New Year’s Eve

We had a pretty low key New Year's Eve this year. The 3 older kids all went to parties so Josh and I stayed home and hung out with the younger 2. We are usually up at the cabin so it was a new experience for them being home. They ran out on the deck and banged pots and pans at midnight.

Funny story...When we were outside banging pots and pans Brielle's feet got cold quick and she ran back inside. Brit was a trooper and stayed outside with me a little longer and even let me take a selfie with her. Her feet were cold too so as soon as I took the picture she turned around and jumped through the doorway to go back inside. The door, however was closed so she ran right into the glass door. We burst out laughing and couldn't stop laughing until we were all crying from laughing so hard. She hurt her toe, but laughed so hard she didn't even notice it was hurt til she stopped laughing. 

 

Desert Classic

We don't have to travel much for basketball so when Bingham was scheduled to go to the Desert Classic bball tournament in Palm Springs Josh and I grabbed flights so we could go as well. It was a lot of fun watching Brayden. All but one of the games was tough and they had to fight for every win. The refs were terrible and very inconsistent so they had to adjust their strategies for each game bc of it. But JV pulled off 4 wins including the championship game! Varsity lost one game so ended up third in their bracket. Brayden was named to the all tournament team so that was awesome! There wasn't much to do in Palm Springs so Josh and I mainly just relaxed in our room at our resort, but it was still a fun getaway and we enjoyed being there. 

 

Day After Christmas

We planned the day after Christmas to spend with the Brewers. Ryon and Jana came down from Idaho and stayed at our house bc my dad was sick and didn't want them staying at his house. We spent the whole day laughing, playing, exchanging gifts, and enjoying our time together. 

 

Christmas Evening

The Ericsons came over for the evening to eat dinner, exchange gifts, and spend time together. Brielle and Britney got aerial silks from grandma and grandpa and they love them! Everyone was waiting for a turn to learn some tricks on them. 

 

Christmas

What a fun day! We all wanted to sleep in but had somewhere to be at 11 so we had to get going around 9:30 to get it all done. We started with opening the stockings, their Santa gifts, then got to the rest of the presents. Once we finished opening everything up we had our traditional blueberry French toast for breakfast then got ready to head out. Justin and Ali came over and followed us over to Bryce's house. Bryce is Josh's boss's boss at WFG. A few months ago he asked if we wanted to buy his boat and after a lot of thinking and planning it out we decided to do it! Justin went in on it with us and we wanted to make it a fun Christmas surprise, although Justin's kids kind of knew about it. We told everyone we were doing a service project but had to stop at Bryce's house to drop off some food and a gift. We dropped the stuff of to Bryce and Josh told everyone that we had been storing one last gift in his garage. Bryce teased them all saying it was the riding lawn mower, but then finally told them the boat was ours. The kids went nuts and were SO excited. We were able to go on the boat and check it out. We got home and found one more gift that Santa had left for us...a surfboard! The kids can't wait for summer so we can spend as much time on the lake as we can! We spent the afternoon relaxing and playing with the new toys the kids all got. 

 

Christmas Before Pics

I always love the peace that I feel walking around before anyone else is up. It's always a lot of work the whole month to get ready for Christmas and if I don't take time to breathe it goes by too fast and I feel like I miss it. I'll always cherish the quiet moments I spend by myself before everyone else joins me. 

 

Little Elves

This year was a lot different than normal. For whatever reason I wasn't very on top of Christmas as we've been extra busy this month. I started buying gifts about 10 days before Christmas so it made for a very stressful week lol. Luckily these elves came to the rescue and spent a couple hours watching Christmas movies and helping me wrap all the gifts. 

 

Christmas Eve

It was a special day to have Christmas Eve on a Sunday. We were able to go to church and enjoy the beautiful music and Christmas message that was shared. We spent the afternoon relaxing, wrapping presents, and watching Christmas movies. For the evening we headed to Michael and Natalie's house for dinner with the Ericsons. Once we made it home we watched a spiritual movie and talked about Christ and how grateful we are for all our blessings. I didn't take many pictures but it was a wonderful day spent together.

 

Spirit Animals

Elsie Tueller is one of our favorites. She was a Minerette and is now a Cougarette, but more importantly she has the strongest spirit that is always felt when you are around her. She is a great example to my girls and they all look up to her. A few weeks ago Elsie was talking about how much she loves Britney and feels like they are the same person...spirit animals. I had to catch a pic of how cute they are. 

 

Christmas Adam

I don't know that I'd say it's a tradition yet, but for a year or two we haven't had any parties on Christmas Adam so we've hung out and made a fun night of it. Last year Josh had the flu so he missed out so it was fun to have him around tonight. The kids got to plan what we did so we made German pancakes for dinner, did gingerbread houses, then played one of the games I got us for Christmas. It was a lot of fun and I love how much we all enjoy being together.