The Week Before Christmas

We've tried every weekend in the Month of December to do a family activity.  In 2016, we ended up with only one night in the entire month where we were overly committed to other people, to spend with each other.  So, this mama made it a priority for some quality family time.  Well, we had 4 Friday's before Christmas and, we were about 50/50 on quality family time.

Week one: Out to dinner at a restaurant with menus and to see the "tree of life" in Draper, Utah.  Fun activity, fun night.







Week two:  Per the request of the children, gingerbread houses.  The houses collapsed several times, the dad yelled several times, the frosting got everywhere, and the mom got stuck with clean up.  It was a struggle.


Week three: Drive around to see the lights - except for the fact that we didn't prepare ahead of time and the local news map we used was highly disappointing.  All Christmas spirit was lost, immediately.


Week four:  We went with Grandpa Karl to dinner and to see the new Star Wars.  The boys were immediately enchanted with the porgs and late in the night, after the movie we headed out on a small adventure to, unsuccessfully, secure our family a pet porg, two days before Christmas. 



On Christmas Eve, which was a Sunday this year, we ventured out to Grandpa Huber's house for our traditional Christmas Even program.  It was a nice program and fun to see my kids read and participate.  Man, everyone is getting so big.  Ross and I also hid in the corner before everyone else got there to test out my selfie light for my phone.  It took us, maybe, 20 attempts, but we got a nice little picture of ourselves.  I have no idea how people take "couple selfies" on the regular.  It's difficult.





Oh, and yes, my hair did change colors from the beginning of this post to the end.  Funny what a trip to the hairdresser right before Christmas, and a general feeling of anxiety can do to a girls hair color.

cousin picture

Willie decided that for Christmas, he wanted to give my mom a photo with all SIX of her grandchildren.  Willie organized everything, we met at my house a couple of days before Christmas and did our best to be fast and create enough good light.

We ended up with some pretty cute pictures.  Even if, these Napoleon Dynamite obsessed kids were doing their best glamour shots by Deb looks.


The winner winner Chicken Dinner:


The Out takes:

Christmas Programs

December is so busy.  In the last few days though, we had some great little Christmas programs with the boys.

First up was Quinn's preschool program.  It was the sixth and FINAL time I watched the Learning Dynamics Christmas program and it was great.  Quinn did a good job reciting his part, "We are getting ready for Christmas" and sang most of the songs.  I took "the brothers" to school late in the morning so they could support Quinn and his program and Willie and Grandma came along as well.







The big boys also had a holiday performance, but for band.  They did two assemblies at school back-to-back in the morning and then a program at the junior high in the evening.  Elliott is in his third year playing the trombone.  In fact, we just got a letter in the mail telling us that we have rented long enough, we now own the trombone.  Hooray!  Wyatt is in his first year of band and  even though he initially wanted to play the saxophone, after trying it out, it was discovered that he was not only too small handed as an 8 year old, but in fact the alto sax is so heavy that it nearly tipped him over.  He settled on percussion, and has struggled a bit being a first year band nerd.  But, as the concert approached, he and I had a week of mini lessons and practicing at home, he finally started to get the hang of the fact that he is playing notes that are written on a page, not just to memorize.  Hooray.

Both boys did a great job.  I was very proud of them.

Halloween with the Dynamite's

Months and months and months ago, Elliott had the idea to be Kip from "Napoleon Dynamite" for Halloween.  As the months passed, more people got roped into the idea of a giant family themed movie costume party.

The assigned rolls were as follows

Quinn :: Napoleon
Elliott :: Kip
Wyatt :: Pedro Sanchez
Ross :: Principal
Annie :: Deb
Mama Judy :: Grandma
Coach Karl :: Happy Hands Club
Molly :: Summer Wheatley
Jack :: Don, Summer's boyfriend
Baby Brady :: Tina the llama

Now, thinking about it, I cannot remember what Haley and James were assigned...I think that James was also part of the Happy Hands Club - or maybe James was Rex Kwon Do and Haley was supposed to be Starla?  I cannot remember....

Anyway, as Halloween drew closer, the costumes got more real.  As silly as it sounds, I've maybe never been more proud (in an ironic sort of way) of how well my kids pulled off their Halloween costumes.  They were the hit of school, the hit of the neighborhood and after our professional photo shoot images were posted to Uncle Rico's instagram feed, they were for a brief moment, the hit of the internet.

I laughed all day long and told Elliott before he went to sleep that most likely, never again in his life, would he ever have such a great costume.

It was truly the best!

Adventures in Moab

A few months back we decided that since the boys are now on a traditional schedule, it would be fun to go on one final adventure for the year over UEA vacation.  We picked Moab, UT and decided to use our National Parks Pass (which we realized later that we lost.  Oops.  Sorry, Mom!) to visit Canyonlands and Arches National Parks.

We had a great trip.

We airbnb'd a mobile home.  I thought it was a double wide, but Ross said it was a single wide.  It was pretty spacious regardless.  And, besides the space, everyone got their own bed.  Hotels just don't work well for us these days because we aren't quite prepared to pay for two hotel rooms and one hotel room doesn't provide enough sleeping space and someone, generally Wyatt (he volunteers) ends up sleeping on the floor.

Anyway, enough beds.  Great weather.  Major crowds.  There was a state high school mountain biking competition the same weekend so everything in teeny tiny Moab was a bit crowded.

We had such a nice time.  Things have been pretty stressful in our lives these days - there is a lot going on and not only an immense about of physical energy being exerted, but more mental energy being expended than we've got in our brains.  It's nice, every once in a while, to go somewhere where there isn't any service.  No internet.  No instagram.  No facebook.  Just beautiful scenery, breathtaking vistas, family time and lots and lots of hiking.

Quinn was a trooper.  He hiked to delicate arch and we learned is also afraid of heights.  And, FYI, delicate arch is about 5 miles round trip, not 3 like all the signs tell you.

We walked and walked and walked.  We ate lunch in our car.  We saw green squirrels and used lots of out houses.  We were happy.  We slept in.  We didn't fight.  Like I said, a really splendid time.

We should do it more often.