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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...

Would've, Should've, Could've

Vulnerable post alert!

 

Last night I drove past our local sports fields.  The air was cool but still comfortable, and the daylight was just starting to turn to night--you know that magical time when everything feels kind of like a dream?  I looked over to the fields where the kids were practicing, instead of the usual football or soccer practice that is common in fall here in WA, I saw a large group of cheerleaders.  They were dressed in pink with fluffy white pompoms, and my heart sank just a little.  

I always wanted to be a cheerleader (and a dancer).  I am sure nobody knows this, because I don't think I've ever told anyone.  I was too scared.  I was too shy to put myself out there, too nervous to let anyone know my silly dreams, and too afraid of failure to even try.  Ugh.  I hate this.

I am now 48 years old.  I have zero desire to be a cheerleader (or a dancer), but my heart breaks for little Anita who was too scared to do what she wanted to do and too shy to be her authentic self.  But honestly, I do sometimes still catch myself letting fear dictate my path forward.  At least most of the time, I tell it to buzz off and do what I want...but it still lives in me.

As I get older, more and more things that I want to do are getting harder or impossible.  As I get closer to my next big birthday (50...gulp) I just want to do it all...as much as I can squeeze into this life! (I am not too adventurous, so some of that includes swinging in the hammock on a beach somewhere or getting a facial haha;))

I like to add to this:  "do it with a broken knee" because that was my mantra all summer.

Summer Round Up

I have a hard time being organized.  I mean, I know it makes me more productive and feel better, yet I still resist it...ESPECIALLY in the summer!!! And Summer (my child) is the worse enabler because she just wants to laze around and do nothing all summer (as many kids her age like to do).  So the past couple years, I have made a "Summer Bucket List".  It helps me plan a few fun things, and makes sure we don't miss out on some things that we really want to do.

This year we completed most of the things on our lists!  

I got the idea from my sister Lisa's blog to rank all the things we did.  Mike, Summer and I all gave rankings out of 10.  Maybe this will help determine what gets on our list again next year:)  Summer definitely brought down the average haha. 

North Carolina, Canada, Sleepovers, and Crepes made the top of the list:)

And here we are doing some of the fun things from our list (that I haven't already blogged about)...

Canada

The Fair

Birchwood Dairy

And now that summer's over...we start MIDDLE SCHOOL (well, I guess just Summer does)!!!!  Now we are forced into an organized schedule, which includes a 6am wake up call--ugh.

The Jetty

 It's been far too long Jetty Island!

Love the ferry, the wind, the water, the sun, the blue skies, and the kite flying!

It is the epitome of "summer"