Week in Review---Christmas!

Beautiful sunset!

We opened our Christmas Eve pajamas after Abby read us the Christmas story...

We have had lots of time to snuggle....

Jacob picked up his guitar that he got last Christmas and started to learn how to play some Christmas songs, he's doing really well!

Abby got a pottery wheel for Christmas and she and Jacob have both made projects, i'll take pics when they're done. Ashlyn is the expert and has been helping them...

 On Christmas morning we woke up to our garbage disposal leaking, but luckily after all of our kitchen floods I had bought a protective cover for the bottom of the cabinet which saved it from damage. Luckily we caught it really early too. Later that day our garage freezer stopped working and we figured out that it wasn't getting power from the outlet, so we hooked up an extension cord into our house to power it on. It suddenly started working the next day, so that was weird. We had a plumber come out the next day to give us an estimate on installing a new garbage disposal and he wanted $500, so we went to home depot and bought one and installed it ourselves. Saved us about $310 because we upgraded to a higher power one that will hopefully last longer than 2 years. Both of these were blessings in hindsight because they happened while we were home and were able to catch them quickly. Christmas was a great day, we played games, danced, sang songs and did lots of laughing. It was fun to spend time together. I'm so grateful for Christmas and all that it reminds us of, the birth of Christ. Our lives are so much richer because we know that he atoned for our sins and we can repent and return to Him. In my primary lesson today we talked about how we show that we are happy, we may smile, laugh, do a happy dance, sing loudly, etc. The angels showed us how happy they were when Christ was born by singing joyfully. One word that I hadn't noticed before was that there was a MULTITUDE of angels singing. I'm imagining a sky filled with angels rejoicing this sacred event. We are so grateful, thankful and joyful that He was born. 

Week in Review...

Christmas Sunday, I told Jacob to smile. This is the best one that we got! haha! It was a beautiful Sabbath day filled with music and great testimonies of Christ.

On the last day of school before the break, I participated in the Masked Singer for our school's Sing Along assembly. I was the Grinch and sang Underneath the Tree by Kelly Clarkson. I practiced the lyrics for weeks and had them completely memorized. As luck would have it as soon as I got on the stage all of the lyrics were thrown out of my head and I couldn't remember any of them. My mic wasn't working and I was singing to our therapy dog, who decided to wander off the stage apparently bored with me. I made the best of it and luckily the kids thought it was funny and great. Abby's friends said that I was their favorite performer. They are all too sweet. The other teachers had no idea it was me and said that I was the most anti-grinch person they knew. It was a fun experience but next time, I'm going to figure out a way that I can have the lyrics up there with me...

We finally made it to the temple on Sunday night to see the Christmas lights, my favorite part is going to see all of the nativities on display at the visitors center...

This one was my favorite...

Then we had to draw on the wall at the visitor's center...

They also have this amazing chalk drawing!

Jacob was there, even though he refused to be in pics so Rick stole this one....

Hahahaha....

Abby and Rick were matching one day so I had to get a pic, they begrudgingly obliged...

Ashlyn and I made these Christmas tree ornaments, they were really hard to make and took a long time. But I think they turned out cute...

Lots of movie watching...

Silly Abby...

Sarah's beautiful family...so cute how Madeline brought 3 babies to church...

Some more pics from my embarrassing presentation...

One of my students was wearing a grinch sweater, so we had to get a pic together!

A cow came to visit the kids during lunch...

Ashlyn went on a date to the botanical gardens, it was so beautiful!

We received this beautiful nativity from Jen Hahn, very sweet of her!

There was this big beautiful moon that popped out from behind the mountains one night on our walk. We couldn't capture how huge it looked, but we tried...

Ashlyn and Emilie made some holiday treats and they were delicious!

On Wednesday night, I got to go through the temple with Emilie and her family for her endowment. It was such a special experience and I'm so grateful for the temple and all that it teaches me. Ashlyn completed her first semester of college at Mesa Community College and she got a 4.02 with super hard classes like Biology, Physics, Anatomy, and Honors English. Proud of her for pushing through even when it was really tough and she was over it. She's going to take the next semester off, apply for the waitlist at a couple of schools, and try to get a job.