The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Christmas is such a lovely season. I mean, it's different now with teenagers - but it's still quite lovely. The magic is a bit gone, but the beauty and joy of the season still exists. I miss it already. It was sad not having Miles around, of course. He's such an even-keel kid and just happy to do whatever and just kind. He's just good to have around. But Miles is doing the right thing and at the right time. But I still miss him.

Anyhow, Christmas Eve and Christmas day were nice. On Sunday (Christmas Eve), Ben and the girls participated in the ward's choir and the girls even had special parts with a few of the primary kids. Jonas came, but sadly sat with his friend in the back instead of me. Oh well, I was happy enough to just have him there really. 

After church we decorated our gingerbread houses. Which is always so fun - and slightly stressful. But mostly fun. :) We had the two elders serving in our ward over for dinner - Elder Pritts and Elder Pedro (but pronounced like Pee-dro). I think this is the third year in a row we've had the elders over on Christmas Eve. We have to have someone other than Ben and I to enjoy our dinner of Swedish meatballs since our kids aren't the biggest fans. . . And enjoy they (the elders) did! We played two rounds of the DIY version of Telestrations and that was super fun and funny. We gave them our typical elder gifts: a Montrose mug and Colorado socks.

After the elders left, we moved on to cleaning up and eventually to sibling gifts. The kids were excited and happy with their gifts (even Jonas with his 6 boxes of Pringles - all different flavors - from Lucy, ha).

The girls ended up sleeping in Emmy's room and watching a classic kid Christmas show - Santa Claus is Comin' to Town. Jonas ended up going to Midnight Mass ("Who goes to church at Midnight?!" said Jonas) with Abby. He told us it was like all singing - like the pastor guy just sang everything - the greeting, the prayers, everything. Haha, just what Jonas hates - a musical. :) But it was still probably fun for him to go.

Christmas morning we were up a little before 8:30. The kids checked out what Santa left for them, we ate Christmas breakfast (and ate and ate and ate it all day long), opened our wrapped gifts and that was pretty much it for the day. Jonas' "big" gift was his ski pass to Powderhorn. But he managed to get some other cool stuff. Santa still brought him (and gave one to Miles, too) a Lego set. Because he can't stop. The girls got some much, much-desired shoes (Ugg slippers for Emmy and Nike blazers for Lucy) from Santa. Everyone got some clothes and loved them all. Lucy got a cool photo printer thing - you send your picture from your phone to an app and edit it, etc., and then send it to the printer and it prints this cute 2x3 photo - which, surprising, is really good quality. All in all, the kids were so happy with their gifts and we had a good day.

We visited with Miles and that was, as always, wonderful. Miles seems happy and is loving being in Mexico. He gets fed every day (except for P-days) and it's so much food that he only eats once a day - at around 2pm, when they get fed "dinner" by members of their ward. They make him each so much, that he's not hungry until 24 hours later . . . haha. He might start politely refusing a second helping . . . 

We enjoyed our best-yet fondue dinner and then headed out to the movie Wonka. Jonas brought Abby along. I was half-expecting Jonas to walk-out because it was a musical, but he stayed and said it wasn't too bad. :) It was a pretty cute movie, actually, and the rest of us really liked it.

I didn't get a lot of pictures (basically none on Christmas day) but here are a few:

Beautiful sisters in their new Christmas dresses. 

Jonas', per him, typical gingerbread log house. Typical or not, I still love it!

Whoop, whoop - Emmy liked her house this year! It turned out darling.

My house.

Lucy's adorable house - her roof, which you can't see, was really awesome. Nice job Lucy!!

And Ben's house - Grinch green. :) I think it turned out cute . . . Ben pretty much hated it. 

Oh I love these.

PJs and sibling gift time. Fun, fun.

I caught Santa dropping off his gifts at our house!

Chatting with Miles on Christmas day. 

So for having three teenagers and one son all the way in Mexico, it turned out to still be a really wonderful time . . . 

Stuff (including a Miles dump)

Miles just keeps on sending random pictures from his mission. :)

I think Miles said he googled "studebaker" and a few showed up on the map. Weird! He was sad to have not come across any studebakers on his mission thus far . . . so this was fun for him to check out on his P-day.

Oh so handsome!

Some super-ugly truck made by Tesla. I guess not many were made . . . maybe because no one wanted one?!

I just realized that Miles is taller than the elder next to him! What!?

Our annual Christmas Tree hunt . . . (Jonas was snowboarding and so he wasn't able to come):

Our tree was a conjoined twin - so it was extra bushy, ha! One trunk that split . . . so we still considered it just one tree. :)

The girls had fun playing and wrestling in the snow.

All decorated and lit up! I did the majority of the lights because we didn't have enough and Ben left the next day for a week in Utah with army stuff. Doing the lights was so hard! But it makes the tree look beautiful and so it's worth it.

Oops, I don't think I posted our November calendar. So here she is.

Jonas borrowed the Skalla's jeep and trailer and decorated it for the city's parade. He drove it and Abby rode along. Fun!

So . . . Lucy has a special friend who happens to be a boy . . . They like to be twinners at school. :) And, yes, the fact that he's super-tall isn't lost on anyone (he's taller than Ben). Nixon is his name and he's hung out at our house watching a movie, went to the church's youth Christmas party, likes to hang out with Lucy and be driven around by Emmy (it's even more fun when Emmy gets pulled over . . . we're having trouble with her lights. . . ), etc. 

Christmas decor is always a delight and just makes me happy. Until I start feeling too cluttered by it and then it's time to come down. My sister made this lovely table runner. My friend just gifted me the cute crocheted tree thing.

I scored this lovely light on Facebook marketplace. I really love it. Our old one was like the ugliest light thing ever. Haha. So now my Christmas gift is two more matching lights (small ceiling ones) for our living room area. Yay.

Jonas' Senior Pictures (and a birthday recap)

We had to get Jonas' senior pictures done early so they will make it into the yearbook. I loved how they turned out! So here are a "few" favorites:

Such a handsome kid!

Jonas' birthday was okay . . . he got spoiled by Abby with an amazing birthday basket full of of gifts of his favorite things. Some Cinch apparel, an awesome heated vest, monster drinks (not a fan of him drinking them . . .), his favorite car smelly things, his favorite snacks, a fuzzy blanket, an adorable picture of him and Abby, etc. She came over in the morning and so that was a good way to start his birthday!

He didn't get much to open many gifts from us because his big 18th birthday gift is a trip - and he picked going snowboarding in British Columbia at Whistler/Blackcomb resort. So Ben, Jonas, and myself will go there for a few days in February. Fun! He did get some cash from his grandparents, a Whistler t-shirt from us, a big box of fruit snacks, and a super-generous gift from Ben - $200 towards fixing his Jeep's engine. Jonas was surprised and excited about that.

We ended up going out to dinner at Pahgre's and Abby and her sister Layla joined us. It was yummy and a good time. We had cake at our house and Chad, a friend, joined us. He was embarrassed about having us sing to him, so I call his day a success. :)