Merry Christmas

We had our Bagna Caulda night - John and Melissa and family were able to make it and we had a fun evening eating, playing games and chatting!  Some of them even tried the Bagna Caulda, but at least the kids and I enjoy it!  

Tuesday we mostly spent hanging out and playing and getting excited about Christmas!  

Wednesday, we met up with Sandi and the kids at a park near her house.  There was a playground, soccer fields, an obstacle course, and a garden!  We all had a fun time playing and hanging out together.  David had an encounter with the mud and wasn't happy, but thankfully Sandi had some old clothes from Taz that were being given away, and we managed to make some work for David, so we could keep playing.  Every prayer after that morning included David praying about seeing Aunt Sandi and playing with Aunt Sandi and going to the park with Aunt Sandi!  

Thursday was Christmas Eve.  The kids decorated gingerbread houses and had a fun time decorating and of course eating the candy

In the evening, we read the Christmas story in Luke and talked about Christmas and the reason we celebrate, and followed that with the usual Christmas Eve presents.  The kids all seemed to like their pajamas, and then we sent them to bed to get everything set up.  

I stuffed the stockings and then Eileen, Anna and I carried presents down while Dan arranged them, then we headed to bed.  

At around 8:30 in the morning, we all got up and headed down to open presents.  We started with stockings and then had breakfast, then we had a zoom call with Grandma and Grandpa Jones while we opened their presents.  Then we had a zoom call with Grandma and Grandpa Cox and Sandi and Jon's family.  At which point we just let them have at it until all that was left was paper and boxes.  :)  

Christmas night, we headed to John and Melissa's house for dinner and games.  We had a fun evening together and ate yummy food and hung out with cousins and it was wonderful! 

Saturday was a relaxed day - we spent it playing and cleaning and having fun together.  We built legos, vex toys, 3D puzzles of the Harry Potter world, race car tracks, and we had a great time!  In the evening, Eileen and Dan and I watched Wonder Woman 1984 on the new TV before heading to bed.  :) 

Today we enjoyed church and some wonderful talks and a wonderful Young Women's lesson and an afternoon of playing together!  

NO MORE SCHOOL!

This was the kids last week of school before Christmas Break!  It included a virtual band concert from the middle school kids and fun activities including the kids favorite "wear your pajamas to school" day - oh wait - that's every day now...  

Monday evening, we went to drop off plates of Christmas cookies.  It was nice getting to meet my ministering sisters in person finally.  We really enjoyed stopping by and chatting with people.  

David loves to help with laundry and he loves to have his picture taken....  He's such a little ham! 

On Wednesday, I went with the girls to the Young Women's activity.  They girls had a fun time painting happy messages on rocks.  I tried to get to know them a bit - I'm really looking forward to this calling! 

James dug out a bunch of my old yarn scraps and has been making blankets for his stuffies.  He has been working on this one for a while now and it's getting pretty big and looking pretty awesome!  He's so proud of himself! 

We have all determined that David is probably a future brass player - he LOVES to try to play Anna's trumpet and this week he got a hold of Aaron's Euphonium - and he can make sounds with them too - it's so funny!  He spent a good 20-30 minutes just playing on the euphonium and it took Dan and I a bit before we realized that it was David playing and not Aaron just goofing off.  

We had a pizza night this week - Dan put pepperccinis on his and David thought they smelled gross - and his expressing cracked me up!  

On Saturday, Dan and I finished up our Christmas shopping and then in the evening, we took the kids down to the river where they have a boat Christmas light parade.  It was raining, so we got dressed in rain coats and boots and grabbed our few working umbrellas and headed down to watch the parade!  It was a lot of fun, the kids all seemed to enjoy it despite the weather, and we ran into Sandi and Jon and their family there!  

 This morning was the church Christmas program - they had a wonderful recorded program with songs and messages.  It wasn't quite the same as a regular program, but it was still very nice!  

In the afternoon, Grandpa had his Zoom Christmas party.  It was fun!  We got to chat with most of the Francone family and most of the Wallace family too!  Julia, Sandi and I sang - it was fun, but I think sound was a big off with zoom.  It was hard to get a balance between music and singer and get it all to work well over zoom.  It was still a neat idea and we had a fun time.  Sandi and Taz and Kai came over for the meeting and for dinner.  The cousins had a great time playing together, and we enjoyed spinach dip and cinnamon rolls!  After, we had a Stake Christmas program.  It was really nice and well done.  I've sure missed being part of the church music this year.  :(  

Good Friends and Good Food

 Dan has been on a Crepe making kick lately.  He calls them "making eggs" and the kids all love to help eat them (and so do I!)  

The kids have had school all week and we are all looking forward to the Christmas break!  We met with some of Evelyn's teachers this week to try and figure out what she needs to be doing and how to do it.  The teachers all seems astonished that I had 5 kids in the house in school plus a 3 year old at home.  I think they all had a better understanding by the end of the meeting of how much personal help I'm able to give her and of the fact that we are learning all new software here and hopefully they will be a bit more patient with us as we learn it.  We were kinda thrown into the middle of the school year and expected to know how to do everything, but we don't....  I'm very ready for virtual learning to be done...

David loves to help in the kitchen - anytime someone is going to cook something, he asks if he can "make eggs"  On Saturday, we made a roast and David helped me wash the potatoes to put in the pot.  He was so cute! 

David has also started getting up really early in the morning and then coming in and climbing into bed with Dan and I, but he only wants to snuggle with me - if he is between Dan and I, he will slowly try to kick Dan out of bed.  If I take my arm off of him - he puts it back and if Dan tries to snuggle with us, he pushes Dan's arm off.  

On of the guys that Dan works with recently got moved out here and into their new house, but their furniture and stuff all got lost, so they have had to sit on the floor and eat take out, so we had them over for dinner on Saturday to help us eat the roast.  We sent them home with some of our freezer food so they can at least have some home made food instead of take out while waiting for their stuff to arrive.  

Sunday, Dan and I were speaking in church, so we all got to go to the building this week.  It's a lot less nerve wracking to speak in church when there are only a hand full of people in the room other than your own family.  After church, I got set apart as a Young Women's advisor and I'm so excited to get to serve with the Young Women!  I will be working with the youngest class - so I will be with Evelyn's class when she starts Young Women's in January!  After church, the youth had lessons - so I hopped on the young women's lesson to introduce myself and start participating with them and getting to know them a bit!  

In the afternoon, we started our great cookie cook-off!  We had our friends over to help us decorate, and we made cut out cookies and spritz cookies and then in the evening, Dan made the shortbread while I tried to get David to bed.  Eileen made herself my flour girl and while I was rolling out the dough and helping kids cut out cookies - she "aggressively floured everything" including the cookie cutters, the counter, the dough, herself and anyone who came in range.  :)  

Dan and I are trying to get presents wrapped up before Christmas Eve since we have our own presents to wrap plus the stuff from my parents.  So we wrap a few here and there and it's slowly getting done - less than 2 weeks til Christmas!!!!  

Dan and I went on a date night on Friday night.  We walked around the mall a bit and walked around Walmart a bit and got some YUMMY take out from a restaurant at the mall, then went to eat in the car.  Date night is certainly different with COVID and everything closed right now except shops and take out food, but any time I get out with Dan is a good time!  

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

 Well it's officially December, weather has been chilly but surprisingly dry and clear so we have taken lots of walks and gone to the play ground.  David loves walking down to the playground and seeing all the Christmas decorations on the way.  He really loves the Olaf and and the Bumble and the snowmen.  It's been fun to watch all the decorations go up!  

On Monday, we decorated our Christmas tree.  We talked about some of the symbolism for the Christmas tree and about the memories behind some of the ornaments, and then we drank eggnog and hung ornaments and sang Christmas Songs!  

Virtual school has been a bit rough - the it's very frustrating having to try to keep the kids on task all the time and keep David happy and not disruptive.  I will be glad when this is all over.  

Anna took David and James to the park one afternoon after school and I went out and ran an errand while I could, then I got home to find Dan playing with the curling iron....  He was very excited with how curly it got - but after a couple hours, he just looked like Doc from Back to the Future.  

Evelyn has been having fun with the foam curlers and I love how her hair comes out.  And it stays in well all day too!  

This weekend, was the MCO concert live stream.  We all watched it together on Friday night.  It was awesome!  We had fun looking for ourselves and listening to the music!  My Dad then proceeded to watch it as many times as he was able to over the course of the next few days - he spotted Koopa in the background when we show up and had a grand time listening and crying.  :)  

Today was almost back to usual busy!  Dan and I were asked to say the prayers this week, so we were able to go to the meeting at the church building for the broadcast.  The kids did well and the talks were wonderful.  After we came back home for Sacrament and then took it easy until Evelyn's Temple preview meeting in the afternoon.  Evelyn will be going into Young Womens this year!  I'm going to have all my girls in Young Womens now....  After, we had an early dinner before a zoom meeting with Grandpa and my parents and aunts and uncles and sister.  Then we watched the Christmas Devotional,  It was so wonderful - I finally feel like maybe the Christmas Season is actually starting now.  

Dan had fun making Texas Sheet Cake with David with the plan of taking some to some friends in the ward.  Then those friends stopped by with a home made treat for us!  ❤️❤️

Giving Thanks

This week for Family Home Evening, we had a talent show.  I gave the kids 2 rules - The first was that they HAD to do or share something,  and the second was that every comment about the things shared had to be 100% positive.  David showed off his spinning and rolling skills, James showed us his dragon drawing, Evie played her flute, Aaron showed a fancy origami flower he had made, Anna played her trumpet, Eileen sang, I played and sang and Daddy shared his baking talents by sharing his Boston Cream Pie with us.  It was a wonderful uplifting night!  

Tuesday was the kids last day of school for the week, so on Wednesday and Thursday morning, we met up at a park with Sandi and Taz and Kai.  We had a great time playing together and running around together and walking together.  The kids were so happy to see their cousins and I was so glad that we had some nice weather for being outside in!  

Thanksgiving was pretty chill.  Dan smoked the turkey, pies and cranberry sauce were made the night before, and Eileen did rolls, so all we had left was the asparagus, mashed potatoes and gravy, and stuffing.  I'm pretty sure this is the only Thanksgiving I have ever spent with only my immediate family - even when I was in the hospital for my surgery during Thanksgiving, I think we had family visit.  Dan made it a bit more special by pulling out the fancy serving dishes and plates and glasses.  

Friday morning, we had some errands to run, then in the afternoon, we tried out a place that Dan found on FB where you could cut your own tree.  They had lots of animals too - which the kids loved, but we ended up not getting our tree there, so after, we stopped at Home Depot on the way home and got our tree, but the tree we got was beautiful and the kids loving getting to see and hold and feed the animals!  

Eileen has been wanting to watch an anime show that her friends in her chat group keep talking about, so she enlisted Anna and I to watch it with her - the funny thing is that it's about volleyball, and Eileen has no interest in sports, but her friends like it, so she's watching it with us.  We told her to recommend it to Grandpa so he could talk about it with us too.  :)  

We spent Saturday getting Christmas Decorations out (tree will get decorated on Monday) and set up all over the house and we are finding that we have more places to decorate in this house, we got everything out and it still feels like we should have more.  So we will check out the after Christmas sales for next year!  :) 

Church today was wonderful and we had a fun afternoon playing games and chatting together.   Our real estate agent dropped off a couple pies this week.  Knowing we wouldn't be able to get through all that pie, we let the kids have at it.  I think they ate the whipped cream more than they ate the pie.  :) 

Last week President Nelson asked us to flood social media with gratitude - it has been so wonderful seeing my facebook feed filled with gratitude and joy!  What a wonderful way lighten our hearts this season!