Christmas 2022!

    Starting with Christmas Eve gifts. Cute grand babies were excited to open a gift.

An old school 'speak & say' 

Christmas Eve gifts. 

 

 

Matching hoodies with their initials, which number child and Kmetzsch on the back.
 

    Carter may or may not have known that Mark's initials actually spell Mark.

    Christmas morning!

Matching polka dot dresses.

Traditional lineup. 

Books, clothes, and money! 

Happy Beau. 

    Sadly, Kayli and Tanner's gift was lost, $200 cash missing! Hopefully it turns up sometime in the future but in the meantime I just transferred $200 to their bank account instead. But here's photos of the rest of the kids opening their main Christmas gift.

Mark was thrilled to get this pressure cooker/air fryer appliance. 

 Custom gaming remote for Isaac.

 Roller skates for Carter.

Clothes and $ for Brock. He was especially excited about this jacket. 

Air pod pros for McClane. 

And a variety of things for Charlie, including new shoes, clothes and a few fun things. 

I got several great things like these adorable little garbage cans for the car. 

    Then we had the sibling gift exchange.

Kayli got Carter cologne. 

Carter got Kayli Chick filet gift cards. 

Mark got McClane a cool hot wheels track. 

McClane got Isaac this cool tiny drone. 

Isaac got Mark a cool r/c car. 

Charlie got Brock a cool lamp and soda and he got Charlie LED lights for her room. 

Greg got some great gifts, new shoes, a chain saw sharpener and a little money to help buy some beef.

    The photo below is to document this years Christmas miracle gift. I really wanted a new iPad, one that was just for me that I didn't have to borrow or share. Of course they're not cheap and Greg really didn't have the budget for a new one but he put out a few feelers for a used one and initially had no luck, but then a good friend's dad said he'd happily gift me his iPad that he got last year and hasn't touched once since receiving it. (Our good friend actually bought it for his dad last year for Christmas, so really this generosity can be turned on him too.) He refused to take any money for it but insisted I have it! I was blown away and so thrilled, this is going to make my life so much easier in a multiple of ways!

 

Cute girls! 

 

   I also got a new TV for my kitchen and so Greg put the old TV in the garage and now he takes time to himself to watch TV in the garage where he's kind of hidden from family and friends. Kind of funny!

Photo courtesy of our garage camera. 

    And outside of celebrating Christmas Charlie's happiest when she's with friends doing anything and everything, including drives up American Fork canyon.

 

Silly girls.

    And last night we had a much awaited dinner at the local 'all-you-can-eat' sushi place. 

I'm just a witness to the insanity, no sushi for me!

    Hopefully weather doesn't wreck our New Years Eve celebrations but only time will tell. We're going to enjoy a few more days off from school either way.

Weird Week

    This first week of Christmas break has been weird for multiple reasons but because it's been weird I failed to take a lot of photos. I did get this cute one of Charlie and her friends. Charlie loves spending time with friends and she loves hosting them and even went to the trouble of grilling sandwiches for everyone and mixing up tall glasses of chocolate milk. She takes after her Gr. Elaine, feeding the masses.

 

    Two more sleeps until Christmas! Wild! Bring it!

Winter fun

    We've had a very snowy week! Poor Greg has spent countless hours in the snow plow truck and he's ready for a break. Monday we had our annual neighborhood food drive/burn barrel gathering, which was great. Our neighbors got a leg lamp, which made my whole Christmas! We have 4 leg lamps on the street, so far, and 6 total in the neighborhood and, if I can, I'm going to convince others to join the fun. 

Four burn barrels!

 

    These two girls are the cutest and make me smile. 

 

    I may have mentioned my weekly institute class, Inklings, that I watch live on Instagram every Thursday morning with Emily Belle Freeman as the instructor. I love this weekly discussion that includes scriptures and conference talks from our most recent General Conference. When these sweatshirts were put up to be ordered I knew I needed one. The back of the sweatshirt is a quote/mission statement that is very powerful. 

 

   

 

    It says, "Chess has three parts: opening, middle game, and endgame. The opening is the development of the pieces, you're setting up your strategy. The middle game is the implementation of your strategy. The endgame is hopefully where you're seeing the fruition of your strategy-you're closing the trap. The queen is the most powerful piece on the board, and it is conventional chess wisdom that you postpone playing your queen for as long as you can. The longer you can delay playing your queen, the more likely you will have your most powerful piece for the endgame. The Lord is the Master Strategist and knows exactly how to win. Current pleadings from the prophet appear to be the Lord bringing His queens into play in preparation for the end game." Lynn Beard.

    I love this!!!

Friends, fire and final

    We had a nice week, dinner with friends, a Sunday burn barrel and the final piano recital for McClane and Charlie. (At least with their current piano teacher.) I uploaded a few of their main performances. They both did pretty well and we will miss their piano teacher who leaves next month for a senior mission to France with her husband.

Great friends & Fun times!

Just the two of us to start the night out.

Cute piano performers.

    So there were a few more events of the week but no more photos. We can't believe we're less then 3 weeks out from Christmas but we're feeling pretty good about our preparedness. Let the count down continue!

Tail end of our Thanksgiving trip.

    Our last day in Oregon was fun with some fun activities, including a little kickball and ice skating. 

 

 

    The Larson's zip-line was definitely a hit with everyone. 

 

Even I had to get in a ride or two.

Carter took to ice skating just like we thought he would.

Isaac wasn't bad either.

How adorable. David, Asher, Carter, Luke and Isaac.

Charlie enjoyed pushing her cousins all over the rink.

Brock wasn't sure how he felt about ice skating but he gave it go.

 

    Sadly I missed getting a photo of McClane, but he had fun and did great.

Fun times.

    We're now home and working on preparing for Christmas. We've got 75% of the decorations up and about the same percentage of Christmas shopping done. I'll never know how I survived Christmas shopping without Amazon! There's nothing better then shopping from the comfort of my own home and having things magically show up only a day or two later. A miracle of our day for sure!

    And our friend, Andy, let us participate with him in gifting the 'classic' Leg Lamp to our newly widowed friend and neighbor. She loved it!

Everyone needs a leg lamp in their window for Christmas!

    And a great friend and neighbor knows me so well and for my birthday gifted me this amazing pillow. Who doesn't want to lean back against this beast, Mr. Jason Momoa?! Even Greg's a little jealous of my pillow. 

 

    Now on to more Christmas stuff.