December

December! One of the best times of the year, amiright?? We celebrated Christmas this year on the 17th (and the kids very graciously waited to open presents until I finished my live 90-minute Peloton ride, I told them that was the gift I wanted more than anything, haha!)

It was a BUSY month. We practiced with our snorkels in anticipation of our big trip (gosh I am still so heartsick about that, ugh). 

Ate a million candy canes...



Isaac and Luke spent a ton of time working on their robot design (their robot qualified for state next month!!) and spent a lot of hours over the Christmas break at the school in the robotics lab (the dad of another guy on their team is the athletic director so he was able to access the school). 

Did a lot of puzzles, including this beautiful one my grandma sent us. Hopefully someday this won't be bittersweet (Matty just came up as I was typing this and said "I wish we could go to Dry Tortugas...")

I think we made sugar cookies when Neil was out of town and I sent this picture to him bc he knows how much I HATE making sugar cookies. 

Poor guy had to go to Colorado for work, he had an awful weekend...

Funny texts I get from my kids. So many good ones. 

One of my favorite things at the holidays is all the yummy treats, a friend in our ward brought these and they were so beautiful! 

About a million Peloton rides and trying my third attempt at the return to run program...

We made SO MUCH CRANBERRY BREAD. 

Got these gorgeous pics back of Abigail (I really need to download and print these!). So many beautiful ones, here are 4 I really loved. 

One of my best friends took these and I was so happy she was available because Abigail felt SO comfortable and natural with her. 

We made our annual gingerbread house!

And we went to Luke's first band concert, they sounded SO good. Like amazingly good. Neil leaned over to me and said "That's how you get national champs by the time these kids are in high school." 

I don't remember what this dinner was but Matty's face was so funny. He really hated it. Ah! It was shaksuka. 

We did SO MUCH PACKING and trip prep...

So. Much. Prep. 

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Lots and lots and lots of game nights!

This game is SO awesome, my sister introduced us to it at Thanksgiving: Quacks of Quendlinburg

And tons and tons of puzzles.

And here are our Christmas pics! 

This star bread is so yummy and beautiful. 



Petit fours from my grandma, one of my favorite holiday things. 



Cute little Matty setting the table for our Christmas Eve dinner. 

 

Always love a good Christmas morning photo--here's Luke with his block and tackle!

And a few from other times that break--more cookies...

Cheese board night...



And this is always a favorite, basically all appetizers and sushi made by the kids. I think this might have been right before we left, judging by all the packing stuff in the background. 

Christmas 2021

A lot of pictures to go through here! I've been putting this off because it's so frustrating to try to organize them, but I promised myself I'd do it today.

Abigail got her booster...and a 35 on the ACT! First try, way to go kiddo!!

We got a very exciting early Christmas present!

We made lots of goodies throughout December...trying to fit in all the traditional stuff. Here's Isaac with some fudge. 

Tried to fit in the traditional movies too but we were just so crazy busy! We got in a couple though. 

Abigail went to a Purdue game with her friend & discovered she actually likes basketball. 

We went to Luke's Famous Americans Wax Museum (he was Thomas Edison) 

And his Christmas concert for Orff Ensemble. 




My grandma sent us four puzzles and we had such a good time doing them together. 

Went to our friends' annual White Elephant party (scaled down but so fun to pick up the tradition again after skipping it last year!). 

We went to the zoo a few days before Christmas with friends and it was so fun!

We spent Christmas Eve with our dear friends and had such a good time! (Started early so we could go to bed early and of course ended up staying way too late so all of us were hammered on Christmas Day, haha.)

A couple days before Christmas the older three kids and I served in the bishop's storehouse, which was a wonderful experience (we've all gone there separately but this is the first time it worked out so I could go with the kids). 

Made our traditional Yule Log cake: 

One night I made a killer salad that was SO good I apparently needed to take a picture of it.

I was also really into this kale salad and made it probably ten times during the holidays. 

Love our beautiful downtown!

Also did SO MANY Peloton holiday classes in my self-made challenge to do all the 2021 and 2020 holiday classes (cycling, running, yoga, walking, strength, bootcamp, stretching, meditation, cardio). 

And then it was finally Christmas Day!

This year's Christmas Day puzzle was a lovely one that we chose because our big gift to each other was a ski trip to Vail a few weeks later. 

And happy anniversary to us on the 26th--19 years! This photo is from our honeymoon sleigh ride through the elk refuge in Jackson Hole.