Sydney (Tommy's oldest) created an amazing newspaper as a gift for Nana and Papa and I loved the updates from all the families that I thought it should be included to end the year.
Friday, December 31, 2021
Giving Machines
We took a trip out to Gilbert to visit the Giving Machines. It is such a simple concept but so cool to pick out unique things that you can donate. Our church partners with local and worldwide charities to provide the donation options and 100% of your money goes to the donation (the church covers the cost of the machines, the printing of items, the electricity, the credit card charges, etc.) Such a cool opportunity.
Our family chose to donate beehive, 100 polio vaccines, and personal hygiene items to a homeless shelter.
Christmas fun with friends
We decided to have a fun Christmas dinner with the Ponds and do a unique gift exchange. Each person brought a $15 gift card wrapped with a hint on top. Then we played a gift exchange game (rolling doubles lets you pick a gift of steal a gift). We didn't unwrap the gift cards until everyone had one, you just hoped you knew what your gift card was...
Crumble Cookies
Star"bucks"
Canes Chicken
Michael's
Target
Jersey Mike's
So fun!!
We also played Left/Center/Right with candy and had a blast stealing candy from each other.
Delicious BBQ Tri Tip, homemade rolls, homemade baked beans, and a homemade lemon meringue pie, amazing friends and fun...best dinner ever!
Organized Tetris
We are constantly rearranging things in order to add to our emergency supplies and food storage.
We increased our food storage yet again and had to get pretty creative with our organized Tetris of the Storehouse (our own little grocery store of emergency supplies) kept in the linen closet of the master bath.
I HATE being kind...
Izzy in her wonderful teenage attitude has many sayings:
I HATE being nice.
I HATE being responsible.
I HATE doing the right thing.
and
I HATE being KIND.
When we saw this art installation in the mall, I couldn't resist a picture of Izzy being the "I" in KIND.
Christmas Magic
It's always so magical to see the tree after Santa has visited.
Some top gifts from this year...
Olivia: Luggage (although she won't admit it was a favorite gift)
Izzy: PrismaColor Colored Pencils and a Hydroflask
Quinten: Red Ryder BB Gun and Hall of Armor Lego Set
Collin: skateboard and pocket knife
Favorite View
One of my absolute favorite views...all 4 kids asleep in the same room on Christmas Eve...
Merry Christmas Lights!
Our street is SERIOUS about it's Christmas Lights. They are SUPER-DECORATED starting Thanksgiving weekend! We had family in town so we didn't get our lights up on that Saturday, and we had 2 different neighbors make comments that our lights weren't up yet...oh geez!
We decided to go in a different direction this year with our Christmas decoration. Olivia has her last time decorating (maybe) so she really wanted to do Grinch lights. We thought it was perfect for our Griswold street to have a house with 1/2 a strand of lights being taken down by the grinch. I have to say our house was HUGE hit since our street is overly decorated, it got a lot of laughs from people as they drove down our street to see all the pretty lights. We even had a few people stop and tell us how much they loved our lights. Shayne and I would like to continue the fun lights...but the rest of the kids want to go back to the over-decorated Griswold christmas lights...
Baking Day
We had a BAKING DAY of all the Christmas treats and goodies!! Nana and Papa came over to help.
Homemade rolls for Christmas Eve dinner.
Ooey-Gooey Chex Mix
Saltine Toffee
Cinnamon Rolls for Christmas Breakfast
Sugar Cookies for Santa
Fudge and Chocolate Covered Cinnamon Bears
It was a FANTASTIC day full of creations!! YUMMMMM!
Discovered Gifts
Wicket discovered one of his Christmas gifts underneath the tree. It was wrapped and everything and he found it, unwrapped it, and enjoyed the toy. We weren't sure how he knew which one was his until we finally looked at the packaging and saw that it was a bacon-scented toy! Pretty great detective skills Wicket!!
Goodbye Gerald
For the last year we have participated in an intelli-drive program with Progressive. You have this teeny tiny device plugged into each car and it beeps at you when you do something it doesn't like.
We hate it...no, hate is a strong word.
We HATE HATE, DOUBLE HATE, LOATHE ENTIRELY the device.
We've had it in all three cars for THE ENTIRE YEAR! It has driven us absolutely NUTS to have it beep at us whenever we are driving! It especially didn't like how we braked. It would almost ALWAYS beep when we would brake thinking that we were decelerating too fast...super annoying.
I thought it would be better if I named my device because then I could yell at it when it made me mad. So I named mine Gerald and I would yell things like, "Nobody cares what you think Gerald!" or "Quit being so annoying Gerald!" or "Do you want to drive Gerald?!" whenever it would beep at me.
I asked Olivia and Shayne if they had names for their Snapshot devices and it turns out they did.
Olivia named hers "A-hole" .
Shayne named his "Dickface".
Somehow I think we had similar conversations on different intensity levels.
We're SO GLAD to see them go!!
SxS Parade
It was fun to share one of our favorite Christmas traditions with Nana and Papa and Tom and Ashley.
We love the Christmas SxS parade where hundreds of cars are all decked out in Christmas lights. It lasts almost an hour to see all the cars go through.
Food Chain Project
Collin had his first big at-home project of 3rd grade. It was to describe the 4 stages in the food chain: sun, producers, consumers and apex predator. Collin got african lions so his chain consisted of: sun, grasses/trees, elephants and lions. Great job Collin!
Amazon World
Amazon creates a whole new way of Christmas shopping. We love the surprises that show up on our doorstep every day!!
Christmas Concert
I always LOVE the Elementary School choir concerts. Love their song choices. Love the actions. Love the cute outfits. Collin is the last one of my babies to have these awesome choir concerts. However, he HATES them! Hates the song choices, hates the actions, hates the churchy outfits. Alas...we are at an impasse. He doesn't want do what I LOVE him to do...anymore...
Here's Collin's cute class from the concert.
Decorating the tree
One of our family's favorite traditions is decorating the Christmas tree. Everyone loves seeing all their ornaments from years past and finding that special spot to place it on the tree. Shayne and I have the privilege of untangling each hook for the kids...one of Shayne's favorite parts of the process...
Christmas Advent Fun
The boys really wanted a Marvel Lego Advent Calendar for Christmas, but they wanted it early, on December 1st so they could open one up every day...They LOVED finding a new prize every morning!
Culture Night
For our last big activity with our new International friends, was a culture night. My friend Niemat prepared for two weeks to share information about her home country Sudan. It was awesome to be with her in front of everyone as she shared all about the wonderful things of her country.
The relic is alive
We have LOTS of cousins in town for Thanksgiving. We are hosting. That means LOTS of kids around our house ALL THE TIME. My kids like their things how they like them, and don't necessarily want other people touching their things. Olivia was hanging out in her room talking to the girl cousins and Hazel (3) walks in wanting to play with some toys. Sydney passes Quack Quack over to Hazel so she can play with him...WRONG CHOICE! Olivia FREAKS OUT about the delicate status that Quack Quack is in and quickly recovers him from the 3 year old's grasp...He is a Relic! and puts him up for the remainder of their stay.
Monday, December 13, 2021
Absolutely Amazing
I have had the awesome opportunity to get to know Niemat. She is from Sudan and is one of the most amazing ladies I've ever met. She is such a go-getter and willing to do absolutely anything. I constantly marvel at her skills, talents, and willingness to try anything.
We do a videochat 1-2 times a week talking about whatever really. Maybe english questions, or job questions, or she taught me her favorite recipe, and now she's teaching me some Arabic...
Adults only Dinner
Every once in a while, we get to leave the kids at home and enjoy a night with only adults!
Dillon's BBQ at the zoo. Eating with the sharks.
Favorite Hangout
Not only is the Comic Shop Shayne's favorite hangout but ALL THE COUSINS favorite hangout too!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
-
I love our family's blog books. I love capturing the moments and freezing them in time so we can look back and relive those fun memorie...
