NYE 2024

Chad ditched me on NYE for work again and I got the joy of hosting a whole house of teenagers! Mollie had several friends over and planned fun things to do every hour. And Carter ended up having friends over too. I made a ton of food and in true weird teen style, no one ate. What is up with kids these days?! 

Doing make up on the boys was one of Mollie's planned activities. Poor huddy!

Love this pic of the confetti popping and all of their faces. 

I guess they didn't like sparkling cider either really. Cuz no one drank much of it. Oh well. It was still fun. 

Cheers to a new year! Now please leave so I can go to bed!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
 

Christmas!

 We did all our regular Christmas festivities. There was no snow so it was slightly depressing. But we did make cookies, have our fondue party, open Christmas jammies and read the Christmas story. 

The girls set up a cute bed in Mollie's closet for a fun place to sleep together. 

When all good little kids were sleeping, Santa came. 

A vanity for Brielle

A gymnastics bar for Rylee

Shoes for Mollie

And Shoes for Carter

A cocoa machine for me and an ipad for Chad.

Then we did stockings. It's always fun to capture the joy as we watch each person open theirs. 

Then the mayhem of gifts began! 

Breakfast was cinnamon rolls as always! 

And then Carter did what he always does on Christmas, build his car! And the girls crashed out. I also got a little nap! And miracles of miracles, we woke up to snow! We did in fact get a white christmas!

We of course have to get all the loot pics! 

This girl loves all things PINK!

Merry Merry Christmas! We are so blessed and we love celebrating our Savior. We always look forward to sharing with our friends our favorite things about Christ. His names mean so much to me. His attributes give me something to work towards and I hope I'm becoming more like him every day as I give of myself. He is the REAL reason for the season!

Island Park Part 2

 I REALLLY wanted it to snow while we were there and we woke up Sat morning to our wish being fulfilled! I just HAD to get out on a walk in the snow and enjoy the quiet with the only noise around was the crunching snow under my boots. It was so peaceful and beautiful! Nothing like a walk in the fresh snow in the mountains!

After that we hopped in the hot tub and enjoyed the sauna for a bit. Again, glorious!

After lunch, we planned to act out the nativity and get G&G Reed on video call to join us! How perfect is this little scene here?!

We also all dressed Christmasy and sang carols to them. We called Justin and Tony as well and sang and chatted with them too. It helped it feel more like Christmas and being all together. 

Oh, and we CAN'T forget these beauties! Brit made her famous snickers bars and they were AMAZING! They are so rich that it took me a bit to eat it all, but they are sooooo good. 

Then it was off to play in the bit of snow that we did get! One wrong turn added a little snow time to the day, haha....Adam got stuck in the snow down a wrong path and we spent about 40 min getting him unstuck. I was laughing a lot and even though it was hard, it was fun to be doing it together. I also got our suburban stuck but luckily Chad got it out quickly. He's a handy guy to have when things like this happen!!

We sledded for a good hour and played and took pictures and had fun. 

Uncle Jord let us burry him in the snow. 

Mollie did a face plant and we all laughed at how even her eyelashes transferred in the snow. It looked like a real person!

Ahhhh, vacations like this really recharge me when they are just nothing but fun and family. 

We had one more evening together, Jordan went home in a blizzard and we were a bit worried about him, but he made it safely going very slow. The next morning the trees were heavy with snow and everything was even more beautiful! I really wish we could have stayed one more day. The plan was to go the Island Park ward but when we showed up to church all dressed and ready to go, there was no one in sight at the building. I don't know if it was canceled due to snow, some of the roads were really scary.  So we decided we were just going to head home! Bri was coming down with some sickness so it probably was best to just get her home!

We really had the best time!!! I'm so glad we could do this trip with my brothers. I love spending time with them!