Elfie and Snoop are back! Bless the older children.. ok Olive and Weston, for making this happen.
The night we went to the Giving Machine in downtown Gilbert, there was some sort of winter market happening with a real snow slide that only Tanner was willing to try because it was a guaranteed wet bum afterward!
Yummiest caramels from our pest control guy!
The older boys wrestle but Olive wants to snuggle.
Weston's first year wrestling for ALA and his first meet was stressful for me!!! He's so new and doesn't know much but he's enjoying the season. It's fun to visit with Colby Lindblom since her son also wrestles.
I'm on the swim/dive team boosters and our end of the year banquet was the same night as Weston's wrestling match but luckily they were next door to each other so I just ran back and forth.
Collin got all the glaze for winning state. Weston got an award for most improved! And it's true, he progressed leaps and bounds this year. We served BBQ pork nachos and my backseat was filled to the brim with supplies. It was a lot of work setting up, putting it on and cleaning up. Glad to have that done!
I decided we'd dress up like the Lorax for our Christmas Card this year. I had to buy 3 different sizes to fit us all and I think the best part was dancing in this get-up. It took me a FULL day to edit it though. Biggest relief to get it finished and sent to the printer!
The irony is I've never even seen this movie. Collin had to tell me that the Lorax hold his bum in order to fly.
One of my favorite traditions... the Christmas MCO concert! Paige was singing in it, so Collin came with us, which was nice. We ate at Nuntheporn Thai restaurant which is next door to the arts center beforehand and got some DQ afterward. Love this night.
Olive had her Christmas dance concert at Combs High School. All the grandparents came and Mr. Tanner. It's fun that Lindi and Della are at this studio now so we see the Goodmans at these things! We met at Morenos afterward for dinner while we waited for them to have their final performance.
Such a pretty pose!
This is the Relief Society's family I saw after church waiting for their mom. I had to snap a pic to send to her. A whole family serves when a parent is in a calling like this and I wanted to remember their example.
Leah had reached out wanting to do some sort of Christmas party with us so we landed on throwing a birthday party for Jesus! We invited Marcie's family because Leah's kids line up with Collin and Weston but Marcie's kids are perfect for my younger two. Shelley couldn't make it. We smoked homemade pizzas and I made a fun birthday cake. Leah did a lesson on the gifts we can give to Jesus and then the kids wrote a gift they wanted to give Jesus and we helped them wrap them to put under the tree. After we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus, we loaded in the cars and drove to the Mesa temple lights. I had packed a big igloo of PIPING hot, hot chocolate for us to drink and it's a good thing we didn't all burn off our taste buds! It wasn't very crowded, which was so nice. Definitely do temple lights early in the month! We even got to see the nativity display in the visitor's center with almost no line.
I was actually feeling maxed out that weekend and trying to keep the grumpies from ruining things. The night was great, it was just the day leading up to it. In hindsight though, I was so glad we did it because it was the next day that Collin had his brain hemorrhage. I'm so grateful for everything we were able to get in, the beginning of the month before the hospital stay. God was merciful.
Can you just hear the screaming goat, "ahhhhhhhhh!" haha
This was the fateful night of Collin's brain bleed. I was so stressed during her performance knowing something was wrong.
Tanner came in clutch as parent's huddled outside the doors before they let us. I told him, the minute they open the doors, you're small... just wiggle through and find the closest 6 seats you can lay across! He did awesome! They block off the first 10ish rows for the orchestra students so we got almost as close as possible. Olive got to introduce one of the songs and she tried out for an extra number and made it so it was fun to see her do a harder song with the 8th graders too.
While we were in the hospital, Marcie, Shelley and my mom were amazing helping with Tanner. Winnie was loving the extra people coming over! Marcie also took Tanner for the whole weekend and they went to see Christmas lights!
My kids also went to the Goodman's ward party that had a mechanical bull!
I literally don't know what I would do without Marcie! She's already overwhelmed with her four but she's so happy to take on more. Tanner is the LUCKIEST.
I bet Tanner looks forward to when Grandma has him because he gets the yummy fast food! She took him to Della's school concert and apparently he found a hole in his water bottle, oy very.
Olive has been looking forward to this friend, Christmas party since before Halloween. We were hosting it and it had been big drama trying to find a date that worked. So even though Collin was in the hospital, we didn't cancel it. Travis stayed with Collin and I helped Olive prep and do all the things! We played Left, Right, Center, they had a gift exchange, decorated cookies, had hot chocolate and watched a Christmas movie. They had the best time and I was so glad it could all work out.
Before Collin went into the hospital we had brainstormed about who to do The 12 Days of Christmas for and we decided to do it for one of Collin's school friends, Jayce. He's the oldest of 7 kids in a blended family and his parents were separating and apparently they are struggling financially. He lives really close in a neighboring community which made it much more convenient. I was stressed that with our new situation, it wouldn't work out, but the Saturday I was home, I was able to get everything figured out and wrapped... for the most part. I had to rely on Weston and Rusty to deliver the first night, but I was SO HAPPY I pushed forward and still did it. So many people had been serving us and it's SO HARD to be on that end of things. I really wanted to do something special for someone else. And the 12 Days is always extra fun because it's anonymous. Each night we dropped off a figurine from a nativity set, a treat and a gift card. Once we were home again, things got easier to manage. It was mostly Tanner that did the dropping and running (with a ski mask on) but the last couple days, Weston, Olive and Tanner did it together because the young kids in the family had caught on and would wait and chase them. They would hop in the car breathless yelling, go go go!! And of course, that is lots of fun. Since the family doesn't know us, I was happy knowing that even if they saw our car or caught a glimpse of one of the kids, they wouldn't figure out who we were.
The Lindblom Christmas party was the Sunday Collin was in the hospital. I thought it would be such a nice reprieve. I love being with my family. But for some reason the moment I stepped inside, I felt heavy and had no energy to talk about what was going on. I wished I could forget what was going on and enjoy Christmas but for some reason I couldn't shake the sadness. There was so much delicious food and I didn't even have an appetite. I did love the program. Abbey sang while David played guitar, which was beautiful. And they had us all join in and sing the last verse with them. Olive played her violin and Tanner played the piano. I also played my piano piece. It was a really short arrangement of What Child is This, but I loved learning it over the past couple months.
Senergy has a social media person now who makes Instagram reels and my dad is never in them but this one showed him at the top of the pyramid as Santa Clause.. the boss, haha! Made me laugh.
If I ever got a vanity plate I would want it to either say "THXTRAV" or this.... memories of the Dinosaur T.V. show that David was scared of. Totally made me laugh.
After Collin was back home, Megan was in town so we went out to Aubergine. It was nice to go out with friends after so much stress.
Jenni's mom, Suzanne Lines, died. It was expected. She had been very sick for a year, but still so hard to lose a parent. Her funeral was at our old ward building so we got to see some old ward friends. I lived at Jenni's house during the high school years and while her mom didn't interact with us a ton, I do remember that she was super calm. Jenni said she never yelled once when she was growing up. She was ahead of her time with gentle parenting. I remember her reminding to "use your words". She was our Laurel advisor for a short time and in one lesson she was teaching that there is always something to be grateful for. She shared one really awful day she had as a parent and the best thing she could recognize was that the dog threw up on the tile instead of the carpet.. but still, there was something to be thankful for!
We were all friends, growing up in the Southern Estates ward. Travis with all his wives, haha. But truly, Jessica and Jenni say they fought over who got to be "married" to Travis in elementary school walking home because they all lived on the same street.
There was a random night we didn't have anything going on, so we reached out to the Figs to see if they wanted to go to dinner and see the lights at the Riparian. Of course, while we're driving there, our pets heads start falling off! Travis realized a family in our ward is planning to baptize their kid in the morning but they are inactive and haven't done any of the interviews. The Primary dropped the ball and he was scrambling to figure it out. That triggered me realizing that stake baptisms were happening in the morning when Alisa and I thought we were going to be able to set up for the ward Nativity Pageant. It was a mess! I felt so bad ignoring Marcie and Austin through dinner while we put out fires.
Then we didn't realize it cost money to see the lights! I felt so dumb. It was not cheap. I just assumed because the Riparian is free, it was a service the City of Gilbert put on. It was still fun to walk through and see them. I've noticed this for years and always wondered what it was all about.
Olive and I went to Ballet Etudes "Nutcracker" at Higley Performing Arts Center, that Posey was in! It was a huge time commitment for her so I was glad to be able to go support her!
I had been wanting to print flyers for our ward's Nativity and hand them out to the neighborhood but with everything going on, that didn't happen. I was determined though so I edited the flyer to be more inclusive and printed a couple hundred and handed them out to our street. Then Travis was AMAZING and he and Tanner and Olive and her friends dispersed the rest throughout our neighborhood! It was the day of, so not much notice, but hey, it still got done.
I was in charge of the angels. We only had one practice at my house and one more the day of the nativity. I helped set up that morning and came early to help people with costumes. I had done a lot of work behind the scenes, earlier in the season coming up with people in our ward to do the various parts. I love this program. Hearing the beautiful Christmas music was soothing to my soul. I'm always sad more people don't come!
A text from the dive coach, Laura...
Olive got to sing a special party in our ward Sunday Christmas program with her friend, Navy.
I went with the unconventional brown theme this year. I should have taken into account that it's hard to match brown for the boy's pants and suits. Ohhh well. But Olive and my dresses were on point, right, haha!
We had our Shepherd's night the Sunday before Christmas. Another win! Any traditions I could keep after our crazy month, I was thrilled. We were all together and I was so happy. We all shared our favorite name of Christ then lit each other's candles as we shared until we had the whole wreath filled. There is something about eating off the table, am I right? I had invited the Wayment family to join us but sadly they couldn't make it. It's sobering to realize Heather only had 13 more days of earth life at that point.
Then we finally busted out our fancy, NYC hot chocolate and delivered the green salsa to the neighborhood and ward members that I had spent the afternoon making! Loaded up the wagon with about 40 containers of salsa and Christmas cards and thought this would be a sweet end to our day. What was I thinking? This is never the case. Whenever we deliver neighbor gifts, it is ALWAYS drama and fighting. We hadn't even made it to the end of the street before I was sighing and saying, "Can't we all just get along?!" The next thing I heard was Tanner angrily retorting to Weston up ahead of us on their scooters, "No, YOU shut up!!"
Yep, just out here spreading our Christmas cheer!
We're in the countdown to Christmas...
Monday night we did our Goodman tradition at their house.
I attempted a new tradition for the gingerbread houses. I bought cake molds and made a small gingerbread cake for everyone, hoping they could decorate then add ice cream and eat it for dessert! I don't know that it went over that well. I thought it tasted good though!
Casey is always creative. How about that diving board?!
Then we piled in the back of the truck and drove around passing out some lights awards and dancing for Melissa and TC Hogle's families, our Aunt Tava and Uncle Kent and finally, Grandma Ann! We sang and danced to Feliz Navidad for her and it was a lot of fun!
Collin was still moving very gingerly (haha no pun intended), but he managed to play 9 square with us without jumping or lunging or making any sudden movements. Poor boy took a full week to be able to walk and move normally without a lot of pain in his leg. Angiograms are not fun!
For our family's own "Christmas Eve" we go to Cheesecake Factory on Christmas Adam. I think our waitress wanted to adopt us as her own. She was the nicest grandma lady. It was a really nice dinner.
Then we did the Udall Christmas program of singing hymns and reading Luke 2 with Grandma Ann. We love her.
We were almost done with the 12 Days!
Then we did the Secret Santa sibling gift exchange.
Collin gave to Olive
Weston gave to Collin
Olive gave to Tanner
Tanner gave to Weston
Not the elves getting a little vengeful!
Let's give it up for Travis!! He wrapped every single present this year. It was Christmas Eve and I had no less than 53, 208 things to do. Including wrapping all the presents. I don't know what I would have done without him.
Sweetest card from Christopher's family I want to remember.
Weston got ringworm. SO. FUN.
Now we know... you need to shower with special anti-fungal soap when you wrestle. Also wash all your wrestling things in special detergent.
Travis's gift for Dr. Gardner this year was funny! No parking in his spot anymore!
Weston and his friends all got boards for Christmas this year so they have officially entered their skating era.
I love our Christmas lights so much!! The boys did an amazing job. It's so sad when the season ends and they have to come down.
Collin finally got his Costco card and he came into show me and as I took a picture I DIED laughing realizing I unintentionally put it at just the right spot for his body haha.
The office gave Quin and Travis a car racing experience for Christmas!
No school and this kid doesn't get the attention his siblings did at this age so I took him and his friends to Fat Cats to bowl.
Christmas on Comstock... the dancing lights on all the houses synced up to Christmas music always brings very long lines. Ain't nobody got time for that! But little known fact... they still do it til New Years, but no one goes so there's no lines! Tanner and I must have driven through over ten times!
I wanted to document getting this sweet card. I was assigned to be a ministering sister to Alisa when we first moved into this ward. She is very intimidating. She's beautiful and aloof and seemed unapproachable. But I tried anyway. Very simple things. Dropping off treats and notes. After awhile she sent a nice text thanking me. This progressed into chatting occasionally and then me asking her to do the ward Christmas party with my help. That bonded us. We did it again the following year. I would bring her birthday and holiday gifts. She invited me to her daughter's baby shower and I showed up. We really have never done much outside church things ever. And yet she has shown so much gratitude for my friendship. It's surprised me how much my little offerings of love affected her. Multiple times she has written me cards that have brought me to tears. I want to remember this because it is a testament to me of ministering. You never know who could use a friend. Even if they seem perfect and intimidating like Alisa, everyone needs friends.
Finally, a place for all the decor so I don't have to think it through next year!
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