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. 

Thanksgiving and birthdays!

On Thanksgiving we got to celebrate with my parents, my grandma, and our wonderful hosts Ruth and Jordan! (Elise & Paxton were spending the holiday in Park City with his family--we missed them!)



So fun for our kids to get to spend time with Great-Grandma!

We also loved seeing the Carmel High School marching band in the Macy's parade (fresh off their win as national champs, woohoo!)

Another photo from sometime late at night on Wednesday, this day was actually Ruth and Neil's birthday and this is how they wound up the celebrations, haha. Ruth had a very specific vision of magnificent pies and we were her sous-chefs! 

This is one of the ones we made that night, seriously one of the best pies I've ever eaten (that gingerbread crust--perfection). 

I mean really it's all about the pies...(Jordan and I dropped Neil's beautiful turkey on the oven door but managed to rescue it). 

My dad also made prime rib which SHOULD ALWAYS BE A THING AT THANKSGIVING (I think I seriously just ate prime rib for every meal for the next few days, if you know me well you know there's nothing I love as much as cold roast beef). 

Including this picture just for Neil's face 

Let's get another look at those pies...

Let's keep this reverse order thing going! The day before Thanksgiving was Ruth's and Neil's birthday. Neil and I went skiing at Alta for the day--Ruth had a way less fun day with a trip to Huntsman, but she picked up some amazing cakes in Salt Lake! (Can you tell who knew their photo was being taken and who was soooo tired from skiing and just wanted some cake? Sorry Neil!)

We had suuuuch a good day, the snow was amazing for so early in the season (no wonder bc it's been a record year for snowfall in Utah!) and we skied like maniacs. This is the first time we've ever been to Alta together (we've both skied there solo in the past) so it was fun to show each other our favorite runs!



I also made Neil actually stop for lunch for the first time in his skiing life (the man is a firm believer in skiing every possible second from rope drop to last chair, he carries a backpack and eats on the lift). 

And going back in time again--on Tuesday we had a lovely chill day of board games and hanging out at my parents' house, it was seriously so fun. Then the adults all went out for dinner that night which was also really lovely. 

Somewhere there is a picture of Elise about this same age with a very happy Abigail who just finished decorating her hair. It was fun to see that come full circle with Iris!

We had a truly great afternoon!! This was such a fun relaxing day AND we had leftover pie so truly, could not get any better.