction.  That spread out the people in the stands I guess.  Anyway, I got there early and saw that some groups faced the other direction so I left all my stuff and went out of the gym in search of the schedule and someone to direct me.  Well, they have people manning the doors making sure nobody is coming or going in the middle of a dance.  I get it, that's important.  But they shut the door just as I was seeing Kylee's team enter the floor.  WAY EARLY!  And I was shut out!  I could have bullied my way in, but even if I had, I would've been behind them.  So I would've had to go to the other side and bully my way in there and I just didn't bother.  I knew there would be other competitions where I saw them perform military, but they hadn't performed it at any of the football games (we had seen all their other dances already).  Anyway, I was super bummed.  But also, it's hard to complain that the dance comp is running ahead of schedule.  Though I will say MOST of the parents missed their child's first dance because of it.

Watching through the window from the back.  Sad.

The Junior Knightline girls and the real Knightline girls supported each other.  The older girls were mentors for the younger.  It would be really cute if Kylee was actually nice to Sadie.  I know she helped her a little with her hair, but for the most part it was her "big sister" or whoever else was being helpful that would help Sadie.

Kylee is so grown up and I love these pom costumes.  Even with a torn hamstring, she did fantastic.

They came away with some awards!