So Much December!

We started off this very festive month with...  Colton getting braces!!!  He went from this:

to this:

(For those of you paying attention, this means we now have THREE kids in braces all at the same time!  The good news is that we already finished paying for Camille's, the bad news is that I feel like all I do is take kids to see the orthodontist...  At least their office is very close to our house and two of the three schools my kids attend!)

With the holidays already under way, Craig began his usual task of taking each kid Christmas shopping!  This mostly involves them ordering something off Amazon and getting a treat (it's really an excuse to spend time one-on-one with Dad as much as anything).  Camille got to go first and she seems to have had a good time!

Eating a (Crumbl) cookie at Panera!

And we had band concerts to attend!  Colton's was first--

It was his first time playing his saxophone since getting his braces on the day before, but I think he did fine?  At least, any errors that I heard did NOT come from his section!  So good job, Colton!  Not an easy task at all!

Kendra was next with an a capella performance!  We took video of all of her group's songs, but no still shots, so I'll see if my computer can handle uploading that.  But if it can't, rest assured that they sounded very good!  

And then that night we got three inches of snow!!!

The chickens were NOT fans

That effectively canceled school and seminary, which was SUCH a relief for me.  My co-teacher was still out of town, and I had been stressing about a myriad of other things and not sleeping well, and having an evening and morning without any of that to worry about was so helpful.  And then the roads cleared up pretty quickly, so I was able to take Colton and Camille to our friends the Bowes' house so they could sled with their friends while I hung out with the moms, so that was pretty great!  They also spent time before and after that with Sydney and Beth, sledding outside, drinking hot cocoa (a snow day tradition going back many years now!), and then going to see Zootopia 2, so they had a pretty fantastic day of it!

That night Craig and I also did our annual Christmas tradition of going on a date night to Panera to do most of our Christmas shopping!  We were a little more haphazard than we like to be, but at least we made a good start of things that night!

When we got home, the belt for my broken dryer had arrived, so Craig was able to fix it that night and I think I started doing laundry almost immediately.  (I had managed to go to Sarah's house and do three loads in the middle of the week-- thank goodness for awesome friends!  I realized that you can't just ask anyone to do laundry at their house!  That's next-level friendship right there!!!)  It was such a relief to not have clothes piling up all over my house any more!!!

Sunday was stake conference, and Kendra and I were singing with our ward women's choir, and I thought we were dressed up so cute, (and festive) I made Craig take our picture:

And then, at stake conference, Craig was sustained as the second counselor in the Stake Young Men's presidency.  So that should keep him busy!  He's already had MANY zoom meetings trying to figure out a bunch of changes they're making to camp next summer.  Better him than me, I say!  Craig and Kendra also gave a talk together.  It made for a different experience, trying to plan a talk together, but I think they enjoyed getting to do that, and they did a great job.  Adam (who was zooming it from Arizona) sent me this screenshot of them:

My people!

Less fun, was when I was trying to send the zoom link to my mom, and I couldn't find the link so I very carefully turned off my volume and opened the meeting on my phone and-- it started echoing the speaker's words right back at her very loudly and then of course I couldn't manage to hit the "End Meeting" button and it was SO embarrassing.  So embarrassing.  I'm still dying thinking about it.

I'd been hoping to go to the Cville Band's Christmas Concert that afternoon, but it was cold and Craig really wanted to watch Elf as a family, so I decided I was allowed to spend an afternoon at home, snuggled up on the couch.  Craig mostly slept through it, but I had a lovely afternoon laughing with my kids!

That night it snowed AGAIN, so school (and seminary!) was canceled and I slept in AGAIN.  I don't think we've ever gotten this much snow in early December before!  It was so crazy!!!  We used our free time very wisely by watching Home Alone, and then that evening the kids all went sledding at the Snow's farm, and Craig and I went to Costco to get pizza and do some shopping.

😂

In the back, Jason, Daniel, McKinley, Ryder, in front, Jadyn, Kendra, Camille, Colton

McKinley used to wear that moose hat to literally EVERYTHING, so it was kind of fun to see it again (and to realize just how much she's grown up in the last couple years)!

Poor Kendra got a bit stuck on the Snow's driveway when she was heading home, but a neighbor came out with his tractor and pulled her free.  I had to go do a mini-choir concert and rehearsal at the Colonnades, but the roads were getting worse, so Michael let us out an hour early (unheard of, for him!).  Even then, when Leah was driving me back to my car, we slid around a bit and I was very nervous the whole way home!  I hate driving in the snow!  

Colton got his shopping with Dad time-- looks like he got a cookie sandwich at Wegman's?

The bad roads meant we got yet another snow day on Tuesday! 

I enjoyed a relaxing day at home just puttering around tidying, and then that evening we took all the kids (because their Tuesday night activities were also canceled) to UVA's Messiah Sing-in!

Soprano section!

And my basses!

It was a fun night, as always.  I was only sad that we didn't get to sing more!  My sister Rachael sang in her town's Messiah concert, and next year they're planning on singing the entire thing and I'm so jealous!!!  I don't think I can drive five hours just for that... can I?

Meanwhile in Seattle, Tracy and Adam took Bentley to the temple's nativity display and I got this amazing picture from them:

How fun are they???

Wednesday was yet another two-hour delay, and then Amy was back and ready to teach seminary, so I'd gotten through my ordeal of not having a partner by barely having to teach at all!  😂  I guess God knew how much I could (and couldn't!) handle!  (I also went to the temple that week with my friend Megan, but apparently I didn't take any pictures of us.  Does it even count then?)

Saturday Craig took the boys to help out with the school's Toy Lift-- they have a great time doing it, and Camille is beyond excited to be old enough to participate next year!

And things were festive at Ace Hardware for Bentley, too:

(Apparently this coworker is usually kind of grumpy, but you wouldn't know it from this picture!)

We had our ward Christmas party and Craig wasn't in charge of anything!  He really enjoyed that!  AndI got to hold my friend Chloe's baby so I was a happy camper.  We got this cute picture of Colton and Clifford wearing matching flannels

Costco for the win!

and our family picture with Santa:

Craig was the only one brave enough to sit on Santa's lap, and that was just fine with me!  (Also, we have Camille's friend Olive joining us, in case you wondered who that extra kid was!)

And Camille got to be a shepherd in the very improvised primary nativity!

Sunday was the Stake Joy to the World concert!  Usually I sing with it, but I just couldn't find the time this winter to go to the practices (which are held Sunday evenings a half hour away), so this time I just enjoyed being in the audience.  Craig and I were ushering, so we got there early and saved a pew for our family.  But we didn't factor in that the side pews in this building are WAY smaller than the ones at our church, and our family did NOT fit on that pew!  But right as we realized this, I found Sarah, who was just as happy sitting in the back of the cultural hall, so I joined her and we had a lovely time enjoying the music and whispering about what we both had going on in our lives.  Everything works out!

This makes me laugh

The seminary students all got little crocheted vegetables?  I honestly don't know why, but they were very cute!

Kendra has peas, Sawyer got a pear, and Ryder got a carrot!  (Unfortunately Gideon left to go to Spain for Thanksgiving, and then just stayed hanging around various countries in Europe and didn't return until Christmas Day, so we missed him.  That was not anything I was expecting!  But I did save a very cute purple onion for him!)

And Kendra has made great progress on her EMT training and got her uniform so she can start helping out officially!  Look at this girl!!!

She looks so tough and competent!  I would totally let her into my house to fix whatever medical emergency I was having!