12 months of celebrating the everyday things has been A LOT OF WORK, but it has also been SO MUCH FUN! I don't know if I would undertake this challenge again, but we've LOVED seeing the different holidays that come up each month and finding small ways to do some extra celebrating. December is chocked full of fun days to celebrate the ordinary...
One of our favorite guys to celebrate is our mutt Wicket! He's the cutest there ever was and always seems to know exactly what everyone needs. We don't know what we'd do without this special "mutt" in our family.
I love that we have kids the ages that can get on the roof and put up the Christmas lights! Izzy is our pro-christmas-light-putter-upper, but everyone helped. We gave all of our icicle lights to our neighbors (we hated putting up icicle lights) so we got all new outside lights this year. We went with a more simple design of colored lights and a giant Christmas Tree out of lights.
Candle Day! I think Bath and Body Works made this holiday up but we are definitely at Bath and Body works every single time Candle Day comes around. Actually, the last few years I've not been able to go and pick out candles so Shayne's gone and picked us up candles (our favorite scent is Champagne Toast and he always picks a few fun new scents for us to try).
Almost every year our kids make graham cracker gingerbread houses. I think this is the first year that none of them wanted to. But for Gingerbread house day, Quinten bought a kit from one of his friends Tommy Hunsaker and enjoyed a quick gingerbread house.
Since Quinten's choir concert was on Caramel Apple Day, we found a dessert with that theme. It was a Caramel Apple Torte. (no one was a huge fan of it though...bummer)
One of my favorite parts of Christmas is watching everyone's families' grow up through their Christmas cards. I love looking at all the families and relishing in the wonderful friendships we've made over the years.
Not much celebrating for Wreaths Across America Day but we do enjoy our wreaths!
We love hot chocolate in our house. Many mornings the kids will make a hot chocolate on their way to seminary or school in the keurig but for Hot Cocoa day we got a little fancier and broke out the delicious homemade hot cocoa from the Wagher Sisters.
Collin got his favorite ice cream flavor Cotton Candy for Cotton Candy Day!
There have been a lot of cookie days to celebrate this year, but my favorite cookie day is when we bake Christmas cookies. Usually I bake the cookies but this year I was sick so Olivia made the sugar cookies for us to decorate. Everyone loves decorating the cookies and we save a few for Santa on Christmas Eve!
We've been blessed to get to know quite a few refugee families from all over the world this past year. This year we got together with a few other families and adopted 3 refugee families: Muhemeri family from Rwanda, the Naderi family from Afganistan, and the Aububaker family from Somalia. It was wonderful focusing on other families trying to find the perfect gifts and then dropping off our little Christmas miracles to our new international friends.
We celebrated Bacon day with BLT sandwiches and found out that half of our family doesn't like BLT sandwiches and none of our family likes cooking fresh bacon because it stinks up the entire house and bacon grease is everywhere!
For Christmas I got a taco shell maker so for our last Taco Tuesday we had delicious Taco Salad in our crispy shells! Yummy!
Our favorite gift to give neighbors and friends for Christmas are chocolate covered cinnamon bears. We also all happen to love them (except Izzy she doesn't like anything cinnamon or mint). Not sure if more get given away or if more get eaten by our household.
We made a LARGE batch of FUDGE for chocolate anything day, and we all LOVED it!
Izzy wore my pearls for Wear Your Pearls Day and her choir performance. Looking pretty good on her!
Olivia has gotten quite a bit of snow this winter up in Utah. this Arizona baby isn't quite sure what to do with all the white fluffy stuff in winter!
For Christmas Tree day Shayne and I decorated his Star Wars tree with all of his amazing Hallmark ornaments. The kids decorated our Christmas tree and added their new ornaments for 2022: Olivia-BYU ornament, Izzy-Driver's License ornament, Quinten-AC/DC band tshirt, and Collin-Star Wars Pop Vinyl ornament. Shayne also got a new Star Wars ornament to add to his collection.
Best looking snowmen around!
During our trip up to Canada, Shayne made sure to pick up all sorts of Maple Syrup since Canada is the second largest producer of Maple Syrup (and he can't ever seem to get enough). We brought back enough maple syrup for an army, and he LOVES enjoying it with all the pancakes. (notice Shayne's cheezy smile...that's his 'I don't want to be taking a dumb picture but here I am smile'. It's very obvious and if you look through the pictures throughout the year you'll easily tell which ones he thinks are dumb...)
After Izzy got back from work, and we a yummy dinner together, we decorated cookies, set out our luminaries, drove around the neighborhood to look at the luminaries and lights, made reindeer food and opened up Christmas Eve pajamas. One of my favorite pictures every year is the kids one year older in their Christmas jammies. Such a fun time full of magic. It was the first time they didn't all sleep in the same room on Christmas Eve in anticipation for the next day!
The magic of Christmas Morning is something that never gets old. After Santa comes and leaves magical treasures for everyone. I could sit in the dark and look at the tree and gifts for hours. We have a rule that the kids cannot wake us up before 6am...apparently the boys were up by 3am and couldn't go back to sleep. I'm sure that was the longest three hours ever!!
Christmas morning was wonderful! Favorite gifts that everyone received was: Shayne-record player, Jonna-bee boots, Olivia-Projector, Izzy-Dr. Marten boots, Quinten-record player and records, and Collin-fish tank. We had a delicious breakfast of our Christmas Breakfast Casserole, cinnamon rolls, and orange juice.
Because Christmas fell on a Sunday this year, after naps we went to church. It was a beautiful program full of music and talks and a great time to really focus on the Savior and his birth. I love when Christmas falls on a Sunday to really remind us to focus on the true meaning of Christmas.
After church (and another round of naps), we had a delicious Christmas dinner with just our little family of BBQ Tri Tip, homemade rolls, twice baked potatoes and fruit with floop. We discussed the birth of our Savior, read about him in the New Testament, and the ending of the Old Testament Come Follow Me Lessons. I've loved our Sunday talks over the lessons throughout the past year, it's really brought the spirit into our home and we've learned so much together. It was a beautiful Christmas Night.
I had no idea what an undertaking this New Year's Resolution would be. 12 months full of Everyday Celebrations. We didn't worry too much if we celebrated it exactly on the correct day, and there were no rules how we celebrated, we just enjoyed some of the mundane everyday themes with a small celebration. I'm sure there were really fun holidays that we missed, and some way cooler ways we could have celebrated, but I can truly say I've LOVED celebrating each and every unique holiday with our family. They are each quirky and funny and unique and hilarious and special in their own way and they bring so much joy and love into our family. I am so grateful that we are an eternal family and will get to continue celebrating together for years and years and years.
