Christmas Day 2023

Christmas morning is magical.  Even as our kids get older, we love it all the same and it doesn't get any less special! Our early limit is 5:00 and the kids don't let us get up 1 minute past that.  Mitch Miller's "Santa Claus is coming to town" is the signal that it's time to come down the stairs and see what treasures lie ahead.  We still take turns coming down in age order and the kids don't complain about that anymore.  We also take time and open our sibling gifts first (which are always a favorite and so sweet to watch.) Then it's on to the stockings and then one at a time we open our gifts.  It takes some time, but we love seeing what everyone got and celebrating in the small celebrations together! 

 

We had Grammie and Papa with us this year which is ALWAYS a treat in itself.  Some of the favorite gifts this year:

Rease - An apple watch

Rhen - Bose headphones

Liev - an iPod and AirPods to go with it

Keen - Dolphins hat and Mario tennis

Beck - A new watch and lego set

Desh - RC truck and marker set

The funnest part is watching the kids and their reactions to the gifts that we have carefully picked out just for them.  It's so fun to see the joy!

As soon as gifts are all opened, they're hard at work building legos, playing games and organizing their new things.  And then we watch all the good basketball games and eat leftovers while just enjoying our time together.  No wonder it's a magical day!

Most of all, we remember our Savior and His birth and the whole reason for the season of giving.  We are beyond grateful for this beautiful gift that we get to celebrate every year!

 

Christmas Eve

Christmas is finally here and we couldn't be more excited!  I think our kids get more excited as they get older so it makes it so fun the whole season long!  

Christmas Eve is so fun for us because we get to do all our favorite traditions.  Today was extra special because Christmas Eve fell on a Sunday, so we got to spend the morning with our ward that we love dearly.  The Christmas program was lovely and full of the spirit which makes the day a whole lot better! We love to go caroling in the evening and sing to our favorite friends and neighbors.  The boys have grown to love it more over the years as we've transitioned from fake candles to real ones...Mostly we just love to sing about our Savior and share His love with those that we love!

The best tradition of all is sleeping in the same bed that night.  The kids love it and don't mind being cramped into one small bed together.  Although, I think some end up on the floor by the time morning comes around.  Christmas Eve is here and we are so happy about it!

 

Keen's Christmas Concert

We got to go watch the Butterfield Canyon Christmas Sing-along today and it was so fun to see Keen doing his thing!  He loves being the oldest kid in the school as a 6th grader and they had fun today singing Christmas songs for all of us.  Thanks for not being too cool and letting us come be a part of your day!

 

Losee Christmas

For the past few years, we've had a night before Christmas that we spend in Delta and celebrate Christmas with the extended Losee family.  It's so fun for the kids to get together with all their cousins and we love being at Justin and Steph's house.  We do the cousin gift exchange, act out the nativity, eat lots of food and stay up late playing games.  It's such a fun night and one we all look forward to every year!

 

Young Women's Stuff

I was recently called to be the Young Women’s President in our ward - so FUN!  We’ve been able to do a handful of fun activities this month and it’s been THE BEST to be able to get to know these amazing girls and celebrate the best time of year together!  Band concerts, the new Wonka movie, ice skating, bishop’s baskets are some of the fav things we’ve done. Looking forward to so much more together but this has been a great start!

 

Winter Band Concerts

We've got two band players in our house and it's so fun to be able to hear them play!  Liev has loved playing the euphonium this year and his teacher says he's a natural at it!  For a beginning band concert they did really good and it's so fun to see how far they've already come in just a few short months.  

Rease also had her band concert on the same night so we went from one concert to the next.  Their symphonic band at the high school does a great job and we always love hearing her play the french horn.  She has such a fun group of band friends and we've loved seeing them all grow up together the past few years!  We love our band kids and look forward to so many more concerts in the years to come!

 

December happenings

SO. MANY. THINGS.

There’s so much going on around our house that sometimes I just have to take a minute to catch up on everything:

Sick Desh (poor boy couldn’t get better)

Rhen with some new hand me downs

Lily being…well Lily

I played in and our team won a women’s basketball tournament 

Girls cleaned out their room and all the junk laying around (Dr. Pepper anyone?)

Ward Christmas party

First ski day of the year (Liev and Keen are taking a 3 day Freestyle ski class at Brighton)

Friends Christmas gift exchange with Shelley, Stephanie and Melissa

Desh still sick…

Broken fence from an aggressive football game in the backyard

And…Beck’s eye?

 

Warriors game/Birthday celebration

Because we were in Puerto Rico for Rease's actual 16th birthday, we delayed the big celebration until now.  16 is a big year and we had to celebrate in style.  So we jumped on an early morning flight to Phoenix and spent the day bumming around (by bumming around I mean eating lots of good food and seeing awesome friends) and then had tickets to see the Warriors play that night.  It was such a fun trip just the two of us and I bet I gained 10 pounds in 24 hours just because we had to FIT IT ALL IN.  What's a vacation without eating whatever you want? The game was SO FUN and we loved seeing our guy Steph Curry play and also play against one of our own, Kevin Durant.  We didn't want it to end.  But of course it always does, but we got to continue the fun and spent the night with our dear friends the Ballards that live in Mesa.  They were kind enough to let us stay overnight and hang with them for a few hours before we caught our flight the next morning.  We LOVE them and are so grateful we got to see them and spend some time together!  Happy Birthday my dearest Rease and enjoy being 16!

 

Activity Days

Keen and Beck have had so much fun in activity days this year.  Lately the've been doing some fun winter/Christmas things and it is so fun to see them having a great time with the good boys in our ward and neighborhood!

 

Herriman Harmonies choir concert

Beck and Desh have been going to early morning choir practice all year at school and practicing for this Christmas concert.  The Herriman Harmonies group goes in early on Mondays and practices and they have gotten really good!  It's not always easy to get there, and sometimes there is some complaining.  But overall they have loved this choir and were super excited to be able to perform for their friends and families!  

 

Winter Ball

Rease was asked to Winter Ball by her good friend Blue (I actually don't know what his real name is!) She loved getting all dressed up and ready to go with her good friends and taking pictures in their formals.  They all looked so beautiful!  Such a fun night with good friends!

 

Beck's 4th grade Utah program

Beck and his class have been working hard on their Utah program and music production.  I get to volunteer in Beck's class each week grading papers, so I get to be in the background as they've been practicing so hard for this.  It is a lot of work to get a whole grade to be on the same page with lots of different songs and speaking parts.  Today we got to see the final production and they did SUCH a great job!!  So proud of this boy and all his hard work whatever he's doing.  

 

Christmas Tree

 

Candy Day

It's the most delicious day of the year!  And also the first day we get to really celebrate the Christmas season, with Christmas music, chocolate and lots of sneaking candy.  Nothing makes a candy day better than being surrounded by my kids and Josh, and feasting on chocolate all day long.  Don't worry, we saved some for everyone else.  We just got our fair share too along the way!

 

Black Friday

We ventured out in the wee hours of the morning to black friday shop "in person" this year.  It's been a while and it's way different than it used to be, but I have to say its a lot of fun and much less stress than the olden days!  We wandered around Kohls, Target and Walmart and even stopped for breakfast without so much as a small crowd in any of the stores.  Gone are the days of pushing through hords of people and throwing things from one aisle to the next to get just the right gift.  We had a leisurely morning and were quite successful with our purchases which is a win!  I think we may keep up this Black Friday tradition after all!

 

Thanksgiving 2023

We feel so blessed this year as we gathered with loved ones to celebrate Thanksgiving together.  Our bounteous blessings are evident when we set our table and sit together with lots of love and energy present in our home.  I couldn't have asked for a better day to remember how blessed our life is and how grateful we are to be close to family.  Happy Thanksgiving to all, near and far!

 

Thanksgiving schoolwork

Desh worked hard on some Thanksgiving worksheets today, just in time for the holiday!

 

Some things...

Do you ever feel like life is passing you by without asking permission?  Like you look up and all of a sudden your kids are all taller than you and they grew up right before your eyes?  Yah, I'm there.  I'm suddenly shorter than my two oldest boys, not to mention the girls that passed me up years ago.  I love my kids TO DEATH...and all the things they're doing make my life crazy and fun!  

Liev started going to the gym with us and boy is it a hoot to watch him try and lift weights with those skinny arms of his!

I've been the activity days leader for the 10-11 year old boys and we've had so much fun getting to know them and doing fun things together.  The last activity we had with them was to make marshmallow guns and have a marshmallow fight.  It hit the spot.  Those boys could not get enought!

Rhen and Josh cleaned up our yard one weekend while I was out and cut down an old bush that was getting unruly. 

Overall, our life is wild and crazy and fun.  I wouldn't change a thing about it.

 

BYU football

 

We LOVE going to the BYU football games together! This year has been a mixed bag of good/not so good games, on and off good weather and fair weather fans (Beck swapping to cheer for OU at the last second). But it's always our favorite fall tradition and we can't get enough cougar tails and chocolate mint brownies...

Rhen's friends

Rhen has a darling, fun group of friends that hang out all day during school and then somehow still manage to get together after school and on weekends, in between practices, jobs and homework.  They had a "Friends-giving" at our house this week and Rhen pulled out the nice dishes and all.  Potluck style with lasagna as the main dish, the Friends-giving was a hit!

 

Piano Recital

The kids have been working so hard on their piano recital pieces the past couple of months and their hard work paid off tonight!  They got to perform all their songs tonight and everyone did amazing!  Including Desh who is in his first year of piano and has only had a few months of learning.  So proud of these young ones who work so hard!

 

Sadies

Rease and her cute friends had so much fun asking dates to Sadies this year and coming up with their outfits for the "wild west" theme.  They planned their day date to an escape room and then had "cowboy nachos" at one of the houses before the dance.  The highlight was taking pictures at the Bluffdale Park that has western props all set up and were perfect for pictures for the dance.  She had a great time with her good friend Brian and I know they probably just laughed the night away like they usually do when they're together.  Ha!  Love this girl and her amazing friends!

 

Family Pics

 

Girls Trip

We took a girls trip to St. George to take advantage of the gorgeous fall weather and fall colors, hike and stay at Stephanie's house just outside of Zions National Park.  It was the perfect getaway to do something new and enjoy great friendships!  We had the most amazing weather and our hike on the west rim of Zions was just stunning.  We hit the fall colors at just the right time and enjoyed all that it had to offer us! 

One of might favorite things we did was visit the St. George temple and got to go inside for the open house!

 

Marching Band

Marching Band season is always a busy, great time for all of us, but mostly for Rease.  She absolutely loves every minute of the practices, uniforms, late nights, bus rides, performances, friend time, changing routines, pep nights and all.  She soaks it all in from the end of July until the first weekend of November when they perform at State in St. George.  

They had a really solid routine this year and worked so hard to master it.  They changed things up mid season and added new parts when needed.  By the time they got to state it was basically perfect.  They performed it so well and ended up taking 3rd at State which was so amazing!  I am so happy for her and proud of her for all her hard work!