The Week Before Christmas

Possibly the craziest, busiest week of my life!

Leighna has been going to the chiropractor 3 times a week to be treated for whiplash from her accident. So, after one of her visits the girls went shopping with me, which was fun! 

We had a good time! The girls tested all of the benches for me. I want one. 

We baked cookies. We got them baked, but not decorated. 

Ty and Will doing a little exploring. It's fun to watch them!

I had to get a root canal. I've never been more happy to get a root canal! My tooth actually has been feeling pretty good, so I was hoping I wouldn't have to get one, but Doc said that it would start hurting again if I left it, so now it's all done. Thank goodness! After the dentist, I picked up the food from the Bishop's Storehouse. It filled my kitchen!! There are still two boxes on my kitchen floor that you can't see in this picture. It was a lot of food. We got all the food sorted and delivered, and the angel tree presents all delivered. 

Finally got the cookies decorated. 

I got to play some games with my favorite people!

We had a fun Polar Express Night! We all vetoed hot chocolate and went for a Fizz instead! We sang our favorite Christmas songs and looked at all the lovely lights! Some of our favorite lights weren't up this year which was a little disappointing, but sometimes you can only do so much! I get that! 

That's our week in a nutshell! Somewhere in there I made divinity, bread, and English toffee with Barbara Johnson and Julie Sanders. I made 2 other batches of bread. The Babe and I met with a lawyer. We had a Christmas party with the Murphy's. We delivered all of our neighbor gifts, except somehow, I missed half of our neighbors. By the time we finished that today, we all crashed on the couch and we watched Mickey's Christmas Carol. Only, surprisingly, I didn't make it through the whole show. I'm exhausted! 

Last year I didn't want Christmas to end. It was so magical. This year, we could unwrap all the presents and take the tree down right now and I wouldn't even care. We have missed more than half of our Advent and I just can't find The Spirit of Christmas this year. Which is sad, and it's my own fault. I let the busy-ness of the season take over. and I forgot what is most important! It has been so hard this year. We had 3 times as many families to help in the ward this year and it was just hard! 

Tomorrow, I will let it all go and whatever is done is done and what is not is not. Tomorrow will just be spent with my family and I will soak in all the Christmas Spirit I can get!

The Mood Hat

Will made a hat...

This is the side I see most often. The other side says "happy" with a cute little smiley face. He never thinks to put it on when he's happy, but when he's not happy, we all know!! When I got home from choir practice today, Will was wearing the hat. I knew things weren't going his way this fine Sunday morning. I sang him a rousing rendition of "If you chance to meet a frown" I even turned him upside down. He tried really hard not to smile. I'm not even sure anymore what he was upset about, but his hat is adorable! And to think I almost threw it away yesterday. I didn't realize the value in the warning! 

Will has been on a pretty cute kick this week. We are doing the 12 Days of Christmas for a family in our ward. My kids like to call it pixie-ing. That comes from the book, "Chickens in the Headlights". It might actually be from the sequel, "Bullies in the Headlights". Cute stories. But Anyway....Will loves to pixie. So he was anxiously asking me over and over if we could go. I told him he had to wait a minute because we still had to get our item ready and think of a cute poem to put on it. The other day, The Babe and I just grabbed 12 random things from Wally's world to give for our 12 days of Christmas. So, Will took matters into his own hands! He picked something out of the bag, and he came up with his own little poem and he wrote the note! 

Just in case you can't read it...

It's the 4th day of Christmas 

and it's going slow

 so we wanted to spring you

 closer to snow!

So cute!

I wrapped a few presents and put them under the tree. I was trying to hurry and get them done before they came home from school, so I just wrapped them up, but I didn't use any bows or ribbons. On Friday evening, Will put a bow on his 2 presents, he said so he could tell which ones were his. By Saturday every present under the tree had a bow! I guess I better step up my wrapping game! There will be no lazy wrapping in this family!! This kid makes me laugh! 

Miss Daisy won't let Miss Addie stop rubbing her!! Daisy is expecting puppies again and she loves to be rubbed! 

I'm going to be in trouble for posting this picture, but it was just so stinkin' sweet. 

How could I resist??

Live Nativity

We love Tuacahn's Live Nativity! 

It just brings such a special spirit to the holiday season! 

I got a little emotional at this one. The Babe told me when it was over that he did too! 

There really is something about watching this timeless story played out! I really love that they use live animals! The donkey, camel, and goat were all live and it just makes it so awesome! The goat was especially active and energetic, which was fun. We left with all of our children wanting a goat! 

It wasn't even terribly cold this year, so that was really nice!

Look at those cuties!

Adelah is home for Christmas and it just makes my heart so happy! She has been laughing and playing with the other kids all day and it just makes the world feel right having her home!! 

St. George Temple Re-dedication

Today was the re-dedication of the St. George Temple! I'm so grateful I got to attend! 

Elder Holland was the Apostle who got to do the dedicatory prayer. All of the speakers were really good! It's really hard to describe that meeting. The Spirit was very strong and it was truly a blessing to attend. We didn't get to go to the Temple, we just watched from the stake center. This was Ty's first Temple dedication. Leighna, Porter and Ty went with me. My family feels small when not everyone is with me. Elder Holland said that there were many of us who had loved ones on the other side of the veil that were in attendance. It made me wonder if my other children were allowed to be there. I like to think so.  The Babe was really sick today, so he didn't attend. He really missed out, and Will is still too young, for a couple more months! Crazy to think he will be old enough to attend when they dedicate the Red Cliffs Temple in March! 

I have had the worst tooth ache I think I have ever had and it's reeking havoc in my mouth and in my life! It took me a week to get into the dentist, when I did get in, he couldn't see anything wrong with my teeth, so he thought it might be my sinuses. I started an antibiotic and it started to clear up and then wham-o! It flared back up so bad that I couldn't even touch it with my tongue. I couldn't put my teeth together. Nothing! I was going to die! Dr. Denos gave me a stronger antibiotic and gave me a pain killer regimen to get me through the weekend, and I go back in tomorrow, to see what we can figure out! Hopefully I can get it fixed this time. 

Winter Wonderland

The Babe knows a guy who got us some tickets to an elite neighborhood winter wonderland!!!

This is how we go sledding in Southern Utah! 

The slide was incredibly high and steep, Will marched right up to the top and didn't even flinch! I thought he would get scared when he got to the top, but he didn't! 

Trying to make an awkward family photo! It worked! 

We had a lot of fun! But it was really cold! 

Janessa, was taking the ornament making very seriously!!

What a studious little elf!

Ty did a good job on his too, but we couldn't get it to close, when we finally switched to a different bulb, we left without getting the picture. But we have the ornament to remember!

Porter needs a little Christmas magic potion. Maybe drinking ornament decorations can put you in the spirit of Christmas!

They had live reindeer! Will was freezing by this point and I could barely get him to get in the picture!

A quick visit with Santa! Will said he didn't know what he wanted, just surprise him. Ty asked for legos.

Leighna asked for a blow dryer for her hair.

Porter asked for a wooden bat. 

Janessa didn't want to talk to Santa. However, I coaxed her into it, and they had a lovely conversation. They talked for quite awhile. I couldn't hear what they were talking about, but I love this picture! 

Look how cute they are! 

It was definitely a winter wonderland. They had snow machines blowing snow from the trees. Hot chocolate, popcorn, Santa, Frosty the Snowman, the Grinch, ladies dancing dressed like reindeer. They had performers who were singing and dancing. It was a great time! And SO SO COLD! So it felt pretty Christmasy! 

 

Christmas Tree Hunt

Oh, we had fun in the snow!!

Makayla, Weston, Will

Ty trying to make it snow!

Grandpa!

Will learned how to snow board and he was so happy about that! He loved it! He really looks big in those snow clothes!

MaKayla, Enzlee, Daxton, Heidi, Jason

Jon was causing mischief, he fed the baby a snowball and gave him a brain freeze. He learned that wasn't such a good idea!

Cute Willie with his hot chocolate!

Daxton, Heidi, Baler

Ty also enjoyed the snow boards!!

Wyatt, Hartley, Adelah, The Babe, Leighna

Adelah and Leighna did the tree hunting this year! I went up in the side by side to start and Heidi, Daxton, and I almost got ran over by another side by side that couldn't make it up the icy hill. My tooth was killing me in the cold air, so I went back to the fire and waited it out while the girls did the hunting! 

Porter stayed in Hurricane because he had a ballroom dance rehearsal that he couldn't miss. 

Will and MaKayla got cold so they found some books to keep them entertained in the truck! 

They did a good job! They picked a beautiful tree! 

It's tall and skinny. Just like I always say we are going to get, but that I'm actually so bad about! The girls nailed it!!