December is always a busy month with getting ready for Christmas, end of term school items, and holiday concerts and recitals.
On the 17th, Scott's sister Krissy and her family flew in from North Carolina and stayed with us through Christmas. They took off again on the 27th. We enjoyed spending time with their family, and having little ones around again...it's been a long time since we've had little ones at home.
Charles on a Deacon's temple trip.
Charles also finished up his Eagle project and got all his papers turned in. We're still waiting to hear back about when his court of honor will be. He did his eagle project with Bear-O-Care, a nonprofit that is a daycare for adults with severe disabilities.
I finally put some family pictures up on our walls now that we've been in this house for over 3 years! These are hung in the basement and you see it just as you walk down the stairs. I actually hung them about a month before, but forgot to take a picture of it. It took me a couple of hours to get them all hung fairly evenly.
The evening of December 23rd, Krissy's family took our family ice skating at outdoor rink near by, as a Christmas gift. We LOVE ice skating.
Wade stayed at home with baby Wade, but Ruth and Pierson joined us. It was tricky as they're young, but they did good and held out for about an hour.
This employee was dressed up just like Buddy the Elf! Loved it! I told Scott he should get an outfit like this, but he didn't seem to like that idea, lol.
Scott and I prepared dinner on Christmas Eve, and Krissy and Wade did dinner Christmas day. We had strombolli and salad on Christmas Eve and Ham and Cheese Sliders on Christmas Day. Everything was delicious!
Christmas Eve we had sugar cookies(I had frozen leftovers from our party) and this Italian sweetbread, Pandoro.
When you slice it horizontally it's shaped like a star; a Christmas dessert.
Christmas Eve, as always, we acted out the nativity and sang carols throughout.
Christmas morning people can open their stockings whenever (the young girls opened theirs very early in the morning) and then once everyone is up, the kids all took turns opening gifts. This year we told them no earlier than 7am.
When my mom passed away, she had a ukele that I was able to secretly bring home and then I gifted it to the family, from her, on Christmas. Elisabeth had been asking for one for Christmas, so she was particularly pleased and has been playing on it regularly since.
Annabelle, Charles and Scott have been playing on it too sometimes.
After the family left, one morning Jane and Nora wanted to go shopping with their Christmas money. So we went out for a couple of hours, and we got lunch at Cafe Rio as well, which is always a big hit.
Here's Nora outside of Target; she wanted to pose for a picture.
New Year's Eve(day), our dear friend Stacey (kinda like a stand-in grandma to our kids) took me and the kids to see the new Frozen 2 movie. And all the kids were super excited that she got them concession food...because mom NEVER does that! I rarely take them to the movies in the first place because it's so dang expensive, and I just can't bear to pay even more for extremely overpriced food. But they all LOVED it and it made for a wonderful start to their New Year's Eve.
That evening Elisabeth and Charles were out with friends, Annabelle was with friends until 10, and we stayed up with the girls (You have to when you're waiting for kids to get home and to pick them up) and played games.
