Catching Up Photo Album Holidays 2015

Without a doubt, I failed miserably to keep up with the blog this year.  I am hopelessly behind!  Thank goodness for my Chatbooks, or my record keeping would be even spottier.  However, now that the Christmas break is here, I think I can at least do a photo album of our family events of the holiday season!  I'll do a little rewinding to Thanksgiving, and then move on to The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!  Here we go!

The first special event of Thanksgiving was on the Tuesday BEFORE the holiday.  Our ward provided a Thanksgiving Dinner for a Senior Community Center, entertainment included.  There were several children who were asked to play piano, including Chase and Avery and Courtney.  The previous weekend they had performed in their Fall Recital at Sis. Reeder's house, so they each planned to do just their one recital piece.  What we didn't expect was that the space was very cramped and there was no room for adjusting the piano bench, not to mention that the damper pedal didn't function at all.  So all of the kids played sitting way too close to the piano with "T-Rex" arms, as Sis. Reeder calls them.  It definitely made for a challenge and an amusing performance!  But the seniors LOVED it!

This handsome guy had to make one more business trip to Utah before the holiday.  While there, he bought a fancy new Ute shirt.  And when he was in the airport waiting for his flight home, a BYU football player sitting next to him asked him if he was a U of U coach.  Ha!  Nope.  Just a loyal fan and alumnus.  And a good looking one, at that!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we were in the full swing of food prep.  I recruited the help of my children this year, since we were completely by ourselves and that meant we had to prepare EVERYTHING ourselves.  Chase volunteered to help with the turkey.  This beautiful concoction was our turkey brine.  And, oh boy, does it make for a tender and flavorful turkey.  Yum!

Another helper was Miss Coco Nut, who LOVES any potato dish and who volunteered to help with the mashed potatoes.  This was her first time peeling potatoes all by herself.  It's trickier than it looks!  But with a little experience, she is going to be a pro before long!

My little sous-chef also helped make the pumpkin pie!  Avery and Nate helped with the green beans and the stuffing, but I don't have a picture.  It was all SO good!

Turkey Trot time!  This is one of our favorite traditions on Thanksgiving Day!  But I have to admit that this year I was a little anxious when we found out how very cold it was going to be that morning.  I don't really do well in the cold; I get miserable pretty fast and suffer from Raynaud's disease in my hands when I get too cold.  The numbness can be very uncomfortable.  This year it was snowing all morning and the temps were in the low 20's.  We decided to go for it anyway!  Chase and Avery and I ran the 10k together.  It was cold, and the snow coming down on our faces did sting a bit, but we did it!  After about 2 miles, we were all warmed up in our extremities, so it was just a matter of keeping it up until the end.  The boys both did great!  But as soon as we were done, we headed for the car.  I swear it took me over an hour to thaw out after we got home, but at least it was with a great sense of accomplishment!

And we musn't forget about these two tough little kiddos!  They both ran the kids' half mile race.  This year, they had the kids' race before the 10k, which was really a blessing because they were then able to go home and get warm (and get the turkey in the oven) instead of hanging around in the cold while the rest of us ran over six miles.  Trey had a great time running in the snow with his Daddy helping him along.  And Miss Coco was amazing and ran way ahead of the whole pack of kiddos, coming in FIRST place!  Ha!  She even crossed the finish line before the bike lead!  We were so proud of her that we didn't even mind waiting at the finish line in the cold to see that ending!

And here's the whole crew bundled up looking like a bunch of turkeys (all except Perry the Platypus).  Brrrrrrrrr!!!!

This guy was so helpful by taking our little home from the Turkey Trot, cleaning up, getting the turkey in the oven, and then working with Avery on some of the side dishes.  And here he is carving the lovely turkey when it was done.  Thanks, honey bunches!

Table was set and ready for dinner!

Oh, and one more funny note.  The boys and I (and everyone else who ran the 5k or 10k races) got these GIANT, super heavy, gangsta-like medals at the end.  WHAT?????  We actually realized later that this medal was supposed to be for a whole race series, with little attachment medals for each race (we got one for the Turkey Trot).  But, STILL!  Can you believe how ridiculous that medal is?  I wouldn't want it even if I DID have plans to run the entire series.  This is why those entrance fees are so expensive???  I'm crying...or laughing...don't know which!

And on to our next fun tradition, on Black Friday!  No, we don't go shopping at all.  After a giant meal on Thanksgiving, we give ourselves a whole day to recover and make room for a sweet, sugary treat!  This year we held our 4th Annual Black Friday Homemade Doughnut and Cider Party!  We invited a few friends from the ward (my visiting teaching companion and one of the friends we visit: the Larson and Ashby families).  We fried up the doughnuts, let the kids glaze and decorate them, and then played an exciting game of Apples to Apples.  Here, Chase is showing us his ooooooey--gooooooooey yummy doughnut covered in regular AND chocolate glaze.  Delicious!

Fuzzy picture, but this is one of Avery's doughnuts!

A huge crew of players for Apples to Apples.  So much fun!

More Apples to Apples with the cute Ashby boys!

The Saturday after Thanksgiving is the day we always spend together putting up the Christmas decorations.  Isn't this an adorable picture of Chase helping Trey put up the top piece of the Christmas tree?  The cutest of brothers...my Alpha and Omega...I feel so blessed to see these guys love and serve each other!

And with that, the crazy Christmas season had begun.  I throw this screen shot of a text exchange between me and Nathan in early December just for a little HUMOR!  We were already exhausted from the crazy busy days of the season, and Nathan was worried that it would frustrate me to learn that he would be coming home late.  Well, I am used to managing the homefront on my own most of the time, so it wasn't anything I couldn't handle...but I chose to send him this message just to tease him a little bit about it.  But...I don't think he thought it was very funny.  Oh well...LOL!

This photo was taken as Nathan was preparing to leave for his last Utah trip of the year.  We decided this would be a good time for Chase and Avery to finish up part of their requirements for the Aviation merit badge for Scouts, by going to the airport to find out how it was organized and laid out.  It was fun to take the extra time to go inside with Dad while dropping him off.

For me, the most fun part was watching Trey get excited to see all of the planes either taking off or landing.   You can see how happy he was to stand up on Daddy's leg to see out the big windows.  It was cute how he always wanted to tell Courtney what he could see even though she was standing right next to them (can you barely see her on the other side of Nate?).

Oh, wait, I forgot that the most fun part was trying to get a picture WITHOUT Avery photo bombing it.  Ha!

 After we dropped off Daddy at the airport, we hurried back to the church for our ward's Christmas party.  And guess who was there?  Santa himself came to hear from the children exactly what they wanted for Christmas.  Trey was so nervous and sort of freaked out, but he bravely (but humbly) told Santa that he wanted a toy truck.

Courtney was there for moral support, but she was also there to put a bug in Santa's ear and make a request for an American Girl doll.  What?  She's never asked for one before!  It's a good thing she let Santa know before she grows too big for dolls. :)

Here I will add a few photos of some of our homeschool activities throughout December.  It can be a struggle for students and teachers alike to stay focused when there is so much to do in this season!  But, fortunately, we had a lot of interesting things to do.  This picture, however, represents our favorite and cutest little distraction in our homeschool.  Trey is crazy about the cello these days.  He can turn anything into an imaginary cello and "play" it with passion.  Here he used a stuffed snake and a drum stick to create his cello.  But...look at his face!  Can we all hope that this passion will carry on to maturity?  Pretty please?  I just love this kid!

Science experiments with Coco!  This was an experiment we did with yeast and sugar in water, watching how the release of carbon dioxide blew up the balloon on top of the water bottle.  Cool!

Here she is preparing the dancing colors in milk experiment.

It actually works!

This picture is very fuzzy, but I included it to demonstrate one other aspect of our holiday season this year.  I always knew that people with musical talents are often called upon to perform during the Christmas season, but this is the first year my musical children have been involved in several performances that kept us very busy.  Coco was able to perform with the Young Artists Chorale in two different performances.  The picture here shows Coco (and her friend Addie) on stage at the Thornton "Winterfest" activity where the mayor turns on the Christmas lights for the community holiday festival.  It was fun, but I was so surprised at the crowds!  I had no idea that so many people actually attend those things!



This cute picture was taken after the Young Artists Chorale performed in a Christmas program with The Colorado Mormon Chorale and a choir from the local Presbyterian church.  It was SO lovely!  And the girls (and several friends) did a great job singing.  Addie even had a solo!  The other Christmas performances we had this season included the Stake Choir and the Ward Choir.  Every member of our family sang with the ward choir (including Trey, who sang with the children's chorus).  And Chase and Avery each had a song for which he played the accompaniment.  Avery played a piece called Peace, Peace and Chase played Gesu Bambino.  They were magnificent!

Another homeschool snapshot!  This was actually a real live "snow day" for our school district.  But, we homeschool families never take a snow day...no way!  We keep right on working so we don't have to make up for it later.  In this photo, Trey had created a life-sized graph of the different kinds of shoes we wear in our family: athletic shoes, summer shoes, and boots.  Who doesn't like graphing shoes?

More homeschool snow day fun!  Here Coco is examining the effect of inertia on a bowl filled with water as she walks around the kitchen.  She learned that the water wants to keep going the same direction it was going before, even when she turns a corner.  Splish, splash!  From this, we were able to discuss that the natural resistance to change can lead us to be either stubborn or steadfast.  Beautiful lessons from a bowl of water!

 And here is the big bummer of our Christmas season.  Nate was driving to work and came to an area on the freeway where the traffic had slowed to about 25 mph.  He slowed, but when he looked in his rearview, he saw the person behind him barreling down, apparently not noticing that traffic had slowed.  He plowed into Nathan, pushed him into the car in front of him, and as they all pulled off to the side of the road after the collision...the driver who caused the accident just TOOK OFF!  WHAT?  Fortunately, Nate was not hurt.  But his car was completely crunched!  And the aftermath has been a whole bunch of hassle and inconvenience as we try to figure out if or how to replace it or repair it, even as we also try to navigate family and work life with only one car.  Thank goodness this happened when we are on Christmas break and therefore have a less hectic driving all over the place schedule.  We can count that as another great blessing!  And although it's hard to not be angry at the selfish person who caused the accident, we can at least do our best to teach our own children to have better morals than that guy.  A silver lining?

The car accident didn't ruin everything, however.  This funny picture shows Nate with some of his associates at work on Ugly Christmas Sweater Day.  Aren't they hilarious?  Olaf is my favorite, hands down!

And here is the rest of the office crew, including most of the ladies, on Ugly Sweater Day.  Such a fun bunch!

And, once again, I did my best to feed my family some healthy foods in the midst of all the Christmas treats.  This is a yummy bowl of vegetable quinoa soup.  It was delicious!  But, let's be honest: the treats dominate the kitchen at this time of year, so this feels like a puny effort to maintain nutritional sensibility.  Ha! 

And with that, we have nearly arrived at Christmas Eve, so I will pause the photo album for now.  We love Christmas and all the family time we enjoy at this time of year!