Christmas 2019

We woke up to lots of excitement that Santa Claus did indeed find our home. I think there may have been some nervousness if Santa was truly aware of what goes down in our day to day lives at times. Luckily, I think Santa has a heart that understands we are striving and trying to be kind.

Another "fun" part of our Christmas this year was when I heard the dishwasher making unusual sounds after starting the breakfast dishes. When I opened the cabinet door under the kitchen sink, I was met with water gushing! There appeared to be a bit of a "problem." After several failed home remedies (Drain-O, vinegar, hot water, baking soda, etc) and LOTs of laughs later...it was still a problem. :) A plumber was scheduled to come out the next day and he fixed the problem that was all the way under our foundation, but manifested through our dishwasher failing to drain. It was definitely a Christmas to remember. I need to find an ornament involving plumbing to commemorate this eventful Christmas Day. :)

Christmas Eve 2019

 We continued the Christmas Eve tradition of our family party. It usually consists of a bunch of our favorite appetizers for dinner (sometimes by candlelight). Some of the favorites are as follows: Meat and cheese platter, variety of fruit with the "brown sugar" dip, spinach-artichoke dip, cheese ball--in the form of a melting snowman this year, smokies with BBQ sauce and a little "bubbly" to top it off. Following our dinner, we open a few presents that typically involve a new game/movie for the family and pajamas. Following the party, we set out cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. Lastly and most importantly, we read the story of the night our Savior was born. I love the tradition we've created of blending fun family times as well as inviting the true meaning of Christmas into our home.

Catch-up Time

 Oh man, this is going to be an attempt to catch up my blog through the end of 2020. Beginning 2021, I am going to move my documenting of family memories to a new private instagram format. I've thought about doing this for awhile, and feel like now is the time. I've loved the blog, but instagram is so much easier and time is of the essence. :) It's been a good run with blogger. Here comes a feast and famine style catch-up!

TJ's Melting Snowman

One of the holiday crazes this year was a melting hot cocoa snowman from Trader Joe's. I happened to pick a few up for the kids before it went crazy popular. While watching the snowman melt was entertaining for my kids, the vote for the actual taste of the hot cocoa was sub-par.

Christmas Cookies and Snowflakes

We made sugar cookies for Santa and tried out a new recipe this year. It was delicious. I'm not the biggest fan of sugar cookies, but these ones were soft and chewy, yummmmm. Hopefully Santa Claus shared some with Mrs. Claus. We also decked the windows with some homemade snowflakes since a White Christmas was not in the cards this year.

Happy 40th!

We celebrated Bryan's big birthday by going to the New Gaylord hotel out by the airport. We kept it pretty chill in that we brought in our own food and managed to keep our kiddos entertained with the pools. It was a laid-back, meaningful time with the fam and we loved spoiling one of our favorites who is now "older than dirt!" (hence the cake). Since Bryan is not a big fan of social media, I made sure to share on my account that it was his big day and tagged him so all of his friends would know. He rolled his eyes, but I know he appreciated the calls and texts. :) We each love you, Bryan! Happy 40th!

My helper in the kitchen with the cake. I love how excited he was to celebrate his dad's birthday. He loves his dad!!

I had a momentary, "oh no!" when I went to grab "4-0" out of our candle stash and realized I was not in luck. Good thing my mind is so good at math. :)

Graham Cracker Houses

In celebration of my mom's birthday, we made our annual graham cracker houses. This is a fun tradition that we each look forward to. I feel that I'm not the best at keeping a tradition alive, but long live our graham cracker houses!