December 2020

 Like the rest of this last year, things in December were a little different.  Normal Christmas concerts, activities and parties didn't happen.  But it was nice to have a less busy month in exchange for some fun family time at home.

We were still able to have our annual gingerbread house decorating day.  Always a fun time.

Siena had her 'star of the week' in her classroom at school and got to decorate this poster all about herself.

The girls had a fun friends Christmas party at their friend Ella's house.

Jaron and Aria decided to participate in the school ugly Christmas sweater contest this year.  They came up with the ideas and put them all together.  I was proud of them for participating as my kids do not like to do things that are different and might generate unwanted attention on them.  So even though I think they were a bit nervous that morning they came home glad they did it.

School parties and door decorating contests all showed up in pictures this year since we weren't allowed to come see them or take part in the Christmas singing show this year.

Jaron finished up another season of Jr Jazz Basketball with some of his neighborhood friends.

We actually got to go to church in person for Christmas Sunday and hear the beautiful musical pieces.  Even though we aren't all back every week a lot of people showed up on this Sunday and it felt good to almost feel back to normal.  We're not back to 2 hour church yet, just sacrament and the Zoom it to those that are at home and we trade off every other week.  So we don't always dress up fancy and some weeks are home in casual clothes, although I try to put a dress on for at least the meeting portion of the day whether at home or not.

The kids had their annual sleep by the Christmas tree on the night before Christmas Eve...a fun tradition that I hope they never out grow.

Christmas eve day calls for Sugar Cookies and Grandpa South's train.  Also a fun tradition and the kids always have fun with the train.

We had our own Christmas Even dinner at home this year.  We got out the table cloth and china and the kids thought this was the fanciest dinner we've ever had together (it probably is)  We had eye of the round roast, the kids favorite, sparkling cider, jello and lots of good food.  It was fun to do a fancy dinner with just our family.

We also acted out the nativity with just us.  A little hard with small numbers but we made it work.  Then the kids opened up their Christmas even present and spent the evening working on their little craft they got.

Christmas morning fun.  Still my favorite part of Christmas morning is watching the kids open each other's presents.  They are small and usually have some homemade gifts to it.  They double and triple wrap them and it's just fun to see how excited they get to watch their sibling open up their gift.  Shane and I got the kids computers this year.  Not knowing if they were going to be doing online school at some point we felt they needed their own computers.  We got remote controls with them and they have loved playing some games on them but they also use them to email grandma, make up slide shows and other educational things.  I felt like it was much better than getting an xbox that they asked for.  That afternoon all 3 declared they were happier with a computer than an xbox and they were glad we didn't get them an xbox.

That afternoon we went over to my parents and had dinner with them, Jennifer and Jeff came as well.  We stayed and played sky-jo and had a great time.

New Year's was spent at home with the kids.  They think we have a tradition to make a pi-zookie.  We have the pan and I put too much cookie dough in it and it spilled all over the side and onto the over, making a complete disaster of the oven.   So then we turned on the self clean and oh boy, our house stunk for New Years.  We of course still had fun but definitely didn't turn out like we thought it would.  The pi-zookie though still tasted great!