Christmas Traditions

Gingerbread houses with Uncle Jonathan!  

Emma was super independent and hers turned out so cute!  And Whitney's masterpiece:

Owen and Jonathan with their creations:

Maris in her beanie-24-7 phase with her cute house, and Katelyn's skyscraper- look a the tiny doors at the bottom for scale:

Maris had a lot of fun crafting with this plastic and yarn over Christmas break, she made a bunch of cute stuff like this star.

Sugar cookie and gingerbread cookie-making extravaganza!

We had a super fun Christmas Eve- early dinner with the Murrays, where we had to split up so the 4 older kids sat with Kurtis and Lauren!  Eric and Emma and I sat with his parents, and it was hilarious to listen to the conversations going on at the other table haha. And then Jenae and Connor came over for a couple of hours!  They were spending Christmas with his parents in Eagle Mountain. We packed in a couple major traditions with them-- wrapping paper roll fight!

Eric is wearing the baby yoda Christmas sweater Jonathan got him :)

And acting out the Nativity!  Here's Angel Emma appearing to Joseph and then Mary.

Mary and Joseph on their journey- and Joseph got to ride the donkey??

Baby Jesus was born!

The shepherds Whitney and Maris with their sheep, and being surprised by the angel:

Choirs of angels singing!

The shepherds visit the manger.

Maris shepherd leans down to kiss the Christ Child.

The 3 wise men on their long journey, (Owen, Jenae and Connor) singing and dancing as they went. Connor's headwrap was truly spectacular and took quite a bit of effort to make haha

presenting their gifts- I can't even remember what they were laughing about!

Cast photo:

And lastly, the tree with shiny gifts underneath.  It always looks magical to me on Christmas Eve!

 

December Joys

We had a super fun ward Christmas party thanks to our new awesome activities committee. We had fun with the photo booth!  

and Maris and Emma got to be animals in the Nativity Play.

Eric found out at the last minute that the Bishopric was supposed to be the 3 Wise Men, so he got to use our fantastic turban. It was cute and we all sang several hymns together and the Spirit was sweet.

Grandma got the kids an early Christmas present of a new bigger Lego nativity, which Owen and the little girls promptly put together.

Jonathan was so kind, he surprised us one evening with presents!  sweaters for the big people, packs of Christmas socks for the littles.  and Stockings full of candy for all the kids :)  The Chewbacca sweater he got Whitney matched his own, so I got them to take a picture.

I wrapped 2 trees in lights this year and I loved how it looked!  Especially when the trees and lights got covered in snow. 

We went sledding one day!  The big kids are kind of over sledding because they get to ski all the time and that's much more exciting.  But I convinced them all to go for Emma's sake! She loved it.

And here's Owen and then Katelyn going down the big Peteetneet hill.

And Maris, and Whitney.

Eric genuinely enjoys playing in the snow!  I tolerate it for the kids haha.

Katelyn was in the school's Spirit of Christmas show.  MDT did a couple of songs, they sounded good and looked super cute. She is officially an alto!!  She's wearing a white sweater in these.

This part was funny, they all pulled out kazoos and started playing them!

This was during the finale with all the choirs, the dancers, and the orchestra. My favorite part though, was when some of the Drama kids acted a Nativity, while the choirs were singing and the dancers were dancing, and when it ended all the singers and dancers were holding candles and they all knelt before the Christ Child, it was so sweet!  Totally made me cry. The Spirit was strong and I am so grateful that we can do that in school!

There was this absolutely GIANT Santa blow up over by the Sports Park!  way bigger than a 2 story house!  And I gave the kids a string of lights each to put up in their rooms- the girls looked so cute sleeping with their Christmas lights on!!

 

December Sports and Dance

I got to coach Whitney's city volleyball team- it was super fun. We got Ashelyn and Gracie on our team, and Ashelyn was a natural!  Such a good player. Whitney's on the far left front row, and then on the far left back row.  She did great, got better at setting and had a couple of spikes!

Our team took 2nd place!  Again, to Carrie Hansen's team haha.  She has club players always. BUT it's okay, the girls did great. Kaitlyn L, Whitney, Ashelyn, Lainey, then bottom row Gracie, and 2 fun 7th graders who I already forgot their names!  And I finally got a volleyball shirt!

Whitney also got to play basketball- with a new ALA Bantam team they formed. She didn't want to play for the serious Salem Hills team again, so even though the ALA team was TERRIBLE, she had fun, the girls were nice, and she still got to play basketball. Here she is shooting, and then getting ready to pass.

Here she is bringing the ball down.  Her specialty was stealing, driving down and going for a layup.  They didn't always go in, but she did have a ton of steals!

Emma, the tall one in the middle, doing her adorable Christmas dance concert.

twirling, and doing reindeer antlers and galloping!

So so cute!

Not sports but sports-related....Whitney begged to do a team Christmas party!  So we made cookies and had a white elephant gift exchange.  It was fun!!

Emma's pre-concert photo shoot.

Supportive siblings:

And ski season was upon us again!! They all went 3 times in December, and this one time just Eric and Whitney went. They caught this gorgeous sunset on top of the mountain. 

It was weird to not have Katelyn doing volleyball and owen basketball.  But they both decided to be done!  Stay tuned for January sports though- Owen Volleyball and Maris Basketball. :) And more skiing pictures for sure.