Peace out 2020!

 As we zoom towards the end here, we have: A cooking frenzy, 17th Anniversary, New Years Eve, and a few forgotten items, coming right up!

The skiers took advantage of Christmas Break to go skiing again of course, their 5th time I believe? Since November.

And here comes the cooking frenzy. With all those new cookbooks and plenty of time on our hands, we went a little crazy!!  This first one is mine, it looks weird maybe but it's Massaman (Thai) Curry, and it's DELICIOUS.  All the kids even like it!! One of my goals this year is to make 50 new meals.  Approximately one a week, but I can take a break, double up, etc. when I need to. Anyway this was the first one.

Emma REALLY got into the cooking, here she is with pizzas and a version of macaroni and cheese. Only 2 of the MANY things she has convinced me to let her make.

Maris making cupcakes and Owen making....I can't even remember what!!

Whitney doing one of her MANY lunch experiments- she cooks herself lunch every single day she is home to do so.

And Katelyn can usually only be convinced to make treats, but here she is helping with homemade tortillas.

We took our Barnes and Noble gift cards to be spent while they were out of school:

And here's something I left out of the summer posts: 

The Reading Challenge: (which once again I didn't even come close to finishing, waahhh! Maybe when all my kids can read on their own I will have time for it. But all the kids finished.)

The Exercise Challenge: (which everyone except Katelyn finished)

And new this year, the Positive Ways to Spend Time Challenge haha!  It was great I thought, but 2 hours was a little long for some of the items.  The kids requested that next time I have it be like the exercise challenge and just do one hour per item. We'll see.... I am especially grateful for the Mental/Emotional Health one, because I got to read some good books with my kids and talk about healthy ways to manage emotions.

And here's my Virtual Boston Map that I forgot to include in an earlier post.

Eric and I got to go on a 1-night getaway for our 17th Anniversary, and we had some delicious food!  Shabu Shabu and really cool ice cream rolled tacos. It was a relaxing 24 hours.

And then it was New Years!  We did some fireworks outside and I captured this pic of my beautiful tree I spent 2.5 hours stringing lights on.  Next year I want to do 2 trees!

I got the girls matching pajamas for New Years, and Owen a calendar.

Emma stayed up until about 9:30

and Maris made it to Midnight for the first time!  She had SO much fun playing games and felt SO cool to be included.

Lastly, for a Christmas present, Maris got her ears pierced!!  It hurt more than her sisters had assured her it wouldn't, but she was brave. Here's the before:

and After!  It's way cute. She had been begging for a while, so we made a deal that if she would stop scratching/rubbing her nostrils so red and dry, she could show she was mature enough to take care of pierced ears.  And she did great!  With her nose and now with her ears.

And actually lastly, Emma had her first day of what would have been Sunbeams! She is adorable and has been enjoying "home primary" since last March, but it's just not the same and I wish she could go to real Primary.  She would love it.  But as it is, she has gotten really good at raising her hand to give answers, in our lessons and even at the dinner table. :)  I made her an I am a child of God crown like they do for the Sunbeams and she proudly wore it all day but I didn't get a picture.

And that's a wrap!  What a year!  On we go!

Christmas Day!!

The kids let us sleep until about 6:45am, which was pretty great, but still came bright and early after Emma's late night escapades!  But everyone was in good spirits, and we didn't have anybody grumpy or ill, so it was a great morning!!

You can see in our traditional lineup that Whitney is finally making some headway on Katelyn!  They are the closest in height they have been in their lives!

Cute Emma seeing the presents, and Owen with his big prize he has wanted for years!

Whitney finding a poster and Maris jumping up and down with excitement over her karaoke machine--"It's even better than the one I wanted!!" (a cheap little Frozen one)

Big girls taking things out of their stockings one at a time, and Maris with a new volleyball.

After stockings and breakfast and the Nativity video, we did sibling and cousin gifts first. Whitney opening a cousin gift: (also, the big thing beside her is a desk that "Santa's elves thought she would enjoy building herself" 

Emma loved her art kit from Caleb so much that she opened and started using it right away.  Which was perfect because it occupied her in between turns of opening presents!

And this was one of Katelyn's coolest presents; a daily Shakespearean insults calendar from Whitney and Owen! Whitney found it online and asked Owen to go in with her on it because it was a little more than she wanted to pay.  He readily agreed and thinks the insults are hilarious of course. Just see how happy Whitney is seeing her open it!

The kids all got masks in their stockings haha. Only in 2020, we hope haha!

Katelyn got her Thespian jacket, so cool!

Owen got a giant baby yoda (Grogu) squishmallow, and the girls got cute little stuffed animals of him, so of course now they want to play "baby yoda family" haha.

Katelyn and Owen surprised Whitney with a book she wanted, and I surprised Owen with Lego storage boxes from IKEA.

Just a classic moment, everyone watching the youngest child unwrap their present painfully slowly!

a flash forward to lunchtime- Eric trying out his new french fry maker, he loves it!

and Lego time!!! Whit was the only one who didn't get any Legos (by request!) so she had fun helping Maris while I helped Emma and Eric made fries for us all.

The girls rocking out to Maris' new karaoke machine lol

now back to unwrapping- Maris and Emma got some cool dishes and mixing items from Grammy!

Katelyn got adorable measuring cups, and Maris got really cool erasable pens from hazel.

Katelyn got chocolates and a book from Natalie, and Emma sat up on this perch for a good part of the morning, it was cute.

Whitney seriously is good at gift giving.  She surprised Owen with a Minecraft book that he loves. And Emma got Maris this Lisa Frank art kit.

Eric's biggest surprise was this sweet knife from my parents!

Also he got these bow and arrows from the kids.  

And I was there too!  Here I am in my Christmas pajamas with the coolest gift Whitney made me- she bought this wood, painted it and added a little laminated part- it says "Gone Running Will Be Back at _____ " and has a space to write a time with a whiteboard marker!  So cute, I love it!  I also got wonderful, perfect gifts from Mary and Brad, thoughtful and super useful gifts from Eric, and really sweet sentimental gifts from my parents.  A cross rock necklace!  And a cookbook that was my Grandma's! Were my favorites.

Owen was thrilled with BBQ tools from Grammy, and a giant Lion from Grandma.

My mom also made aprons for all the grandkids, they love having their names on them!  And gave them cookbooks.  More on that in the next post!

Emma made the cutest faces the whole time, here were a couple.

And here's Katelyn looking all teenager-y in her cool jacket and scrunchie....I think she has barely taken that jacket off since!

Christmas afternoon we went up to Highland and had more presents to open!

More excited faces!

That plus a delicious Christmas dinner and games with Kurtis and Lauren, rounded out a delightful Christmas Day.