Christmas 2021

    Christmas was great and I have a few photos to document all the fun!

Line up!

All her dreams came true.

He's a happy camper!

Look out for this 'bad boy'!

He was pretty lit up about the LED lights.

Sweet car!

Science boy!?

A few of my favorite gifts.

Cute Harley loved the wrapping paper the best.

Beau was just happy to open any gift!

Sibling gift exchange.

 

 

 

 

 

My new trend, rings everywhere!

Christmas dinner!

    And after Christmas fun for Charlie was sledding with her friends.

 

    Our New Years celebration has been fun with neighbors but of course I failed to get a photo. Happy New Year, may 2022 be a bit better then 2021!

The week before Christmas

    Sunday Greg and I made a quick trip up to Oregon to see Tad for his surprise 40th birthday party. It was a short, but fun, trip and it was fun to see Tad and Megan. We also made a quick stop at Melissa and Garrett's and had a yummy lunch date.

 47 & 40 never looked so good!

This was a 'blessing'!

These street tacos were worth the 6 hour drive!

A quick detour to see the Shoshone falls only to be mildly disappointed that they weren't flowing. 

    Later in the week, Greg, Charlie and I stopped by our good friends house to drop off a little gift and ended up coming home with more gifts for ourselves. She's the sweetest lady and has a house of Christmas decorations that are over the top fantastic!

Charlie dancing with the dancing Santa.

I came home with this adorable gnome and three new Santa dolls to add to my small collection.

    And tonight was our wards nativity program and Charlie was asked to participate as an angel, which she happily agreed to. She, and several other cute girls from her primary class, sang "Away in a Manger".

 

    And of course we had our annual Christmas Eve gift opening and this year it was hoodies instead of pajamas. Most everyone was happy with what they got. (Apparently I'm not good at picking sizes so I'll need to do better in the future.)

 

 

    And because of sizing issues I ended up getting this sweatshirt twice so now Charlie and I get to be twins.

 

    We've now had our annual viewing of "Mr. Krueger's Christmas", a must see every Christmas Eve. We've read the annual Christmas story sent to us from Grandma Baker and now Santa can come and add to the fun. Merry Christmas! 

A few of our blue eyed kids.

    Charlie is never at a loss for someone to hang out with. She loves people, animals, whoever!

Charlie and our neighbors cat, Taz.

Here is Charlie helping a friend wrap gifts while waiting for another friend to be available to play.

    Isaac has signed up to be an 'elf' for our favorite 'Brown-Santa' during this Christmas season. They seem to be having a fun time making their deliveries!

 

    It was 'ugly Christmas sweater' day at school and this is what we came up with. Pretty DIY and definitely ugly!

 

    And McClane had his last primary activity this week and he enjoyed making this crazy gingerbread house. He's loved his primary activities this year and has had the best leaders but he's definitely looking forward to joining the Deacons Quorum in January.

 

    A week from right now I expect to be feeling the 'magic' of Christmas while we wind up our Christmas Eve together as a family. I still can't believe we're this close to Christmas but the snow that fell this week definitely helped ramp up that Christmas feeling. And no more school for 2021! 

More lights and piano recitals

    This week we got the rest of our light decor up and it's super awesome. I'm happy we could add to our outdoor light decor. Charlie and McClane had their Christmas piano recital and they both did really well. I posted their videos below. And tonight we had our ward Christmas party, which was great and we had a short hayride afterwards to our Bishops side yard to see 'Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus', which was super sweet. 

We got the light post and the pine tree all lit up.

These lights are green and red in case you can't tell.

Charlie and McClane's piano recital group.

Charlie's always busy doing something. 

This was the perfect ending to the ward party.

    We did get some snow yesterday and today, something we need but not my favorite weather condition. It does make it feel more like Christmas though, so we'll enjoy it. Only five more school days left for 2021! Like always, this time of year is going a bit too quickly, but let the countdown continue.

Random photos, no particular order

    Sometimes you go camping with your buddies and tip your truck over! Carter is a 'legend'! Broke his side mirror but that's the only visible damage from this little stunt/accident.

 

After climbing out of this sideways truck, Carter's buddy, Tyler, had to capture their 'victory' with a bold stand.

    I got this photo from Thanksgiving dinner from Kayli so I thought I should post it for posterity.

 

    And who doesn't love Christmas lights. Ours turned out pretty good and we're not quite done but so far it looks good and hopefully before the weekend is over we have the rest of the light decor up and running.

I may have rearranged the tree and leg lamp in the front window so that the leg lamp can be more front and center. Priorities!

    Brock enjoyed some fun with his niece, Harley, this week. She thinks her uncle Brock is pretty awesome. And for my birthday, aside from a sewer back up mess in the basement and spilled, then sour milk smell in my bedroom, I felt pretty spoiled by so many people for my birthday. The Young Women leaders especially went out of their way to celebrate my 'big' day. I also got to take a tour of the Built facility, which was fun and super cool! 

 

    Greg rented a lift to put up the Christmas lights I ordered for the street light/post and he also took some time to trim up the pine tree so we don't have droopy branches hitting the car as we go in and out of the driveway. Sadly, the lights didn't turn out like we hoped and after $50 of lights burning out in a matter of minutes we're back to waiting for this vision to become a reality. (Good thing Amazon can have new lights delivered next-day delivery.)

 

The light-up was short lived but it gives me hope it will work...eventually.

Oh and I bought this cute 'elf-butt' wreath for the front door and I love it.

    So it's been a fun week, minus a couple bumps along the way. We're all getting geared up for Christmas and we're nearly done with all the shopping. What a fun and crazy time of year.

A little fun in addition to Thanksgiving

    We had some fun stuff going on last weekend. Charlie got to have a fun late night with her 'bestie', Kat. Greg and McClane got to go on a little camp out with a few priest quorum boys and leaders. And we had a fun Sunday with the grandbabies. And then it was Thanksgiving and it was a great day and we had plenty of yummy food and although we were missing several extended family members we still managed to enjoy our time at G & G Kmetzsch's.

Cute baby Harley

Kat and Charlie

The bald and the beautiful.

Beau getting spoiled by her Grandpa and aunt.

Greg and McClane enjoying their time at the sand dunes.

McClane may not be priest age yet but neither is Buddy. Ha ha, fun times.

All my kids and grandkids together for Thanksgiving.

Beau wasn't too excited about dinner, at first, but she finally came around.

This cutie was the best.

Charlie learning to play "Cover your Assets" with cousins and Grandma and Grandpa.

 

    So now it's time to get serious about Christmas! So far we've got the majority of our decor up and just have Christmas lights to put up outside and a new wreath is on its way. I've also done a good chunk of the shopping this past week. I still don't know how it's holiday season but a little snow might help bring some Christmas spirit but sadly there's nothing on the upcoming weeks forecast but we'll see what we can pray into effect.