End of Year 2017

As you can see, we have done some exploring this year while Corey has enjoyed working.  Okay, we did go see the Alamo and Mt. Rushmore without him, but he was with us for White Sands.  And he does work a lot.

We keep busy, Westley with marching band, school and seminary, Caleb with school, band and scouts, Travis with school and scouts, Eliza with her pageant, school, activity days, and the many choirs she is part of (she quit gymnastics just recently), Jonah with school, Annmarie with making everything a challenge, and Nathan getting into everything, especially markers and crayons.  Corey works a lot, both at work at In-N-Out and with his church calling as the Elder's Quorum President, and Jenna keeps busy managing it all, plus teaching preschool and piano lessons.

We hope you all find joy in this Christmas season as we remember the birth of Jesus Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of the World. Merry Christmas!

Ice Cream in December

We had these gift cards for Chic-Fil-A for a free ice cream cone and we had nine of them, one for each kid plus me and Corey, and they expired on December 30, 2017.  We ended up using seven cards--Nathan and I shared--so while we were there eating our ice cream, I gave the two extra cards to some other customers.  Eliza was feeling better during the day, so she came too.  Free stuff is free stuff, and we like free!

Sick

Eliza came down with the flu during the Christmas break.  It was really unfortunate because my brother Aaron and his family is moving to Japan in January and this week is the last week that the kids can spend time together.  Because Eliza was so sick, she wasn't able to spend as much time with Maggie as she wanted to.  We gave Eliza a few doses of the nebulizer steroids to help improve her breathing. Finally, after a couple of days with no improvement, we took her in.  She is doing better, but still needs lots of rest.

Family Portraits

We had some family portraits done this week.  It was such a last minute thing and I threw together clothes from what we already had.  They turned out so great!  We were very pleased.

Christmas Tradition

One of my favorite Christmas traditions that we started the year we moved to Texas (2014) is that the kids make their gifts for each other.  We do a secret Santa exchange where the kids each draw a name and then the rule is that the gift has to be homemade.  This year, they came up with great ideas, as usual.  Annmarie gave Caleb a set of four homemade bookmarks that she painted and then I laminated.  Caleb gave Annmarie a paper origami flower.  Travis gave Eliza a coupon book.  Eliza gave Nathan a coloring book.  And Nathan gave Travis his own tin of homemade fudge (Nathan "helped" with the fudge by standing at the counter with me while I made it). Westley gave Jonah a Star Wars picture he drew and Jonah gave Westley this cool poster he made with Westley's name.  Each letter of Westley's name has a Star Wars picture drawn all over it and we made the ST look like the Star Wars logo ST.  I love this tradition!

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve, I drove around with the kids looking at lights.  We also went in to Corey's store and got hot chocolate.  Unfortunately, after I did that, I remembered it was still Sunday!  Whoops!  Corey stayed at home with Nathan to put him to bed.  We enjoyed this light display in Adam and Eve's neighborhood that was two houses synced to music that was playing on a radio station. 

In-N-Out Christmas Party

In-N-Out always throws a fancy Christmas party for its managers and warehouse people. This year it was at the old Union Station, which is the same place it was last year. The food is always good and we always get a Christmas gift, usually something fun with the In-N-Out logo on it. I look forward to these parties and dressing up for them every year. The nice thing is that now we finally have kids old enough to babysit so we don't have to find a babysitter!

Christmas Band Concert

My kids have been in band for more than four years now and not once have they had a Christmas concert where they play Christmas music.  So I was really excited to learn that the high school band was having a Christmas concert.  This was the first time Westley got to wear his formal concert attire, and he got to wear the red bow tie because it was Christmas.  The band all looked so good in their formal attire and they played so well.  I truly enjoyed this concert.  I can't wait for future Christmas concerts!

More December Happenings

Westley was supposed to get his braces off this month. I took him in and took the picture of him, but then the orthodontist said he had to wait a few more weeks. Poor little Nathan fell on his face outside and scraped his nose. He looks a lot worse than he acts. And one of Corey's headlights in his car went out. That entails taking the whole front bumper off in order to get to the headlight. What a pain! This is the second time since moving to Texas that we've had to change a headlight bulb!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Corey's birthday was on a Saturday night.  We had lasagna, one of his favorites, and, of course, his usual banana cream pie.  Happy birthday!

HOA Christmas Party

Every year that we've lived here, the HOA has done a Christmas party. It usually consists of food and hot cocoa, Santa coming, a train ride through the neighborhood, a bounce house, and visiting with neighbors. It's never very well-attended though, which is too bad, because it's always a lot of fun. These pictures are terrible--my phone takes terrible pictures when the lighting is bad--but it's all I got. Nathan was willing to sit on Santa's lap, so that was cute.

Double Digits!

Eliza turns ten this week. We are celebrating her birthday early in the week because the boys are doing temple baptisms the same night as her birthday and won't be home. I took her lunch to school (Braum's--her choice) and made her a Miraculous Ladybug cake, which is what she's really into right now. She's not a little girl anymore, and it's kind of making me sad.

Also, this week was her 4th grade choir performance at the school's "Santa Night".  We went to hear her sing and participate in some of the activities.  We never stay to see Santa though...too long of a line every time.

Allen Creche Festival

Every year the Allen Stake does a creche festival where they have all different nativity sets out for you to walk around and view, plus performances from local groups and performers.  It's always very well done and free.  It's usually only a Friday night and all day one Saturday.  We have enjoyed going to it for the second year in a row.

Setting Up Christmas

Getting Christmas set up involved moving one of the couches upstairs to our room to make space for the Christmas tree and, of course, Travis climbing up into the alcove above the front porch and putting the little tree up there in the window.