Christmas Eve

 Yay! They are here!!! Dani and Greg and the kids left Utah last night to beat some bad weather and arrived here this morning.  We are super excited to see them.

First thing Penny wanted to do is to go in the hot tub.  Grandpa went in with her while Dani and I watched in our winter coats :)

After swimming we made gingerbread cookies.  Tatum and Penny are good little cooks.  They rolled the cookies out and decorated them so pretty.

Love those little girls!!

 Later in the afternoon Nana and Abba and Uncle Brian arrived from Ohio. We visited, ate a yummy dinner and played some reindeer games.
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 Penny's favorite game was the snowman game.  We also played would you rather and cup stacking and a lot of other fun games.

 At night some folks went to the movies to see Rogue One.  Others stayed home to make reindeer food, read stories and prepare the breakfast casseroles.

We read from Luke 2 and talked about the Saviors birth.

 Holiday's with the family are THE. BEST!!

closer

Today was a shopping nightmare.  The stores were P.A.C.K.E.D.!  Hannah and I braved it for groceries, we sent Dad to Costco.

Tonight we went to "candy cane lane" and walked in the rain thru all the pretty lights.  One of Rob's co-workers lives there and invited us in for chili and cookies.

Yesterday we all went to see "Passengers", I really liked it.

Turns out Sierra can't come :( I am bummed but understand.  I hate the thought of her spending her birthday/Christmas alone.  Santa needs to bring her a Subaru so she can drive here.

counting down

 Dani is so creative and fun! I love it! My favorite thing the last few days has been watching her end of the year disneybounding.  She's come up with really cute outfits!

One day she recruited Penny to help!

Today Grace wanted to make dinner for the family.  It was her first time and she made Hawaiian Haystacks, which is one of her favorites.  She did a good job.  One benefit to being the cook is you will probably like the dinner :), and she did.

After dinner we had some forced family fun.  I made everyone play games.  Ethan won.  

I wrapped a bunch of gifts today.  Weirdly I got a facebook message from Jennifer Bicknell who used to live next door to us. Apparently a couple of boxes for us got sent to our old home and the new owner needed our address so he could forward them. I can't imagine who they could be from.
It was fun to say hello.  Turns out that Matthew, who is Hannah's age, decided to graduate a year early so he's in his first semester of college.

I sooo miss living there.

In Happy Happy news Sierra might come for Christmas now!! She's debating.  She doesn't have much time off from work and it is a long drive but maybe.  That would be the icing on the Sierra birthday/Christmas cake. Of course I want her to be safe so if it's too much I understand.

zoo day

We went to the LA Zoo today.  I hadn't been there since Jenna was a little baby.  It was different than I remembered.  It was quite nice and the parking was free!! Love that! Especially in LA, home of nightmare parking. We got up early and headed down.  The traffic was light and we got there in good time.  The crowds there were light too, which was awesome.  We got a good look at all the animals. 

The giraffe habitat is wonderful.  They have a new calf, he's a month old and darling.  Also you can feed them but it's cash only so oops.   Next time we will be prepared. 

Another favorite part was the amazon area.  The otters were so cute and playful. 

For the holidays they had a reindeer romp area.  Interesting, fun fact.  Reindeer stink.  A lot.  We've never gotten so close to them before and Kristoff and Sven's song is really right on...stinky!

Another bummer was no bird show on Tuesdays.  Who would have thought??

Anyway it was a nice day.  Ethan hates zoos and was a little complainy but we dealt with it.  Maybe we can go back next week with the grands...and without the boy :)

After we went to IKEA.  Always a fun shopping experience, unless you are Ethan. He said IKEA is like a theme park for couches. Haha!

Yesterday was a quiet day.  We mostly stayed home, went to the library, grilled some burgers, watched some movies.  We got a secret Santa drop at our house which was so fun! We've had one a week from a mystery family, .and also some cute drop offs from friends. 

This cat is always somewhere.  He's a funny guy.  Unfortunately he made his way outside, which was upsetting to us after the Percy tragedy so we got a special door for Ziva.  There is an electronic signal that is activated by her collar and lets only her out.  Unfortunately she is not a fan.  There is a delay and she's impatient.  I don't know if she's used it to go out on her own yet...although she knows how to come back in when we put her out. 

In other news Ethan was able to get on a tournament team for soccer.  We are super happy about that.

weekend

 The weekend was busy.   Friday we went to see the new Star Wars movie, it was good.  We also went out to eat as a family and it was pleasant.

Saturday Hannah and I went shopping.  Then we did baking.  Then we went to the Chronis' musical Christmas party where Hannah represented our family well with her ukulele "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear", and where we enjoyed great food, great company and lots of music.  It was delightful.

Today we had a nice Christmas lesson in YW.  Sister Tilden organized it and had all the girls bring a story or song to share about Christmas.  I made cookies and Audrey brought milk.  I thought it went really well and the girls enjoyed it and all shared something.

5 more days until this cute family comes to visit!!!

Poor Grace had an icing accident during the cookie decorating fest.  

Tonight the elders are coming over for dinner.  We completely forgot until Rob popped his head into the YW room and asked what time they should come.  Ooops.

way to go Idaho!!

 Today Hannah got her acceptance letter for BYU-I! I am super excited for her...and a little sad that she is grown up and leaving the nest!

We jumped around for joy, let her sisters know and then Hannah got to baking! Fun Fun Fun!

 Also today we got two goodie plates brought to our home.  It was so sweet and awesome!  Loved it!

Also these kids are crazy at scripture reading time.  I don't know why.

And lastly, my favorite flavor of gelato is grisbi.

Winter Concert

Grace and Skylar

 Tonight was Grace's winter concert and it was really fun and the music was really good.  I was a tiny bit surprised and a lot a bit delighted.

There are 3 6th graders in the honor band and here they are.  I think that's partly why it was so good...this was our first year of non-elementary/beginning band concerting!

Emily and Grace