December 2024: A busy month of Christmas fun.

12/2: Nana sent home early Christmas presents for everyone to keep us busy until Christmas.  The kids had "Bluey" pillowcases, Lego Santas, and coloring books.  Lily said, "I already have a pillowcase and dad loves Bluey," so she gave me hers.  We received a new card game, but it was missing a couple of pieces, so we had to reach out to the manufacturer to send the replacement parts.  Thanks Nana. 

We put up a lot of the inside decorations.  Finn is working on the Christmas village we brought home from Grandma Flick. 

12/4, Wednesday morning the kids spent the day in the field making an ice melting machine.  Place ice blocks on top and the sun melts the ice and it runs down the ramps. Homeschool? 

12/6, Friday afternoon I welded the trampoline frame together as a step toward making it a shade sail frame for the dirt hill.  While grinding the welds I touched the flap disk to my right first finger over the knuckle.  That took a while to heal!  Monday I had a friend at work look at it who chided me for leaving it untreated over the weekend.  He didn't think "finishing the project" was a very good reason to delay treatment.  A few days in a splint let the skin close up and typing this 30 days later, it is almost healed. 

12/7 Saturday was the Tree For All.  The kids went back and forth about visiting Santa, but ultimately decided they wanted it.  Well, nobody was willing to stand near him!  A few days earlier Lilian told me that Finn had said he once snuck down and saw me putting presents under the tree, so that means I'm Santa.  I told her that is true, some kids love to think about Santa, but the truth is her presents all come from her family and friends who lover her.  She responded, "So each family has their own Santa... that's nice!"

Saturday afternoon we were back at the Tree For All. The kids performed with their dance classes. 

Everyone did a great job and were very brave... even if Lily only did it after being promised she could open Grandma Jack's present early. 

12/11 Wednesday night was the ward Christmas party.  It was a nice meal and the 2nd ward performed a pretty shadow play as entertainment. 

12/14 Saturday night we attended the luminary walk at Nations of the Four Corners Dwellings on 500 S.  We followed the trails, lit by LED candles, and visited each of the dwellings.  This was the first time we'd been inside the Pioneer Home. There was a quartet singing Christmas carols.  At the hogan Clayton Long and Charlotta Lacy shared Navajo winter stories and taught the children string games.  These stories and string games are only played in the winter and must be put away at the first thunderstorm of spring. 

12/18 The Grinch visited the library again this year. 

That evening Melissa and Hannah went to a combined activity days with all the little girls in the ward. 

12/19 Thursday friends hike.  Mallory and Rebecca Lyman spent nearly a full week in the hospital at the beginning of the month.  Rebecca's febrile seizures wouldn't stop for nearly 20 minutes so they were flown to Primary Children's and after an induced coma it took most of the week to meet all milestones to come home. Melissa was very happy to have her little buddy back. 

That night was graham cracker houses with Grandma and Grandpa. 

Grandma made a dusty straw covered ground with the German chocolate cake frosting leftovers from her birthday (in May).

12/20 Friday Melissa had an appointment to check her painful knee at the clinic... and brought home a dog.  "Brownie" was very friendly and calm.  Melissa never found his owner through Facebook.  He spent a few days with us, and I was VERY unpopular with my family for putting my foot down about not keeping him.  He stayed a few nights and was taken in by a local family. 

12/22 Sunday, Hannah really wanted to sing in a choir, so Melissa took her to join our ward Christmas choir.  Since Hannah was going to need to practice, Melissa joined too.  I was asked to narrate.  Finn and Lily just enjoyed hanging out with Sister Numbers and Miss Lana for sacrament meeting.  

That evening, after dinner, we took Grandma around town to look at Christmas lights and try to find all the displays mentioned in this year's Christmas poem by Emily and Kendal Laws.  We got all but three on our own. 

12/23 Monday night we went to a new and awesome Christmas activity.  Christmas on the Farm, halfway between Blanding and Monticello we wandered around Christmas villages, had hot cocoa, soup, donuts, launched floating lanterns, received a Christmas ornament and enjoyed a Christmas carriage ride. 

Driven by Melissa!  The driver asked which kid wanted to ride up front and drive his Belgians.  The kids were too shy, but Melissa was nothing but smiles as she drove these great big fuzzy brothers for the whole ride. 

12/24 Christmas Eve morning.  At the USU party earlier this month we played a table game were one person wears oven mitts and tries to open a wrapped present (many layers of paper) the next player rolls dice and when they get doubles, they steal the mitts and present.  We played it with the kids to open an activity.  It was a puzzle, 100 pieces, which was done quite quickly.   The game and puzzle were fun, next year maybe a 250 piece puzzle. 

After Shepherd's dinner at Grandma and Grandpa's house we sang a few carols.

12/25 Happy Christmas! In what was our shortest Christmas Eve night ever, I put Finn back to bed at about 12:30 AM and Melissa put them all back to bed at 4:45 AM.  Here we are on the stairs at 6:45, giving up on trying to delay any longer. 

By 7:00 the kids had opened their stockings and sibling presents.  Grandma and Grandpa came over around 8 AM and we tried to have breakfast with only a few people successfully breaking from presents to eat. 

I guess it is a split second like this that makes all the crazy and lack of sleep worthwhile. 

By 9:30 all the presents were open and Grandma and Grandpa headed home to relax and the kids started building!

Making glued together hanging lamps, Barbie clothing, Hot Wheels tracks, coloring pictures, putting together wooden cars, etc. 

Everyone showing off their presents from Nana and Grandad while getting ready for bedtime. 

12/28 Saturday we were at the pickleball courts as a family.  Melissa got us a set of 4 paddles for Christmas since I've been playing with friends most Saturdays for a couple of months.  It was fun to "play" together, even if Lily usually only last 3-4 swings then starts stealing balls. 

12/31 New Year's Eve with Rob and Mallory's family.  We decided to try for 4-830 and ended up with 5-9:30.  Taco soup for the kids and Hot Pot for the adults.  It was lots of fun.  December was a "weird meat month." I won a goat meat sampler at the Tree For All silent auction. Then a neighbor called after Christmas because he'd slaughtered 17 beef and a few buyers backed out, so we bought 1/2 a beef.  We shared a few nice cuts for the Hot Pot.  We're angry at the Lyman's right now.  Rob has taken a new job in northern Utah and they'll be moving in the spring.  Every time we're together is bittersweet as we know they'll be moving soon.  It is hard to know that such good friend will be moving soon.  No more long walks, workouts and projects every week with Rob and Melissa and Mallory saw each other almost as often for kid activities, book clubs and hangouts.  A very nasty end of 2024!