Hi this is a long post and there's not time to write an intro so let's get going.
These last few days of the year have been so great. I'm excited to write about them. Let's start out with something that I'd hoped would be ready in time for my last post, but it wasn't finished until a few days ago. This is the video of the Living Nativity. My family didn't make it in. (I think we all had problems looking in the camera that rendered our footage useless.) But the video is great anyway.
Here's another thing that was left out of my last post.
When I finished my post last week I was so excited to talk about seeing the new Spiderman movie on Wednesday night that I completely blew past telling you about something funny that had happened earlier on Wednesday.
Let me set the scene.
Brandon LOVES to cook. He also took the last two weeks of the year off of work. This was presumably to work on his jeep engine, but in the lead up to Christmas he mostly spent the time prepping for the Holidays. He prepared so much food for the two holiday parties we were going to. Most of it was for the big Christmas Eve party at his parents house. But we were also getting together with my family on Christmas Eve Eve and I'd said I'd bring a salad.
Now, when I said I'd bring a salad I was thinking something simple. Like a premixed salad at the store. But that wasn't good enough for Brandon. He went through his "Our Best Bites" Cookbook and found some sort of Christmas Salad that involved spinach, oranges, a homemade vinaigrette, and toasted walnuts.
He was working on the salad and other things while I was at work. I came home from work and noticed our empty garbage can was still on the curb. So I grabbed that and brought it up. Then I noticed the door to my garden shed was open so I went to shut that. Then I walked in the house though the side door. The side door basically opens right into the kitchen. The first thing I saw was Brandon blasting the oven with the fire extinguisher.
When things calmed down a bit Brandon told me what had happened. He'd been trying to toast the walnuts. He'd put the walnuts into the oven on broil and meant to get them out again pretty quickly, but he forgot. Maybe 5 minutes passed. When he heard me bringing the garbage can back up he'd remembered the walnuts.
He opened the oven door and saw the walnuts burned black. The air from opening the oven caused the walnuts to ignite in little flames. For some reason he thought it would be a good idea to blow on the walnuts. At this point they erupted into BIG flames. And that led to using the fire extinguisher that we've had for almost a decade.
Needless to say there were no Walnuts in the Christmas Salad. But everything else in our kitchen was fine. The oven had been due for some heavy duty cleaning anyway.
Okay, now let's talk about Thursday. This was December 23rd. Christmas Eve, Eve. Our plans for this day had originally been to drive down to my Sister Emily's house in Layton, Utah. We'd have dinner with her family and then go up to Brandon's parents' in the Ogden Valley.
But then I realized we should probably see my parents too. And maybe my sister Hillary too. But things were kind of up in the air because Hillary's kids had been taking turns being sick and then both Emily and Hillary were super sick. For a while Emily was even certain she had COVID, but her test came back negative.
We finally came up with a real plan for the evening on maybe Tuesday or Wednesday. Hillary was feeling better and she didn't want Emily to host everyone on the 23rd and then turn around and host again on the 24th. So Hillary offered to just have everyone at her house on the 23rd. She said she'd make something simple with noodles. That reminded me of the AMAZING Tuscan Chicken she'd made for a family get together several years ago so I asked if she could make that. She said yes.
So the plan was we'd drive down from Idaho and go straight to Hillary's in the afternoon. My parents and Emily's family would meet there and we'd have dinner together.
For a while we kicked around the idea of going sledding, but no one really felt like doing that. There was a strong breeze blowing that made the idea of playing in the snow not seem as fun. Still I packed all the kids snow pants and made them wear boots in case they wanted to play in the snow at Hillary's or at Brandon's parents'. We don't get a lot of snow in Twin Falls so my kids usually want to play in it when they see it other places.
On Thursday morning, Brandon and I packed the car and we all piled in and started driving around 10:00. It was a good day for a drive. The weather had been a tiny bit rainy when we started out, but most of the drive was sunny and uneventful.
We made it to Hillary's around 1:00. We were so happy to be there. My parents arrived and a little later Emily and her family came. We are still getting the hang of big family get togethers after all these years of living in separate states so we didn't really have much of a plan for this day. We just sat around and talked.
We did have a bit of a gift exchange. These was no rhyme or much reason to it. Like Hillary had specific gifts for some people, but not everyone. And I had gifts for each family. And Emily gave us her Christmas card. And Walter got to open a gift he'd been carrying around for a week. The main gift was a gift that me and my siblings had gone into together for my parents. We'd bought them a little wagon to carry their groceries in from the car.
Here's a picture of right after my parents opened their gift. It's so good to see all these people together.
The Tuscan Chicken turned out great. Emily brought a jello pretzel salad that was perfect too. I told Brandon I wanted it for my birthday cake. And our salad was really good too - even if it didn't have walnuts.
The wind that had been blowing all day had me a little worried about what weather was coming so a little after 6:30 we started getting ready to go. I wanted to be ahead of any winter weather. Brandon was tired so I drove us up to his parents. About halfway there it started to rain. It seemed like NONE of the other drivers slowed down at all so I was a little on edge the whole drive. It also didn't help that Lydia had a cough and coughed the ENTIRE hour we were driving. But we made it to Steve and Jacque's safely.
We like to stay at Steve and Jacque's because they have three guest bedrooms. If we are the only family sleeping over we use all three guest bedrooms. Normally Brandon and I have the room on the main level of the house. Charlotte and Lydia share a bed in one upstairs room. Derrick and Veronica share the other room. Derrick has a twin size bed and Veronica gets a queen size bed all to herself. She'd been complaining about being squished in the car and I reminded her that soon she'd have that bed to herself.
We'd be the only family sleeping over again, but I realized we needed to rearrange the bedroom plan a bit. When we'd slept over for Thanksgiving the room Brandon and I had ended up being super hot. I'd had to shut the heater vent and open the window to get the room to a temperature I could sleep in. On this trip I decided that room would be perfect for Lydia and her cough. I was hoping that if she could be warm enough the cough would get better quickly. So she and Charlotte had that room while Brandon and I were upstairs.
I gave Lydia all the medicine's I'd brought with me and hoped for the best, but an hour after she went to bed she was still coughing. Finally I went back into her room and propped her up with a bunch of pillows. That seemed to do the trick and we didn't hear her cough the rest of the night.
Lydia had continued to cough her head off all morning. So after lunch I found her and told her, "You are going to sit still, under this blanket, with me and REST." At first I thought we do that for like and hour, but I think we snuggled for something like 4 hours.
We spent most of the time watching How to Cake It videos on Youtube. That channel is so fun. We used to just like the compilation videos, but I'm really into the step by step videos too. I think we also took a nap or two. I had a bottle of throat spray and every time Lydia started into a coughing fit I'd spray her throat. I don't know if it helped or not, but it made me feel better because it was too soon to give her another dose of any of the other medicine I'd brought.
We also checked on Instagram a few times. My friends in Twin Falls were posting about how they got about 4 inches of snow for Christmas Eve. That's almost more than we had all last year. At Jacque's all it was doing was raining. In fact, as the day went on they had less snow than when we arrived because the snow was melting.
I was getting a little worried about the weather. This would the the fourth year we'd do the drive back to Idaho on Christmas Eve. Every year I dread getting stuck somewhere. I worry we'll get stuck on the road. Or that we'll get stuck at a rest stop. Or that we'll get stuck at my inlaws and have to wake up in the morning with no presents. All these scenarios were running through my head all afternoon. I checked the weather along our route home and there were forecasts for snow all night long along the whole route. But Brandon wasn't fazed. He kept saying, "We've driven in snow before. It will be okay."
Brandon spent most of the afternoon in the kitchen helping his mom finish up the food for that evening. Gradually his sisters arrived with their families and they helped too.
Years ago, Jacque made little skirts for her grand daughters and gave Mukluk socks to the boys. Derrick put his socks on and I made sure to take a picture really fast before he took them off.
Then a huge wind picked up. Steve and Jacque had some pretty evergreen decorations hanging on the French doors in the dining room. One minute they were there and the next they were gone. The then garbage's blew over outside. There was more lightning and more thunder. I hurried to find Derrick because he's afraid of bad weather.
We sat together on the couch with a blanket over us so he could hide if he wanted to. He was worried about the power going out so I pointed out the candles that were already lit around the room. I also reminded him that Daddy had a flash light in his pocket. (I don't know at what point Brandon just started carrying around a flashlight along with his wallet, keys, and pocket knife, but it comes in handy a lot.) Thunder and Lightning crashed and flashed around the house for about 15 minutes. None of us could remember something like this happening on Christmas Eve.
Steve read the Christmas Story from Luke 2 and then it was time for chimes. Veronica went around with the box and helped pass them out.
This perked Derrick up. We'd been talking about the things we'd do at this party for WEEKS. He'd been telling me, "First we'll eat. Then we'll do chimes. Then we'll dance around the tree. Then we'll do PRESENTS!"
Here's Charlotte being the song leader for a little while.
And Lydia took a turn.
Here they are seconds before it was time to unwrap.
Derrick got a little robot kit.
Lydia and Charlotte got the last 4 Diary of a Wimpy Kid books they needed to complete their collection.
And Veronica got an art kit.
She immediately started drawing.
It wasn't snowing when we reached Twin Falls, but we could see evidence of the day's snow all around us. When we turned left from one major road to another we hit our first bit of ice on the whole trip. The car started sliding, but Brandon reacted correctly and had us straightened out right away. When we turned into our subdivision the roads hadn't even been plowed and were still snow covered.
The chimes are each a different note. They are numbered. We have big poster boards with songs written out on them in number form. So you just have to follow along and play your chime when you see your number on the poster.
The thunder and lightning passed. Derrick was so happy and really perked up. He was going around giving people hugs and kisses. Most people who meet Derrick are charmed by him right away. But for some reason it's taken longer for Brandon's siblings to really get to know Derrick. I don't know if it's just because we always see them when we are traveling or when it's a big noisy event, but they seem to only see Derrick when he's acting the worst. But not this night. They were seeing the "real" Derrick. The sweet, happy kid with a hilarious sense of humor.
Brandon's brother Bryan was in Florida with his family and had been sending a few Polos. Brandon had the idea to send him a polo back with everyone lip syncing to "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas." This idea quickly caught on and soon it turned into a whole production. We even rehearsed it all the way through before we pushed record on the Marco Polo App.
Melanie, Shannon, Jacque, myself and a bunch of the younger girls were the backup singers. We stood against the wall and started lip-synching to the song. Brandon knelt on the floor and popped up into the frame of the camera when it was his turn to start "singing." This was already pretty funny. But it got funnier when Steve came into the frame lip-syncing to the high pitched singer in the second verse. This was complete with funny hand and hip motions. I couldn't keep a straight face if I looked at him.
The whole thing culminated with panning to Derrick at the end. We were using the version of the song from Home Alone. Derrick loves to put his hands on his cheeks and scream just like Kevin McCallister at exactly the same place in the song where Kevin screams in the movie. He did that during the rehearsal and everyone laughed. I told him, "Derrick, do that again, but at the very end of the song." So at the end of the song, Justin panned the camera to Derrick. I was so worried that Derrick would forget his part, but right on cue he stood up, put his hands on his cheeks, and screamed. It was PERFECT!
(And for the record, I totally have a downloaded copy of the Polo video of this whole thing. but I don't think everyone in it wants it out in the open.)
After the new tradition of doing a family lip sync it was time to dance around the Christmas tree. Derrick usually watches this from the stairs, but he'd participated in our little family dance last Christmas so he felt ready to do it with the whole family this year. He held my hand on one side and Melanie's on the other. At one point he was kissing both our hands because he was so excited. Veronica was holding my other hand for most of the time.
Everyone holds hands and sings Christmas songs while walking around the tree. It's such a great family tradition.
After dancing around the tree it was time for presents. Steve and Jacque always give out their presents on Christmas Eve. The kids look forward to this for months. There was so much excitement as the presents were passed out. Then everyone dug in and unwrapped the gifts all at once.
This was the official end of the party and I started getting anxious to get going. The weather was currently clear and it seemed like a good idea to head out before the temperature dropped and things got icy. Also I was tentatively planning to attend Midnight Mass again. I'd been able to go two years ago, but hadn't been able to go the year before because I'd been sick on Christmas Eve. I was hoping to go this year and bring Brandon along too.
The drive home usually takes about 3 hours. With winter conditions I was planning on it taking four. If we were going to make it to Midnight Mass we'd need to leave around 8:00 or sooner.
But I also didn't want to rush us out the door. Veronica was drawing. Derrick saying Merry Christmas to everyone, the girls were looking at the books, and Brandon was deep in conversation. So I just did as much preliminary work as possible. Brandon had already packed most of our stuff in the car that afternoon so I didn't have to do too much. Mostly it was just rounding up all the boots and coats and then getting the kids to change into their pajamas. I also gave Lydia a dose of Children's Nyquil that Jacque had on hand. There was no way we were driving for over 4 hours with Lydia continuously coughing in the back seat.
Shannon and her family left before we did and that seemed to break the spell for my family. They were willing to go too. We said our goodbyes. Promised to drive safe. And were in the car driving away a little after 8:00.
The roads were clear down the canyon and to the interstate. The first part of the interstate was fine too. A little before Tremonton we ran into our first bit of snow. We'd been debating taking the longer way home through Pocatello. The thought was that yes, it would take much longer distance wise, but there were more towns along that route. If we did get stuck there was a greater chance of it being near civilization.
But when I checked on Google maps I noticed the route from Tremonton to Pocatello was almost all red - signifying that that road wasn't exactly great to travel on right now. In contrast, the route between Tremonton and Burley was mostly green with only a few yellow areas. That seemed like the better choice - even if it did take us though what I can honestly call, "The Middle of No Where."
So we went our usual way. And soon we were met with snow. The snow falling in big flakes and was about 2 inches think on the road. We slowed down and kept going. There were very few other cars on the road, but we were following fresh tire tracks so we knew someone had to be ahead of us. Eventually we did come up on someone and we followed them up and down the hills along that section of the interstate.
We made it to Snowville (aptly named) and all the kids had to go to the bathroom so we stopped there. The gas station had signs up warning everyone of extreme winter weather for that evening and to use caution.
We got back onto the freeway and kept going. Somewhere along the way the snow stopped falling and there was hardly any snow on the road. We were nearly back to regular freeway speeds. I kept doing the math and checking Google Maps. At first it seemed we'd be in Twin in plenty of time to put the kids to bed, change our clothes, and head to Midnight Mass. But we were still traveling slower than normal and as the drive went on I began thinking things like, "Well maybe we don't need to change our clothes. I've seen people wear jeans to Mass." Or "We can probably be 5 minutes late. It will be okay."
The kids had been watching A Christmas Story on the DVD player. When it ended I figured the kids would fall asleep, but I think they could sense how much Brandon and I were concentrating on the road. They all stayed awake and watched the road too.
It's roughly 60 miles between Snowville and the I-86/I-84 interchange just outside of Burley. There are three main landmarks along that 60 miles. They are: a rest stop after about 13 miles, a gas station (with no bathroom) at Sublette after another 25 miles, and another rest stop after another 16 miles. After that last rest stop there are about 6 miles to the I-86/I-84 interchange.
Somewhere between Sublette and that last rest stop we ran into snow again. And at some point before that last rest stop wind joined the snow. The wind made the snow look like it was falling sideways. Snow blew from the East to the West right across our windshield. It didn't stick it just BLEW.
It was probably about 11:20 at this point. I told Brandon, "We don't need to worry about Mass this year. Just slow down and concentrate on the road." And he did. We were probably going between 25 and 30 miles per hour.
We came up to that last rest stop. We talked about stopping, but couldn't see a reason we needed to. There were very few cars on the road so we weren't worried about crashing into anyone. And so far the snow wasn't sticking. It was blowing so fast that it didn't have a chance to stick. I figured if we stopped we had a bigger chance of getting stuck later if the snow started sticking. So our best plan was to just keep going. We passed the Rest stop and saw many cars and trucks in the parking lot.
Almost as soon as we were passed the rest stop we ended up in a whiteout. We could barely see a few feet in front of the car. Brandon slowed down to less than 5 miles per hour. This was concerning, but the snow still wasn't sticking and there were no other cars on the road. Plus we knew the Interchange (and civilization) was only a few miles ahead of us. We felt confident we could make it.
Brandon told me, "You should take a video of how crazy this snow looks blowing across the windshield." I told him I didn't think there needed to be any photographic proof of what we were doing.
The snow let up just before we reached the interchange.
After that things were pretty uneventful. Though between Burley and Twin Falls we did pass an area where Emergency Crews had shut down a whole lane of the interstate while they helped a semi truck that had gone off the road at an angle.
We were so happy to be home. The kids went inside and we got them into bed straight away. It was 12:20 and I guess we still could have slipped into the back of the church for Midnight Mass, but I wanted Brandon to experience the whole thing from start to finish. So I guess we'll try again next year.
Instead we unloaded the car and then went right into unloading the present stash and putting it under the tree.
Here are the stockings. One of the kids had mentioned they really wanted a big bag of chips on Christmas Morning so that's what's hanging out of everyone's stockings.
When we'd put the kids to bed we'd told them they better sleep in. If they got up before 7:00 we'd send them right back to bed. They slept in until about 7:40. When I got out of bed I had two thoughts simultaneously. 1. Well at least it's after 7:00 and 2. I'm going to need a nap before noon. 
I love these pictures of the kids around the tree.
We had a great time opening presents. We always take turns opening gifts. Veronica had told me many times in the last month, "Mom, remember we open presents ONE AT A TIME. I want Christmas morning to last a long time!"
Last year my unofficial theme had been "You can't cancel presents" and the kids had received so many toys and fun things to make up for a year when we hadn't been able to do many things." So in comparison this year was much lighter. But it was still great! The kids loved their gifts.
At the end of opening presents one of the kids opened a thin package that had a paper on it that said we had Season Passes to Lagoon. The kids were so excited! They've wanted to go to Lagoon for a long time. Every time we drive by the Amusement Park on our way to Hillary's they ask to go there. I've always said, "When you guys are all about 10 we'll go." And next year their average age is actually 10 so it's perfect timing. Also Emily and her family bought season passes so we plan to go with them a lot. (Last year when we were helping Emily move she asked how she could repay us. I told her to let us stay at her house every time we go to Lagoon. She said that was a deal.)
About a month ago I'd been wondering if Lagoon passes really would be that cool of a gift this year. I'd shown the kids a bunch of first person ride experience videos on Youtube of Lagoon rides. Veronica watched the videos and then laid on the couch yelling, "I WANT TO GO NOW! THAT LOOKS SO FUN!" So I took that as a good sign that this was the year to buy season passes.
I didn't get a picture of the paper that Brandon made saying we'd bought Lagoon Passes, but here's a picture Lydia drew on the whiteboard a few days later.
Anyway, here's a picture of Christmas morning aftermath. It's very fitting that it's blurry.
Here are Charlotte and Lydia showing off their full collection of Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. They are also showing off their school hoodies that I bought them. I've wanted to buy Spirit gear for the kids everywhere we've lived, but since I always knew we'd move I didn't see the point in buying them a shirt for a school they wouldn't attend for very long. Then we moved here and the school didn't have any spirit gear. So I was happy when our PTO president Liz took it upon herself to set up a Spirit Gear contract with a local company. Everything was ready to go in time to order gear before Christmas. So each of my kids got spirit gear for Christmas this year.
Here's breakfast. There are a couple important things happening here. 1. See the Advent Candle? We had it lit all day. 2. There is a fresh layer of snow outside. I think 5 inches fell overnight.
Somebody put antlers on Marsha.
More aftermath.
Veronica got a gem dig set. I thought the gems would be in something like sand and she'd just have to sift through the sand to get them. But no. They were in a brick. A brick that you had to hammer through to bust out the gems. This isn't exactly the toy you need on a Christmas morning after a long drive the night before. But it made Veronica happy.
The twins took turns helping her hammer when she was tired.
After that they worked through the rest of the brick to find all eleven gems.
Here's another view of the living room. Brandon and Derrick were working on his little robot kit.
It had a lot of little pieces.
Here's Lydia working on a bracelet from a kit she got.
Actually there is a ton of great doctrine in here and it is for EVERY age. And it has a copy of my FAVORITE religious painting. It's Mother Creator by J Kirk Richards. You can see a more detailed image of the painting on the artist's instagram page.
I ended up falling asleep on the couch for something like two hours - While Brandon and the kids had an epic nerf gun war. I was only vaugely aware of that war happening around me.
They were about to give up when they found the first gem.
Veronica had new magnets that you could make into a ferris wheel. Charlotte helped her figure out how to put them all together.
I laid on the couch and read the book Brandon bought me. It was "A Girls Guide to Heavenly Mother." Brandon hadn't been sure this was the book I wanted. He was like, "did I get you the right one. This looks like a kids book." I told him, "Yeah it's a kids book because they don't trust grown women with this information yet."
When I woke up the kids were all outside. Brandon had helped them all find their snow pants - which I'd unpacked the night before. Charlotte and Lydia rolled a snowball around the backyard and after only about 30 feet it was HUGE. Brandon helped them roll it to the front yard and they worked on building a giant snow man together. Someone had gone around that morning and shoveled everyone's sidewalks and driveways. So Brandon didn't have to worry about that at all. He could just play with the kids. 
It was taller than the twins with just two balls.
Look at how deep the snow was. Not even 10 days earlier the Twin Falls County Commissioners had issued a proclamation asking everyone to pray for rain. And wow did those prayers get answered.
I went into the back yard to take pictures there. The snow was nearly to the top of my 10 inch high garden beds.
Here's a snow angel.
I'm glad I thought to put long stakes next to my baby trees.
Here's the other garden area.
The kids finished the snowman. It's taller than Brandon.
Derrick didn't want to play in the snow so I went back into the house to spend time with him. We got out his snap circuit kit and started playing with it. Derrick played with a snap circuit at Occupational Therapy a few months ago (the snapping is good for building fine motor skills) and he'd gotten really into it. So I figured he'd like one for Christmas. I was right. He played with it for over 90 minutes. He'd finish one circuit and immediately want to go onto the next.
We had a lot of fun figuring it out together. He's played with it a lot over Christmas break and is already telling me about the expansion packs he wants to get.
Meanwhile, Brandon and the girls had moved onto building igloos. Brandon showed the girls how to shape bricks out of breadpans and then how to stack them.
Veronica didn't want to worry about small breadpans. She grabbed a 5 gallon bucket and started packing snow in there. Then she'd stack her big bricks. She worked on this for a really long time. I was impressed at how determined she was.
Here's Charlotte in her igloo a little big before she was done for the day.
I was having a very Feminist themed Christmas. Brandon bought me an At Last She Said It Shirt. This is me attempting to take a selfie of my new shirt.
Here's Veronica with her new magnets.
And Marcia with the giant rawhide bone the kids had bought her.
And here's Brandon taking his turn to zonk out on the couch.
Charlotte and Veronica spent nearly all afternoon playing in the snow. Lydia took a little break, but went back out there.
We had a simple dinner. (I'm thinking it was just quesodilla's) And then played our new Life game. The kids really liked the game.
After life was over it was time to play with another new Christmas present. The kids love watching the Nerf Gun war videos on the Outdoor Boys Youtube Channel so they all asked for Nerf Guns for Christmas and they wanted to have a family Nerf gun war. So that's what we did.
Veronica ended up winning. Last year she just wandered the halls while playing clue, but she's gotten better at games this year.
After life was over it was time to play with another new Christmas present. The kids love watching the Nerf Gun war videos on the Outdoor Boys Youtube Channel so they all asked for Nerf Guns for Christmas and they wanted to have a family Nerf gun war. So that's what we did.
Here are Brandon and I with our guns.
Derrick and Veronica with theirs.
And Charlotte and Lydia with theirs.
The game lasted a long time, but about the time I shot Charlotte in the next and she shot me in the lip I was feeling like it was time to be over. We decided to go watch a movie. After a little bit of disussion the kids remembered that they'd seen that "Ron's Gone Wrong" was finally out on Disney Plus. So we watched that. It was cute.
The kids explained me the rules from their war earlier that day. If you got shot you had to lay on the floor and count to 20 slowly. Then you could get up and start shooting other people. We had about 10 minutes of complete pandemonium. The kids would wait for me to finish counting to 20 and then just shoot me again.
So we had to change the rules a bit. We decided that there should be a restart point that you go to after you get shot. We also decided to be on teams. Brandon and I were a team against the kids. The kids were trying to get to the living room couch. We were trying to keep them from the couch. If they died the kids had to go back to my bedroom. If we died we had to go back to the stairs.
This turned out to be really fun. This picture is a little staged, but there were times in the game the kids looked just like this.
The kids all made it to the couch and so we switched bases. Brandon and I had to flight our way out of the hallway and make it to the couch. That's pretty hard when we just had 2 guns with 4 bullets each vs 4 guns with 6 bullets each. But somehow we made it.
And that was the end of Christmas Day. It had been a great day!
On Sunday we woke up to Snow again! We had another relaxing morning. Brandon got dressed all fancy for church. I took care of shoveling the snow since Brandon was dressed so nice.
Church was only an hour long. The last speaker got up and said something like, "As far as I can see it I am the only think standing between you guys going home for a nap. So I think I'll do some light reading from Talmage." Everyone laughed. As it was we were done about 10 minutes early. Derrick watches the clock like a hawk all through sacrament meeting so when we started singing the closing song at 12:48 he asked loudly, "We're done already!" As soon as the closing prayer was over the kids made a beeline for the door.
The rest of the afternoon was pretty laid back. I took a nap and then finished reading Will Smith's autobiography. It's super good. I picked it up randomly at the library, but it turned out to be more interesting than the books that I'd had on hold.
And here's the other one. Brandon is actually curled up in there in this picture.
On Monday we woke up to snow again! This was the 4th straight day of snow. And the kids were back at it again.
Brandon and I worked together to shovel the driveway. I think this is the first time we've ever shoveled together.
So we dove over to the hill at the college campus.
I was kind of tired and kind of done with the snow so I wasn't enjoying the snow as much as I usually am when we go sledding. But the kids had fun.
We didn't stay very long though because it started snowing and the temperature dropped and the sun was able to set.
We had a little something planned for each day of the week. Monday was sledding. Tuesday was the day we'd go around and redeem the coupons the kids had earned for different academic achievements, Wednesday we'd go roller skating, Thursday we'd go clothes shopping, and Friday would be our New Years Eve party.
The girls spent most of the afternoon outside. I didn't take a picture until Brandon and I went on a walk that night. They finished the breadloaf igloo. That's the one on the left. The one on the right is Veronica's 5 gallon bucket igloo. They'd taken it apart and moved it closer to the other one. Then they put roofs on both of them.
Here's a close up of Veronica.
I was going to drive to work, but I wasn't sure what my work parking lot would look like. I didn't want to go through all the trouble of digging out of my driveway just to drive to work and get stuck in that little parking lot. So I ended up walking to work. This is what one of the neighborhood streets looked like. I'm not sure if plowing the neighborhood streets is a priority in Twin Falls. The main roads were clear. But the subdivision streets were just compact snow. (And still are.)
We'd planning on going sledding that afternoon, but the kids had already been outside for hours before we were ready to go. I wasn't sure if they would want to go sledding or how long they'd last. But they said they wanted to go.
This all made sense on paper, but then the kids had concerns. Were they just supposed to wait in the car while their siblings went into a store to get a treat. And I wasn't sure I wanted to take all 4 kids clothes shopping at the same time.
So we tweaked the plan. I'd take each child individually to redeem their coupons and then we'd go clothes shopping. So after work on Tuesday that's what we did.
Veronica was up first. She'd earned a coupon to Orange Leaf for filling out a tooth brushing chart. She was so excited to fill up her cup with frozen yogurt. She let me have some tastes. We agreed that the gingerbread flavor was the bed.
Veronica had ANOTHER coupon for an icecream cone at Burger King so we went and redeemed that. This one was for improving her I-Station score.
Derrick was next. He'd earned a coupon for a Volcano drink at a local cafe called Daisy's. This was also for improving on the I-station. Neither of us had ever been to daisy's and the only volcano drink I'd ever heard of involved flaming rum so we weren't sure what to expect. We found out it was a regular soda that came with a little bit of dry ice. The dry ice would make the soda bubble like a volcano. Derrick LOVED this.
Derrick didn't care about actually shopping for clothes so we went home. Lydia was waiting for me and came out as soon as I pulled up with Derrick. Technically Lydia didn't have any coupons, but I told her she'd worked just as hard as the other kids so I'd take her to buy a treat. She chose Orange Leaf. 
When she was done with her treat we went to Once Upon a Child. We found a lot of pants for her. And some for Derrick. We also found new boots for her because her other ones were getting too small. (I'd decided to gamble on a mild winter this year and had figured the kids would wear their boots only once or twice so it didn't matter if they had new boots. I was beginning to regret that gamble because Derrick had melted his only pair of boots and I couldn't find any in his size. We were lucky to find some for Lydia.)
Charlotte was my last person of the day and I was TIRED by this point. But I'd already taken her to work with me that morning so we'd already spent some good time together. Here coupon was for Beans and Brew's which is on the other side of town. On our way there we stopped at DI and found her some jeans and shirts.
Then we picked up a hot chocolate and Beans and Brews. 
Since we were close to Walmart we went there to look for boots for Derrick. Nothing! He was just going to have to wear his tennis shoes in the snow. While we were at Walmart Charlotte wanted to look at the toys. I had a bunch of Polos from my siblings so I caught up on those while following Charlotte around.
I love this picture.
Lydia had found this jacket at Once Upon a Child the day before and she'd wanted to wear it skating. It looked AMAZING out on the floor, but she said it was too hot so she didn't wear it for long.
Here's Derrick skating. He's so good!
Here's Lydia.
And Charlotte.
And Veronica. She was doing great! This was a completely different visit than when we'd been here before Thanksgiving. Thanks to the new skates and the practice she'd had at home she was able to skate really well on the floor. She got better every time she went around. She was so happy the whole time we were there.
And here's Charlotte showing off her new overalls. They have mermaid sequins sewn into the pant legs.
And here I am. I was feeling super happy and I wanted to document it. I love taking my kids to things like this.
Brandon had dropped us off at the rink and planned to run some errands and then come get us when he was done. I'd like this plan because it meant the kids had to stay and skate and we couldn't leave if they got too tired. But I hadn't realized the rink closed at 4:00 instead of 5:00. So as 4:00 got closer I was trying to get ahold of Brandon. And well, Brandon has a lot of positive qualities, but being a reliable phone answerer or texting back isn't one of them. He called me back once, but I missed it somehow. And he didn't leave a message or give me a text. So I had no clue where he was.
Later that night my siblings and I had a meeting over Goggle Hangouts. It was prompted by a serious thing. But the meeting had a lot of laughs. It's always fun to talk with my siblings even when we are dealing with some big situations. The call lasted nearly 2 hours and in some ways it felt too short.
On Wednesday we work up to more snow! After work I took the kids to Skateland. This visit was prompted by the new skates Veronica got for Christmas. She'd been practicing all over the house and wanted to try them out at the skating rink.
We got there just as the DJ's were leading some races so here are the kids watching those.
So when the rink closed I told the kids we'd have to walk home. This really isn't that bad. Skateland is 1 mile from our house. So I wasn't worried about the distance. What I was worried about were the lack of sidewalks because of the snow. But the kids weren't too phased by that. Even Derrick in his tennis shoes didn't seem to care. They had fun hopping through the deep snow and climbing over the places where the plows had piled snow.
The route home took us past my work and I was able to direct the kids to the little short cut I take that doesn't require walking along the busy road. It was so much quieter here.
That is, until Thursday when I went to my favorite furniture store - La Curb. I'd brought Lydia to work with me. When we were driving home we passed some garbage cans that had a dresser type thing next to them. I said, "that's exactly what I'm looking for for the kitchen!" So we circled around the block and came back to the garbage cans. I had the seats folded down and the dresser in the car pretty quick. When I got back home Brandon helped me bring it into the house and get everything moved over. I'm so pleased at how much better this looks.
After lunch Brandon came with me and the kids to run a few errands. Lydia had seen a doll jeep at Once Upon a Child and she wanted to go back and buy it with her money. So we went there and picked it up. While we were there I checked the boots bins to see if I could find any for Derrick. Surprisingly there was a pair of boys size 5 boots. Derrick is more of a 6 at this point, but I figured 5's were better than nothing. So I bought them. (They are very small, but he can squish into them and they are better than tennis shoes.)
Brandon called me again and I was able to actually find out where he was. He would be home about the same time we would be so I told him not to worry about picking us up. As it was he walked in the door about 30 seconds after we got home.
On Thursday I was able to do something that I've been thinking about for a while. We have this shelf in our kitchen that just is always full of things. It wouldn't be so bad if it was somehow in a different location, but this happens to be the first thing you see if you come in our front door. So I'm always embarrassed by it. But not matter how often we clean it, it always get's junky looking again.
A few months ago I realized that part of the problem is that we don't have a junk drawer in our kitchen. We don't have anywhere we could stash half this stuff so it's always out in the open. I began to think about getting some sort of tall cabinet for this spot. But nothing fit what I had in mind.
Then we went to the new SIPS in town to redeem some coupons the kids earned from having no cavities at their last dentist appointments. We'd planned on going in. But the lobby was closed so we just went to the drive through. The kids could choose between pretzel bits in a cup, a drink, or a cookie. Derrick and Veronica each got pretzels. The twins choose cookies. And Brandon and I bought a peppermint rice crispy treat and shared it. Here's everyone enjoying their treats.
Then we went to Walmart to pick up a Barbie toy Charlotte had had me order. The whole time we'd been driving around it had been snowing. But it hadn't seemed like that much. So I was surprised when we got home and there were another 3 or 4 inches on the drive way. I was glad I'd rescued the dresser off the curb when I had.
On Friday we woke up to more snow again. This was beginning to feel like that winter when we lived with Brandon's parents and it never stopped snowing. Only without the mental anguish this time.
Veronica lost another tooth. This brought her total for the week up to three. She'd lost one at church on Sunday. One later Sunday afternoon and then this one on Friday. I asked her about putting them under her pillow but she told me, "I think the tooth fairy needs a break. I do them all together next week."
Someone needs to explain to Brandon that there are only 6 of us living here.
We always watch a movie trilogy on New Years Eve. This year we picked the Jumanji Movies. We've all seen the first one many times, but none of us have seen the two reboot/sequels. I figured out we'd need to start watching the movies at 5:30. That would give us some time for bathroom breaks and stretching our legs between movies. Since we've seen the first ones so much it worked perfectly to eat during that one.
We have the first one on DVD and I was able to get the third one from the library. But I could not find the second one at the library. My sister Lindsey let us sign into her amazon account and watch the digital copy she'd bought. That worked, right up until the internet went down on us. (For some reason we have terrible internet service around the holidays.) Brandon started rebooting the router and I was texting neighbors to see if they had a copy on DVD. Thankfully the internet came back without any further problems. But I was glad I'd built some down time into our movie watching timeline.
Everyone loved the second movie and so we were excited for the third one. And that one was good too, but, as always happens with these movie marathons, we started getting tired. Derrick had his head on my shoulder through the whole movie. Lydia's cough had moved onto Charlotte by this point and Charlotte spent most of the movie coughing. It was like her body was saying, "Put me to bed, Put me to bed!" over and over.
But we still had an enjoyable time and laughed a lot. And I'd really fun to watch these movies back to back because you pick up on some things. Like I totally caught that the cafe in the 3rd one was called Nora's and I had a guess as to why. And I was right!
My timing had worked out perfect and the movie ended at 11:58. We ran outside to see the firework show that someone always does behind our house. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I think those neighbors moved because there wasn't a huge show back there. (Come to think of it the 4th of July had been pretty quiet last year too.) We could hear other people doing their fireworks, but we couldn't see them very well. And it was cold so we went inside.
The kids went to bed right away, but Brandon and I stayed up putting away the food. Then we went to bed.
This morning everyone slept in super later. Even Derrick didn't get up until something like 8:30.
I've spent most of the day working on this blog. Which I think is time well spent. Getting other stuff done in 2022 can wait for a weekday.
To finish out this post here is a list of good things that happened 2021 in no particular order:
1. We leveraged a crazy housing market to pay off Brandon's student loans.
2. We survived Homeschooling the kids - and learned a lot about ourselves in the process. (ie, I'm more suited for administration than teaching.)
3. The kids went back to school in the fall and never had to quarantine due to COVID exposure.
4. Each member of the family was able to be vaccinated.
5. We went back to Yellowstone for 5 days.
6. We went on about 8 mini-vacations around Southern Idaho.
7. Brandon and I each only worked one job this year.
8. My sister Emily moved back to Utah with her family. And my parents moved back too.
9. The Honda worked perfectly all year and so we didn't have to buy a new car - even though it's getting really squishy.
10. I started school again for another bachelors in Accounting and completed something like 18 courses in 6 months.
Plus a whole bunch of small things that made up a year.
I'm looking forward to see what that next year will bring.
Thanks for reading.
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