Christmas 2025

Christmas was great!  Christmas Eve was full of all the usual traditions that make it my most favorite holiday of the year.  We had a really good dinner that I probably slaved away at but now I can't even remember what we ate.  We went Christmas caroling and had a talent show that was very low on talent but high on entertainment.  We talked about the Savior and it just felt good.  Our family is getting older and being all together is happening less and less, which is okay.  But it sure makes it special when we are together.  We are on the brink of big changes in our family with possible weddings coming (or not) and more missions being served.  Heck, I could be a Grandma in a few years!  So I'm soaking it all in and enjoying what we have, knowing that things are going to get crazier, our family could get bigger, or shrink with missionaries, but I'm here for it all.  

Marcus invited his girlfriend, Audrey, to come for a week so we could meet her.  They had fun exploring Seattle together and her eyes were opened wide to what life looks like living in a house with five boys.  She handled it great!

More Seattle sights

The (un)Talent Show 2025

Ethan and Parker had some good moves

Landon broke an apple in half with his bare hands

Marcus ate a Big Mac in seconds (how is that a talent?)

And Henry giggled his way through a piano solo

Matching jammies and hoodies

Henry got a new bike and a giant panda.  Henry has been obsessed with pandas for two years.  His favorite colors were black and white and he has a whole shelf in his bedroom dedicated to random panda paraphernalia.  About a week before Christmas he declared he no longer likes pandas but Santa decided to ignore him and gave him a giant panda anyway.  The giant panda has now become a landing zone for Henry as he jumps from the top of the stairs to the floor below.  So far he has sustained only one mild injury.  

While Randy napped and I packed and prepped food for another Whistler trip, the boys played football in the front yard, blasting music and looking festive in their matching pajamas that I actually really like.  And they love their Nike hoodies.

I'm glad my boys don't think eating Christmas dinner at McDonald's is depressing like I do.

Henry is less than excited to be my ski buddy

We miraculously got the huge hot tub to ourselves and wished Ethan had joined us but he stayed back home with his injured leg.  We made and epic whirlpool in this hot tub!

The treehouse was finally open so Henry and I got to play on it for awhile.

You know you've got a good brother when he will warm your hands while you ride the gondola after a long day of skiing.

Settlers of Cataan is the new favorite game to play.  Henry even learned how to play and has won a couple times.  

Merry Christmas!

Brothers Night

The tradition continues for another year.  I love that the boys feel like Brothers Night is as much a part of Christmas as Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  They are all necessary parts of celebrating Christmas.  This year was so busy we barely squeezed it in.  The big decision of where to eat for dinner resulted in a heavy debate until we unanimously agreed on Din Tai Fung.  The wait was 2 hours.  "No big deal," we thought.  The brothers can do their shopping and then the table will be ready.  Oh, how wrong we were!  

The boys shopped.  And checked out lots of stores.  And made their purchases.  And Randy got all his Christmas shopping done (December 23rd for the win).  We went back to the restaurant and waited another 45 minutes.  The boys were starving!  I was panicking thinking about how many dumplings they'd eat because they eat a ton even when they aren't starving.  Just when we were ready to forget it and walk down the street to Shake Shack, we got our table.  Nothing beats eating dinner at 9:30pm! There wasn't much talking, just a whole lot of eating in a record amount of time.  It was a late night for all of us.

Inflation finally demanded we change the rules for Brothers Night.  The boys had a $40 spending limit for their gifts this year because you can't buy much for $20 and you definitely can't find it at the mall!  Also, I think next year I'll just tell everyone to buy a hoodie.  That's pretty much what they all bought anyway :)

Straight to the Nike Store obviously

So much waiting...Waiting for Randy to shop.  Waiting for our table.  Waiting in lines.

They always seat us at the same table

Henry loves dumplings but not chopsticks!

Brother hugs on Christmas Eve after opening their brothers gift is always so fun!  They really are so thankful, even if they don't always like the present.  It's always nice to know my boys love each other, even when they don't think they do.

More December Chaos

I started off December in Las Vegas with Landon for a lacrosse tournament.  More on that later.  The tournament put me behind at the worst possible time.  

We arrived home Sunday evening and Monday morning the cookies from Suss arrived just in time for me to start packaging them and getting them out to dental offices.  We give annual car wash memberships to our top referring dentists, car wash coupons to the offices who give us some referrals, and cookies to all the rest.  I HATE this part of December!

These two tagged along on some Christmas errands and picked out some Christmas mugs to paint.  These might accidentally get thrown away before next Christmas rolls around :)

Randy pulled off yet another incredible seminary extravaganza!  This time the other seminary teachers insisted on helping so Randy only pulled one all-nighter.  I even went to check out the action.

In all my free time, I put together Christmas gifts for the women in the ward that we distributed at the annual Relief Society Christmas dinner.  This was my third year planning a Christmas dinner and we've got it down to a science.

We had dinner catered by Tanoor, a favorite local Lebanese restaurant.  After dinner we heard a few women share some of the Christmas traditions they do in their families.  It's a fun night but I'm always glad when it's behind us.

This is my current Relief Society Presidency.  I love these ladies and the support they give me along with their ability to not be super annoyed at my frazzled brain and inability to be organized.   

I don't have pictures from our ward Christmas party but we got to bring home the giant coloring page and we all enjoyed helping Henry finish coloring it.  Better than doing a jigsaw puzzle where I'm the only one who ever works on it.

Everyone had Christmas parties except for Parker and Henry so I treated them to dinner at Dough Zone.  My boys LOVE dumplings.  It's so weird.  They won't eat hamburgers but they'll pig out on dumplings.  

And there you have it.  Our December was super busy and then super boring.  Next up is a post about Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  

Christmas Eve

It's time to get caught up on things.  Now that I'm not drugged up on painkillers and can't imagine a life that doesn't involve laying on the couch all day, I'm finding all sorts of things I can do while waiting for my leg to heal.

My gift wrap was Pinterest-worthy this year.  I even printed off cute tags which went completely unnoticed by the men in my life so pics are going on the blog.  Please feel free to comment :)

Christmas Eve feels like forever ago, but one glance at all the pictures, and I'm quickly reminded of the fun we had and the excitement that filled the air.  Chrsitmas Eve day was a busy one as I tried to wrap all the presents while Randy took some of the boys skiing, dropped off a few plates of homemade peppermint sugar cookies, watched the new movie Sing 2 with Marcus and Henry, and made a delicious Christmas Eve feast that we didn't have time to eat until after we returned from Christmas caroling at 7:30pm.  Was it an exhausting day?  Yes!  Yes it was.

Dinner and popping crackers is always fun.  You NEED this tradition in your life, trust me!  Each package comes with a crown, a tiny toy/game, and a paper with riddles and jokes.  It's so fun to eat our fancy dinner while we read our jokes and riddles to each other.  It prevents the usual arguing and boring discussions on Minecraft that we usually experience at meal time :)

The talents for our family talent show were better than usual.  

Marcus didn't have to work hard to look the part of the rapper Eminen as he performed some rap song that he knew every word to.  Yes, Marcus shaved and bleached his hair and yes he regrets it, and yes, he knows he looks like an ex-con.  It will grow back and we all make mistakes.

Ethan dusted off his unicycle and juggled as he rode across the driveway.  We all stood at the front door and cheered him on.  True talent!

Landon did a couple magic tricks that were pretty impressive but mostly it was just cute how into it he was.

Parker performed Jingle Bells on the piano (no picture of him) and as per tradition, Randy didn't do a talent.  I performed a magic trick that I actually prepared enough in advance for that I ordered something off Amazon for it, and no one bothered to take pictures.  Probably because they were too busy being impressed! Henry loved it the most.

We read the Nativity Story and quieted down enough for everyone to share their thoughts about Christ, and then it was time for the annual Christmas pajamas.  I LOATHE this tradition but my kids love it.  If anyone needs some holiday flannel pajama pants, let me know.  I have like ten of them.

Brothers Nights gift exchange was as fun as ever.  My boys love giving gifts to each other and almost always buys something for all their brothers even though we draw names.  Marcus was extra generous since this would be his last brothers night since he plans to leave on his mission this year.  Le Weep!  

Such a great Christmas Eve!  This was the first year in a long time we didn’t have any missionaries with us, but we actually didn’t mind.  It felt like a good year to just be our little family.

And here are a few pictures of the Christmas Eve ski trip.  It was a beautiful day on the mountain!

Easter 2020

Easter was a quiet affair this year.  I always look forward to hosting a big dinner and an even bigger egg hunt in the backyard but this year it was just our family in quarantine.  Somehow I still managed to spend several hours in the kitchen preparing food that no one ate because they'd been eating Easter candy all day.  Luckily it made plenty of leftovers for dinner the next night so I wasn't too upset.

I was so bummed to miss out on our big egg hunt that I got the idea to hide eggs in other people's yards for them to find.  I thought I was being pretty creative but then I saw something on social media  and copied the cute flier that some talented person was kind enough to share.  The whole family piled in the van at nine o'clock at night and we stealthily hid Easter eggs in three different yards.  Of course the boys complained I was making them do this but they had a good time.  I can't wait for the day when they will do kind deeds of their own will and not mine but until then, this was some forced family fun.  But I had a lot of fun and especially loved the kind text messages/photos the following morning from the surprised and happy recipients.  It made my day.

The boys got dressed for "Family Church" as we now call our church gathering on Sundays.  I made them put on ties and everything so we could get a nice Easter picture even though this was the first year no one had any new clothes to wear.  If only I'd recorded a video so you could hear the whining, insults, tears, yelling, and pure hatred going on as I tried to get a picture with everyone smiling.  It was bad and I wanted to punch my kids in the face or rip out my hair.  Luckily I did neither.

Randy hid about half as many eggs as we usually hide but since we only had a few kids looking for eggs, it was still a lot!  

Ethan was the proud winner of the golden egg.  He opened it up and said, "Ten dollars?!  Mom must have done it this year instead of Dad."  He was right.  

 And here are a bunch of outtakes.  You can tell who just got yelled out by their frown and Henry definitely stole the show.  His facial expressions just kill me.  He knows exactly what he's doing whether it was making a face or just refusing to look at the camera.  

Happy Easter!  I'm glad it's over.