It's Just a Cold

 This Christmas there was some sickness going around.  Tina, Luke, and Jill were all pretty sick.

 As I sat at Tina's house, she said something along the lines of, "I sure hope you don't get sick" and I said, "oh it's just a cold", then Ted said something profound (per usual haha).  He said something like, "it's easy to say that when you're not sick!"

The next day, as I was driving back home from Canada my throat was really starting to hurt, and I knew I was getting sick. Turns out, I got pretty sick.  Sicker than I had been in a looooong time.  I was quite sick for about 12+ days, and finally went to urgent care on day 10 I think.  I got diagnosed with bronchitis, and came home with an inhaler and some other OTC medicines.

I kept thinking about what Ted said "easy to say it's just a cold when you're not sick". 

Now the question:  "Was it worth it?"  If I know how sick I would get, would I have skipped the festivities?

Funny enough, I really do feel like it was still worth it.  That's how much I love being with my family:)  

Now obviously there's a limit.  If I had become so sick that I had died, the answer would be "no" haha.  

But it made me think...my family is definitely worth 12+ days of a miserable, painful, depressing, lingering head cold. I guess I really do love them💗 

I'm not sure if I would have felt the same while I was laying feverish in my bed ringing in the new year though;) JK

Stormi didn't mind the endless days in bed watching tv

Christmas 2025

Christmas Traditions and Togetherness 

Christmas Eve Jammies 

Presents

Charcuterie Board for lunch

Officially declaring our teams:)

Christmas Cracker crowns 

(after a delicious turkey dinner)

We managed to get dressed and take some family pictures while everyone is together

Post Christmas trip to Canada

(sleepover at Grandmas)

Grandma taught me to knit!  

I think I did a little better than last time she taught me (when I was about 5)

Grateful for Christmas💗🎄

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 I am not the most competitive person, yet somehow I keep trying to make Christmas about competing haha.  This year instead of a gingerbread house competition, we did sugar cookies and Festivas...let me explain...

 Sugar Cookie Competition

We drew names for partners & themes, then we decorated & voted.

Clayton & Tyson: Theme = Travel

Summer & Dad: Theme = Animals

Mom (solo): Theme = Beach

(nobody told me my hair was crazy before taking this picture)

Jordan & Kya: Theme = School

Jordan and Kya were the winners, but everyone did so good!

Festivas

A few years ago a friend of mine used to have a Festivas party every Christmas.  It was based on a Seinfeld episode where George's family, instead of celebrating Christmas. celebrated "Festivas" which involved "airing out your grievances".  She had each couple make a diorama depicting a grievance they had from the past year and then presenting it to the group.  I loved this party, but after 3 or 4 years, things got busy and she stopped having it.  So...I decided we should try it as a family.  I got Jordan and Kya on board, and we went ahead with it on Christmas Eve.  I thought everyone did such a great job and it was a lot of fun.  We'll see if everyone will cooperate again next year, because I would love to 

make it a tradition:)

This was our diorama from years ago.  It was about Summer coming to sleep in bed with us every night and Mike ending up sleeping on the bed we made on the floor for Summer.

This was a couple years later.  Our grievance was Mike getting called as Bishop:)

And this are from this year...

Mom's:  Stormi going in and out non stop all morning while mom is trying to read her book.

Dad's:  His broken knee (you can tell he put a lot of time and effort into his--haha)

Kya's: Depicting two girls in her class fighting, while she's in the middle all while another kid is filming

Jordan's:  Her co-teacher from Pre School getting mad at her for throwing out the broccoli after asking her to throw it out

Summer's:  Not being able to eat all the yummy food with gluten in it.

Tyson's:  Everyone in Utah substituting cuss words with words like Fetch and Fudge haha.

Summer was the winner, but again, they were all so good!  I could not stop laughing:)

So I'm not sure it's the competition party that I like, but the competition makes everyone try harder and get more into the activity.  So let the competitions continue!!!

Pre-Christmas Festivities

Here is a conversation I have with Summer, just about every day of December:

Summer:  "I wish it was Christmas TODAY!"

Me:  "If Christmas was today, we wouldn't have all this time to look forward to Christmas" 

The month of December is exactly this...filled with all the good things that make Christmas feel so special and festive.  We watch movies (well, I do at least), sing carols, decorate the house, go to concerts, shop, bake etc.  We do so much pre Christmas goodness, that I can't fit it all in one post;)

 Summer's middle school choir sang at Woodinville Winter Fest

(it was COLD, but so festive)

We went to Festival of the Nativities in Bellevue

(I love seeing all the nativities, but my favorite part might be listening to the musical performances.  This year we watched The Bailey family from our stake perform.  Bro. Bailey has such an amazing singing voice and he sang about 5 songs--so good!

This was one of my favorite nativities--so simple and unique.

We went to our ward Christmas breakfast

I designed and mailed our Christmas cards

(and forgot to put return address labels on them, and didn't order enough--oops)

We went to downtown Snohomish this year-very festive!

They have a great gluten free bakery!

And lots of cozy, Christmassy shops

We of course did Evergreen Lights

And we did the Tulalip Lights this year too!  They were so great--definitely will go again next year.

How can we not feel Christmassy after all that?!

November Happenings

 We actually squeezed a lot of stuff (all good stuff) into November this year!

1.  Ginny drove down for a sleepover and night out to see Nate Bargatze!  

(I had bought tickets for Mike and I to go, then he was supposed to go to Toronto for a hockey card convention, so I invited Ginny.  Then Mike hurt his knee and couldn't go to Toronto, but still couldn't go to the show because he couldn't walk, so it all worked out haha)

2.  Mike and I had a date night at a Brian Adams concert!

(Mike actually bought these tickets as a surprise to me, then he hurt his knee, but pushed through it.  I forgot how much I love Brian Adams.  He has so many great songs!!  I did NOT like the opener though--Pat Benatar:/  It is hard/pure torture to sit through an hour of music you hate haha.)

3.  The very next day, we drove up to Canada for my 30th High School Reunion--if you can believe it?!!

(Ginny really wanted to go just to the school tour during the day and she convinced me to go with her--or I would have been fine not going at all!  We got there for the tour and my old flame from Elementary School was our tour guide-awkward.  Anyways, we saw a few old friends from High School--but no one that was TOO awkward thank goodness, walked around the old school that had been renovated and hardly looked at all like it did when we went there.  But it was fun to reminisce and I'm glad I went)

The gym was the only room that still looked the same.  Ginny made me pose with Ryan haha.

4.  We celebrated Thanksgiving with Tyson flying home from Provo and Jordan coming up from Seattle.

5.  We saw Wicked (part 2)

6.  We decorated for Christmas!

A fun filled November for sure!

Halloween 2025

This was the first year since having kids that I didn't go trick or treating...and I'm not complaining:)

Summer went trick or treating with Genevieve and her cousins.  It was pouring rain, so I was happy just to drop her off;)  As usual, she got way too much candy!

She also brought Genevieve to the trunk or treat at church, where it was also pouring rain!

I carved the pumpkins by myself again this year, but was inspired by my middle schooler:)

We harvested a lot of pumpkins this year.  Next year, I'm going to see if I can grow any big ones!

I went for a walk around Green Lake on Halloween with Jordan.  I had to snap a picture of the gorgeousness that is fall in the PNW.

And we did our annual trip to Bob's Corn Pumpkin Patch.  Summer is still growing...