Christmas 2025

Let's talk about Christmas! 

First up we need to look at more pictures from the Good Looking 4th Wall Night on Saturday the 20th. In hindsight this was my favorite event of the whole Christmas Season. It was so fun to get dressed up and hang out with our friends. There wasn't a lot of pressure on me to make it magical or anything. I just had to be there and enjoy the night. 

Here's the group picture we took with a bunch of us who wanted to show off our fun Christmas outfits. I was in the back with Brandon. I was standing on my toes to make sure that my head showed up over Chance's. 

This is a picture of Uriah and Sarah and Tim and Rebekkah.  Sarah created this event and organizes it each time. I once told her, "Thanks for always planning our date nights." Tim has been part of everything I've done on the Orpheum Stage. He was in Cinderella, he was the Emcee for the Curtain Call Awards, and he was in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. He'll be directing Young Frankenstein in 2026. None of the plays for 2026 interested Brandon until Young Frankenstein was announced. He wants to do that one. I told him, "If you don't do it, I will. I LOVE working with Tim." 

Here are Brandon and I. This is the picture Brent took of us. I love Brent's work. 

Here's Chris and Karin. They'd added the fabric decorations to Chris's jacket to make it all holidayish. 

Here's another one Brent took of me and Brandon. But I don't like my hair in this one. 

Here's our table. (Brent didn't give a lot of warning.) We were sitting with Chris and Karin on one side. Chance and Aeyden were on the other side. They were recently engaged. Chance is the guy who killed Brandon in Treasure Island. Next to them is my new friend Skila. She's Aeyden's mom. She was the only one at our table who had been in White Christmas. It was her first play since Middle School and she did great. 

Here are the stars of White Christmas. Tyler, Brooke, Sara, and Ivan. They all did so well.

Here our our friends Dale and Amy. Dale proposed to Amy on stage at the end of White Christmas that night. Brandon and I weren't there, but people who were there told us about it almost as soon as we walked in. Amy had been called up on stage to receive an award for being a devoted fan of the theatre or something like that. Jared gave her flowers and then said, wait there is one more thing. Then Dale came out and proposed to her. When Amy and Dale walked into the Redhawk everyone cheered for them. 

Here's the cast photo. There are so many awesome people in this picture. 

We got home a little after midnight so Sunday morning was very laid back. Brandon and I decided to wear our 4th wall outfits to church. I put a sweater on over mine. When we walked up to church everyone was like, "Oh wow! A top hat!"  Brandon didn't wear it in the church, but he was still in his suit and looked AMAZING. 

Church was only Sacrament Meeting. The ward choir sang about 4 songs, the there was a piano duet with 4 piano players on 2 pianos, and the congregation sang some songs too. The Young Women also sang a song. My girls didn't participate because they don't like singing in church. We joke that our family doesn't like to sing "when the lights are on."  Veronica also says she only sings if people can clap at the end. 

It was a really nice program, but the best part was after when everyone talked for about 10 minutes. I always think we need some sort of linger longer after the Christmas Sacrament Meeting. Next year we'll be the last ward in the building so I was telling one of my friends, "we should talk to someone about making sure the linger longer happens next year."  And then later I realized Brandon is literally the Elder's Quorum activities leader. He told me, "Oh I'm already planning on it. I'll make it happen."

The rest of Sunday was pretty chill. That night we watched The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. It was super cute. I've read the story to the kids, but Veronica didn't remember it at all. She was dying of second hand embarrassment as the Herdmans were taking over the Christmas Pageant and asking all sorts of questions. 

Monday was the kids first day that they didn't have to go to school. I celebrated that by sleeping in. But I eventually made it into work and was there for over 3 hours. I knew this was my last day where I'd be really focused so I made myself take care of a lot of things. 

I came home and immediately switched gears to get ready for the gingerbread house making party we were having that afternoon. 

I'd bought a lot of candy and other things. I divided up the candy into 8 ziplock bags so each kid could have a like their own "kit."

Charlotte had plans for an amazing gingerbread house. She and Brandon had made gingerbread dough on Saturday and cooked it on Sunday. So she started working on her house while I was still getting things ready for the other kids. She took Jolly Ranchers and crushed them up. then she put them in the windows of her house and melted them in the oven. They turned out so cool.

I mixed up royal icing and she went to work decorating her house. She decorated the sides of the house and let everything dry. Then she put it all together. 

Derrick's friend Max came over at 3:30. He get's overwhelmed by noise so we had him come over about 90 minutes ahead of the teenage girls. (The girls were so noisy last year.) Both boys had fun making their houses. 

Here's Derrick's. He put his together with like 0 hesitation. He just went to work. Every once in a while that "most creative builder" award he won last year makes sense. 

Here's Max's house. I was impressed that it stayed standing. 

Aurora and Gwen came over at 5:00. You can see that Charlotte is still working on decorating the individual pieces of her gingerbread house. 

Max and Derrick had been playing in the basement. I took this picture of the kids all together. 

This was Gwen's house. She said Santa got stranded on the roof. His reindeer left him. 

She even put things in the attic. 

Here's Aurora's. She always does her's really quick. 

And here is Lydia's. We used graham crackers this year because I couldn't find a little kit. I think these worked out better anyway. 

Hadley was a little late so Max had already left by the time she arrived so we never did get a full group picture, but that's okay. She and Veronica were in the living room while the other girls were in the kitchen.

Hadley made a manger scene. 

Veronica's was similar. I think she wanted to see how much candy she could sweeze on.

And Charlotte was still working on her gingerbread house. She put cans around the walls to help them stay up while the icing dried. 

Here's the little village of houses. 

And Charlotte's mansion. 

She'd even put fairy lights inside the house so the windows lit up.

The roof is made out of cinnamon toast crunch cereal. 

I love this little front door. She had started working on the house at 2:30. She finished a little before 7:00. 

Hadley wanted to go a little after her house was done so I took her home. Aurora and Gwen wanted to watch Arthur Christmas so they stuck around. They watched most of the movie while Charlotte was still working on the house.

After the movie was over they came upstairs and waited for their mom to come get them. Brandon and our niece Brealynn had some sort of deal that he would have pink toe nails the next time he saw her. So Lydia painted his toe nails so they could be ready for Christmas Eve. Brandon was being really funny and talking in his "gay voice."  Gwen though it was so funny. She laughed at everything he said.  

The twins left and that was the end of the second annual gingerfriend night. It had been really fun. 

Tuesday was the 23rd. We were going to Utah that night after Brandon got off work, but there were like a million things to do to get ready. 

First I had to go to work. I'd planned on being there for about 3 hours. But after about 90 minutes I was like, "this was good enough."  There was just too much to do at home to justify staying longer. 

Brandon had gone grocery shopping after the party on Monday night. He'd separated all the groceries into bags labeled things like, "dry Emily and David" or "Fridge Bestemor and Bestefar." He also had a list of all the things I needed to pack. That made it really easy for me to get all the food ready to go. He'd also already made the two cheese balls for Christmas Eve at his parents. I have no idea how late he was up on Monday night, but I think it was something like 1:00.

The kids and I packed our clothes. In some way this was a really easy trip to pack for because it was just overnight. But I made sure the kids had something nice-ish to wear to the Christmas Eve party. 

I also found time to pot the random rose that we've had growing in a vase. Brandon got this rose from someone after one of the Sweeny Todd shows. He brought it home and put it in a vase. With everything going on we just kind of forgot about it. After several weeks we noticed that the rose wasn't fully dead yet. In fact it seemed to be growing roots and had a little sprout. I kept saying I should put it in some potting soil, but I hadn't had a chance yet. So I finally did it. 

Look at that little sprout. I've never seen this happen before. 

I also took more pictures of Charlotte's gingerbread house. 

This is my favorite side. I love how the pretzel shutters look so fancy. 

She did such a good job with the roof. 

This side is really cute too. 

And here is a close up of the door. 

We got everything packed into the van. We had a lot more room than we did when we drove down for Christmas. I realized that was because for Christmas we'd also travelled with a whole platter or roles and a bunch of pies. 

Brandon came home and we were on the road by 4:00. Traffic had been crazy all day and I didn't feel comfortable with the twins driving. So I drove. Brandon had downloaded A Christmas Carol from audible so we listened to that on the way down. 

Around 7:00 we arrived at our hotel in downtown Ogden. I was in one room with Derrick and Veronica. Brandon and the twins were in another room a floor above us. The rooms were small and overlooked the back of the hotel, but I was still so happy to be there. And the lobby was really pretty. We dropped off our stuff and then met up in the lobby.  

Here's Derrick figuring out how to change the channel on the lobby TV. 

We walked a few blocks to Rovali's Ristorante Italiano on 25th street. We've come here around Christmas for many years. I had reservations for us at 7:45 and that's basically when we arrived. We waited a minute for them to finish clearing off a table and then we were seated. 

We ordered three pizzas. Brandon got one with peppers on it for me and him. 

Here are Charlotte and Lydia. 

And Derrick and Veronica. 

And Brandon and Charlotte. 

We were there for a long time just talking and eating. We had a really great time. Through poor planning this was the 3rd time 4 days that we had pizza for dinner. The first time had been Saturday when Jori's brought us pizza when we watched her kids. The second time was pizza we had while doing gingerbread houses. And the 3rd time was this night. So we maybe didn't eat as much as we would have. We got to go boxes. Derrick finished off the rest of the pepperoni pizza in our hotel room that night. 

We walked up 25th street to the Christmas Village. 

It was so pretty. But crowded. 

It was hard to move around as a group of 6 and the kids weren't very interested anyway. So we took them back to the hotel. Here's Derrick and Veronica walking together. 

We left the kids watching TV in the hotel rooms and Brandon and I went back out to enjoy the lights. The weather was still unseasonably warm. I was wearing a sweatshirt with two layers so I didn't need a jacket or anything. Brandon was in a sweatshirt. We were perfectly warm. I don't think I've ever been this warm at the Christmas Village. It was really nice. But I think the weather contributed to the number of people there were. It was after 9:00 and there were still people everywhere. 

We looked in a few of the windows. This one with skeletons from the Radiology department was funny.  

Mostly we just walked around and enjoyed the vibes. 

My favorite part was the guy who was dressed as Santa and playing music. I've been listening to a lot of Bruce Springsteen because I've been reading his memoir. I was walking around humming "I'm on Fire" half the night. The street musician was playing a lot of Christmas songs and then went into playing, "Walk of Life" by Dire Straights. The way it starts is really similar to a lot of Bruce Springsteen songs so I was thrilled. It was so fun to listen to that song with a crowd of other people. 

Later we walked by the singing Santa again. He was playing something slower and I put my head on Brandon's chest while we stood and listened. That was my favorite moment this Christmas. 

Around 10:00 a wind started picking up. And a little after 10:00 all the lights turned off. I don't know if that had to do with the wind or if it had to do with the time. The lights were still on up and down 25th street so we walked up and down 25th street before heading back to the Hotel. I'm glad we were staying downtown so we could have this little impromptu date. 

Derrick and Veronica had just finished a movie and were starting to watch Bluey when I got back. They were laughing a lot at that show. I read for a long time until they were done with TV. 

Wednesday was Christmas Eve. We woke up in the hotel and got ready for the day. We met up downstairs for breakfast. We could have eaten in the nice lobby, but all the kids wanted waffles so we ate in the room with the breakfast buffet so the kids could keep an eye on the waffle makers. 

Here's the pretty lobby.

We went back to our rooms and the kids watched move TV. It was so nice to have a lazy morning on Christmas Eve. 

At 10:30 we checked out of the hotel and then drove to Layton to visit my sister Emily. Derrick had a rip in his nice sweater. Emily sat down and sewed it up for him. 

Brandon and I brought everything to make a charcuterie board. So we set that up. I thought I took a picture of it, but I guess not. 

We had a nice time visiting with Emily for a few hours. Then it was time to move onto the next party. I changed into my party dress and we drove up to Brandon's parent's house. 

Brandon was wearing his top hat again. It was fun to be dressed up. 

The party was fun as always. Derrick had been talking it over with me for the past several weeks. He likes that the same things always happen. Dinner, Chimes, Dancing around the Tree, and then presents. 

Here we are doing chimes. 

Here's Veronica and Lydia. 

Derrick wanted to sing a silly song after chimes. It was like two lines from something from Garfield's Christmas. It was fun to see him so comfortable in front of everyone. 

Earlier in the day I'd been complaining about how Brandon's dad always stopped the singing around the tree to try to explain the words to the Norwegian Christmas song. I was like, it's just him trying to tell us stuff and no one is really listening and he always get's kind of confused halfway through and has to start over. I wish the words were already written out. That night, in a Christmas Miracle, Justin found the words to the song in the box with the chimes. I was like, "We'd had these the whole time?!?"

We did the dancing and then it was time for Dessert. here are the three girls with various goodies. 

Jacque and Steve passed around presents. Everyone got money this year. Everyone also got a little 3D printed toy. Here's Derrick's. 

And Veronica's. 

And Lydia's. Charlotte's was an orange dragon, but I never got a picture of it. 

The scheduled part of the party was over, but no one was ready to go yet. I ended up on the couch with Derrick and Charlotte. Derrick took my phone and I fell asleep. Lydia was asleep in the arm chair. And Veronica was nearly asleep on the love seat. Brandon took this picture of the 5 of us. I call this, "two parties in one day."

I eventually woke up and spent another hour talking with the other adults. Around 8:30 we started getting ready to go. We were on the road a little before 9:00. 

We drove home without incident. I don't think we even stopped for a bathroom break. 

Everyone was still awake when we got home just before midnight. Everyone brought in their stuff and helped unpack the van all the way. Then the kids went to bed. 

At 12:30 I got up and helped Brandon put presents around the tree. I told him, "I have about 10 minutes left in me."  And that's about how long it took to get everything in from the garage and then put around the tree. Brandon was like, "I'll take care of the stockings. You go to bed."  And I was just fine with that idea. I'd forgot that stockings even existed. 

Here's the tree before I went to bed. 

We'd all agreed that 8:00 was the latest we could sleep in. I woke up at 7:52. The kids were already in the living room sitting on the couches waiting for me and Brandon. 

Everything looked really pretty. 

We sat around the tree and took turns opening presents. It was a good morning. 

Brandon was just throwing wrapping paper into the kitchen as the kids finished opening presents. We had quite the pile by the time we were done. 

Here are Charlotte and Lydia with some of their presents in the back ground. Lydia got a big canvas as her present from Derrick. We'd known it would be obvious what it was so we'd hidden that present in the garage and put a decoy present under the tree. That decoy present just had a button in it. Lydia was so confused every time she shook it. When she was finally able to open it there was a note that said to look behind the couch. And behind the couch was a giant canvas. She went "OOOHHHHHH" when she saw it. 

Here's another view of the wrapping paper pile. 

Marcia got a new collar and an antler. She really liked chewing the antler. 

When the presents were opened I was just kind of standing in the middle of the living room with a blank face. Brandon asked me what was wrong. I was like, "Nothing, I'm just really tired." So he told me to go back to bed. I did and slept for another hour and a half. After that I had more of a personality. 

Here's Lydia showing me the hunting knife she got. 

She also asked for a hoop skirt. So here she is modeling her hoop skirt and hunting knife together. 

Derrick got a little hot wheels RV car and had fun driving that around. 

He put it in a loop and made it go really fast. 

The day was pretty unstructured. We'd planned orange chicken and egg rolls for dinner. But Brandon had put out a lot of the left overs and so we just ate those.

Brandon was exhausted so he took a nap from like 1:00 to 5:00. He really needed that after many late nights. 

At 3:00 Veronica and I went over to Chandler's and Cort's house. Veronica would be watching their dog for the next week so we went there to learn where they keep the dog food and things like that. We are used to never seeing anyone on Christmas Day is it was kind of odd to actually go to someone's house. 

Two of my presents were Mission Impossible 7 and 8. So that evening we watched Mission Impossible 8. Derrick watched the whole thing and really liked it. Veronica watched the submarrine part and was like, "Well that was intense enough for me. I don't want to watch any more of that" and went upstairs. Charlotte and Lydia didn't watch it at all. 

At some point during the day Charlotte asked me, "Hey mom, what if Dad took me and Lydia on a road trip this weekend so we can get more driving hours?"  And I was like, "sure."  So they started planning an impromptu road trip around Nevada. 

So on Friday they packed up their stuff and bought food. Then they left on their road trip. Brandon already had the day off. We'd tentatively planned to go to the Ice Skating rink in Rupert and/or the straw maze in Burley. But the weather had turned rainy and none of those activities sounded fun to do in the rain. So it was just fine for the plans to get cancelled in place of this road trip. 

I was considering working from home, but my living room was so messy that it was actually easier to just go to work and ignore the wreak of my house for a little while. I made sure that all the electronic payments had been applied correctly. And then I went home. No one else was in the office the whole time I was there. 

Back at home Derrick, Veronica, and I were in really low power mode. We didn't do much at all. I'd promised Derrick we'd watch Jurassic Park Dominion together. So we did that. But I kept falling asleep. We did make it to the crystal store in the mall so Veronica could use her Christmas money to buy a big quartz crystal. The mall was full of people. I think it was the busiest I've ever seen it. 

Veronica had received a wooden chest from Lydia for Christmas. She painted it and put her artist brand on it. 

It's her initials VI together. 

On Saturday we were slightly more productive. I woke Veronica up early so she could take care of the neighbors dog. As we were driving back from their house my van hit 298000 miles. 

I asked the kids what they wanted for dinner and the kids suggested waffles with whipped cream. So we went to the store to buy milk, eggs, and whipped cream. Derrick made the waffles nearly by himself. 

We watched The War With Grandpa because we'd had it from the library for a few weeks and needed to give it back.  

Brandon was texting me with some updates through out the weekend. They were having a really good time. 

I stayed up late reading "Into the Clouds" about three different groups who tried to climb the second highest mountain in the world - K2. I'd recommended Into Thing Air to my sister Lindsey. She read it and then read like 4 more books about climbing Everest and other high mountains. One of those was Into the Clouds and she recommended it to me. It was a really good book. She and I joke that our favorite thing is to read about people freezing in the snow while we are snuggled warm in our beds. 

On Sunday Derrick and Veronica and I went to church. But we only went for one hour. It was kind of a big deal that 1. I remembered it was Sunday. And 2. We all put on nice clothes. 

Derrick didn't want to pass the sacrament without Brandon and we didn't have to get their early for a big bench so we got there about 5 minutes before sacrament meeting started. 

After church I sat down with Derrick and my computer and we worked on a project we'd started on Saturday. Derrick loves to tell me dinosaur statistics, but it can get really boring to just listen to him.  We'd already finished our project of putting the dinosaurs into their geographic eras. Now I wanted to make charts of how big the dinosaurs were. 

I thought about doing this by hand with graph paper, but I decided we should do it on the computer instead. So I made a simple chart in google sheets and started filling in the data. I added a graph to populate as we filled in the data on the chart.  On Saturday we'd done all the herbivores. 

Derrick was fascinated. He loved seeing how big each dinosaur was compared to the others. We were tracking the height, length, and weight. We also put in Derrick's height, length, and weight for comparison. (He weights 0.09119999968 of a ton.)

Then we sorted all the data from smallest to largest. Derrick called the result, "making ladders." He loved it. 

So on Sunday we started working on the herbivores. We worked on it for about an hour. Derrick would pull up the dinosaur stats on his tablet. Then he'd tell me the dinosaur name and the stats. I'd fill them in on the chart. After about an hour I got tired. But Derrick wanted to keep going. So he took over the data entry while I took a nap. He worked on this for another hour and finished all the herbivores. I was so impressed!

I walked him through sorting the data, creating a PDF of the chart, and printing. He'd learned it all by the time we were done. 

Brandon and the twins came home around this time. Brandon was pretty impressed by Derrick's new skill. Brandon didn't even know you could insert a graph with Google sheets. 

We had the orange chicken and egg rolls for dinner. Brandon and the twins told us all about their trip. On Friday night they'd slept in a tent and woke up covered in snow. On Saturday night they just slept in a parking lot. They'd had a great time. And both twins added about 10 hours to their driving time. Now they both need less than 10 more and they will have the required 50 hours to get their driver's licenses. 

 Brandon had told a friend that he would take care of his chickens for a day or two so Brandon took Charlotte over there to show her what to do. While they were there Brandon locked himself out of the car. They were able to get the car open again. Brandon told the Pilot, "You can die in the driveway, I can handle it if you stop working in the driveway."

And well, the car took that literally. When Brandon went to start it for work on Monday the pilot didn't start at all. I took him to work and we both were so so so so grateful that the car hadn't died on the middle of Nevada. 

We thought it was just a dead battery. But it was actually the starter. That was still an easy fix so the Pilot is running again. But that was an interesting way to start the last week of the year. 

Anyway, that's how our Christmas went this year. 

Thanks for reading. 

The final push to the end of the semester

Miraculously, I was able to catch up on this blog. This post about the third week of December is coming to you as the fourth week begins - right on schedule. This was helped by the drastic reduction in activities this week compared to the second week. During the second week of December we had something going on nearly every night. During the third week we had more nights at home than nights away from home. That was very nice. 

So here's the recap of the last week of school. 

First a picture I took on Sunday December 14th, of something that had been created on Thursday the 11th. Derrick watched A Christmas Story and paused it so he could write down the code that Ralphie decodes. He was pretty proud of this, and I was too. 

I actually hadn't slept well on Saturday night. I was still battling a little cold, but since I didn't have anything big on Sunday I decided not to take Nyquil before bed. Big mistake. I had trouble breathing all night and didn't sleep well. So I was a zombie for much of Sunday. I was so happy when it was bedtime. 

Monday was a busy day at work. Lately I've started working 5 hour days on Mondays. I get to work at 8:45 after dropping Derrick off at school. I stay until 2:00 when it's time to leave to get the twins. I can get so much done, and I don't have to rush through my work. It's really nice. I also work long days on Fridays. So between Friday and Monday I already had 10 hours of work done. I used to aim for 12 hours total for the week. But those days seem to be long gone. Aspen Grove has just grown so much that there is more for me to do.

After work I picked up all the kids. I start at the High School with Charlotte and Lydia and then I drive across town to get Derrick at his middle school. Brandon normally gets Derrick when he is done with work, but all the schools get out and hour earlier on Mondays. So I'm in charge of Derrick on Mondays. Then we drive home. Veronica walks home from the middle school. She often acts like this is a huge hardship. We do not live far from our middle school. It's about a 15 minute walk. And Veronica loves to stop and pet all the dogs along the way. But she'll still complain about it occasionally. 

I took the girls shopping at Goodwill for "Ugly Sweaters."  But we never really found any truly ugly sweaters. Instead we found some cute shirts and pajamas. 

Veronica had theatre on Monday. It was the second to last rehearsal. They will take a break over Christmas and New Years and then come back and get ready for the show in January. Theatre has been a little bumpy for Veronica lately. She's been really self conscious about her height. She hates that its what EVERYONE brings up about her. And then she's also self conscious about how young she is in this group. This is her first play with the full teenage group. Before she was in the 7-10 group. Over the summer she was in a 7-15 group. And now she's in the 10-18 group. So she's 12 doing a play with full on High School seniors. It's making her feel like she doesn't fit because she's tall, but young. Thankfully this rehearsal was really fun and she felt like she belonged again.

I'd been able to get all our Living Nativity costumes washed and dried. That's no small feat when half the fabric has to be hung dry. I put the costumes back together on their hangars. Derrick helped me take them back to Britt's barn.  

On Tuesday Derrick had an orthodontist appointment. Normally I like to schedule those at 8:30 so we he doesn't miss much school. But this time the only appointment available was at 10:00. That made my morning a little awkward. I could drop him off at school, but there really wasn't time to go to work or go back home. I decided to do some shopping at Walmart. Brandon works at the hospital next to Walmart so I invited him to meet up with me. 

I had to get some boring things like soap and mascara so I found those before Brandon showed up. When he arrived we did the more fun shopping. We bought things for holiday baking and for decorating gingerbread houses. It was fun to do that together. 

At 9:45 I went back to Derrick's school and checked Derrick out for his appointment. His appt was really normal. He is so close to being done, but his back teeth aren't quite as lined up as they need to be. so we are just waiting on that before he get's his braces off. 

I took him back to school and then went  . . . shoot I'm not sure where I went. I know I went grocery shopping and I know I went to work. But I can't remember what order I did that in. Let's assume I went to Winco and bought food. Then I went home and put away the perishable stuff. And then I went to work. I know I was at work in time for Admin meeting at noon. But maybe I went to work and then went grocery shopping? That could have happened too. 

Oh well. 

I'd brought a big box of 60 eggs. But we didn't quite have room for the whole box in the fridge. We divided a lot of it into two 18 count cartons we had, but there were still a lot of eggs. So Brandon made him and me big omelets for dinner. (And we still had a lot of eggs left over.) Brandon makes the best omelets. 

Tuesday kind of felt like the last normal day before we would get caught in a vortex of ever increasing busy-ness that lead to Christmas. I just had a sense that a lot of things needed to happen on Tuesday so that the next few days wouldn't feel as stressful. So that's why I was shopping. I also chose to focus on getting ALL the laundry done. Washing the Living Nativity costumes had taken precedence over our regular laundry.  So we felt a little more behind than usual. I wanted to feel on top of it all again. 

So all night long I made sure the washing machine and dryer were running load after load. I had the kids put away their laundry. I put away my laundry. It felt really good to get on top of that. I kind of wish I took a before and after picture. On Sunday our laundry room had been a mess. There were costume pieces hanging on hangars hooked into nails in the upstairs floor boards. There were laundry baskets with dirty laundry on the floor. And there was a pile of clean laundry on the laundry table. By Wednesday the costumes were gone, the floor was clear, and the laundry table was nearly empty. That felt really good.

I also made some Christmas treats with Charlotte and Veronica. We made pretzel treats with hersheys hugs and M&M's. We also made Muddy Buddies. I'd thought about making treats for the neighbors this year, but food is so darn expensive I just couldn't do it. I told Brandon, "we have our friends and neighbors over for parties all year long. They know we love them." 

On Wednesday I met with a lady named Annie who is the Executive Director of Jump Company. She will be my direct supervisor when I'm doing the book keeping. We had a lovely time talking. She has 7 boys and they have all thrived in theatre. 

The weather had been super weird all day. As I'd driven the kids to school there had been a big black cloud over most of the sky. But the sun would occasionally peek through and blind me out of no where. The wind was blowing like crazy. While I was at Annie's house it started raining really hard and there were big puddles of water on the road as I drove home. 

Later in the day there was news of a tragedy that happened in the morning. Two children had been waiting for their school bus when a giant tree fell over on them! I told the kids about that and Charlotte and Lydia reminded me that we'd seen the life light helicopter flying really low right before I took them to school. That had been at 7:40. It had to have been the helicopter flying to the hospital. When Brandon came home from work he said that the kids had come in to the hospital, but were then taken to Boise. 

On Thursday my friend Cort shared on his Facebook page the link to the Go Fund Me that was set up for the kids medical bills. The two children went to school with Cort's kids. One was a little 6 year old girl. She was hit in the head. Her mom said she was face down when she found her and was unresponsive. She had a broken eye socket and skull fractures. But thankfully her brain seemed to be doing okay. She remembered who people were. Her brother was 10. The tree fell on the lower half of his body. Both his femurs were broken and his pelvis was badly damaged. He would need a hip replacement.  

At the time I first saw the Go Fund Me the goal was set to $22,000 and I think it was already at something like $18000. The kids were like, "Mom, we are donating right?" I already was planning on it, and I made sure to let the kids know. 

That $22,000 goal was met and the organizers increased it again, and then again. The goal is currently $60,000 and $56,691 has been met. It's been incredible to see the community come together over this. 

But I didn't know about all that on Wednesday afternoon. I spent most of the day in the basement. I watched the Era's Tour final concert on Disney plus while sorting through papers. I wanted to get my scrap books up to date. I knew I'd been slacking off for a few years on this, but I was so surprised when I realized I still had loose papers from 2022!  That meant I was sorting out papers into piles for 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025. I was able to get them all sorted out, but sometimes it was tricky. For example, I had a ticket stub for the Wilson Wizarding Experience. But all it said was "Thursday October 23rd" or something like that. So I'd have to google, "Thursday October 23rd" and see what year popped up. Then I'd know what pile to put it in. 

By the time I was done I'd been able to get all of 2022 into a binder. There were things from our Spring Break trip to Nevada and Los Vegas, our Lagoon season passes, and things from the Cousin Camp in Eden, Utah. It was nice to get all of that nicely organized. I'm hopeful that I'll be able to get the other things organized over winter break. 

I cleaned everything up and then picked the Twins up from school. Veronica had her last theatre rehearsal for the year that night. That was kind of a problem because the ward had planned a temple trip for the exact same time as theatre. They were also going to Pizza Pie Cafe that night. The leaders were very understanding that youth had a lot of different things going on so they said that it was okay to meet up at Pizza Pie Cafe even if you didn't go to the temple. 

Charlotte and Lydia weren't interested in the activity at all. So they didn't do either thing. Derrick was kind of interested in the temple part, but he was more interested in Pizza Pie Cafe. After last weeks drama I really didn't want to have the leaders have to keep an eye on Derrick in the temple so I decided that he'd just skip that part. 

So at 6:00 I took Derrick with me to pick up Veronica and then I took both of them to Pizza Pie Cafe. We got there about 5 minutes before the people from the ward started showing up. Derrick was so excited to see his friends. 

I dropped them off and then came home. Brandon and I had plans to wrap Christmas presents that night. He'd set up a whole wrapping station in the garage. We each had a side of the table with our own scissors and tape. The wrapping paper, tags, ribbons and bows were in the middle. 

Brandon had taken care of buying all the gifts this year. So this was the first time I was seeing the kids' presents. He bought a lot of really cool stuff. I wrapped Derrick and Veronica's gifts while he did Charlotte and Lydia's. 

Derrick and Veronica made it home from the activity and all the kids watched movies or something while we were wrapping. Around 8:00 I got really tired. I sat on the couch while Brandon finished up. (He's more precise at wrapping than me.) He went back over the gifts I wrapped and added fancy ribbons tied in fancy bows to some of them. I'm so lucky to have this guy. 

I was so tired. So at 8:45 I called it a night and went to bed. I've been reading Bruce Springsteen's memoir "Born to Run" every night. Its really good, but on this night I read like maybe a chapter and then fell asleep. 

Thursday was a busy work day. I checked in with all my little billing clients in the morning and made sure their stuff was looking good. Then I went to Aspen Grove in the afternoon. Thursday is the end of the pay period. By the time I clocked out on Thursday I'd worked 16 hours and 20 minutes. The week before I'd worked 14 hours and 51 minutes. Yep my days of 12 hour work weeks for Aspen Grove are long gone. 

Brandon often teases me when I'm like, "UUGH I worked 4 hours today!"  He's like "um hey I'm over here doing 8 hour days and 40 hour work weeks."  But he's just teasing. He knows that I'm also working a second part time job as the kids morning and afternoon chauffer. Before I even get to "work" I've already put in at least 90 minutes of work in making sure the kids get to school. Over a 5 day work week that adds up to 7.5 hours. And then add in all the other little side projects I have going on and I'm definitely working the equivalent of a full time job.

That night Brandon and I went to the Orpheum to see White Christmas. Here's our traditional terrible selfie.

I was very excited to see this show. Mostly because I've never actually seen White Christmas. The play or the movie. Everyone was like, "Oh White Christmas is so amazing." And "I just love White Christmas, don't you?"  And I was like, "Oh sure!" But really I had very little context for this show. I knew the basic idea. A hoofer and a crooner fall in love with a pair of sisters. I knew the song Sisters. And I knew the song White Christmas. But I knew NOTHING else.   So I was ready to finally see White Christmas. 

I also knew like half the cast and was so excited to see them in their roles. The show was absolutely delightful. I'll tell you about it as I show you these pictures that were ripped from the Magic Valley Rep Facebook page. They are in no real order. 

Here are my friends Ivan and Tyler as Phil Davis and Bob Wallace. Ivan has Danny Kaye's role and Tyler was in Bing Crosby's role. They both did fantastic. 

I made this meme based off of an iconic line from Christmas Vacation. 

My friends Rylie and Rachel played a set of twins in Bob and Phil's show. They were Rita and Rhoda. They were hilarious. 

Here's everyone at the end of a dance number near the beginning of the show. 

Here's Rachel and Rylie again. 

The show starts in World War II with a show that Bob and Phil are doing to cheer up the soldiers. My friend Brendan was also playing a soldier. And my friend Kelly was the general. I kept thinking about how I met Kelly for the first time around this time last year. I met him and his wife at the auditions for Cinderella.  

Here's Ivan being Ivan. 

My friends Brooke and Sara were Betty and Judy. They were so great together. 

Here's a scene on a train. 

Honestly, the show was just okay at first. But it really got off the ground when my friend Heather showed up in the role of Martha the hotel concierge.  She was delightful and brough so much energy and humor to the show. 

My dear little Peyton was also a delight to watch. She played Susan the General/hotel owner's grand daughter. This was Peyton's biggest role ever. She was on stage a lot, she had many lines, and she even had a little song. This was also her first time playing a GIRL. She's been Tiny Tim, Grover Dill from A Christmas Story, a troll in Little Women, and the page in Cinderella. She was fabulous as Susan.  

Here she is when Tyler was singing "Counting your blessings instead of Sheep." This is the song that ended up in my head the most. 

My friend Brent played Ezekiel. He was so fun. 

Here's Sara, Brook, and Heather in their trio number. Sara has been in 12 plays with Magic Valley Rep. She's had big roles in three of the plays this year alone. She was one of the leads in Much Ado About Nothing. She played the beggar women in Sweeny Todd. And now she was Judy. I asked her which is harder, being a lead in a musical or in a Shakespeare play. She says they are so different that she really can't compare them. But White Christmas was defiantly more fun. 

Here are Tyler and Ivan doing the Sister's Routine. 

And here is Brook doing a solo act at a New York Night Club. Brook was FABOULOUS in this role. I'm friends with her on Facebook, but I don't know her well. Her brother in is my ward though. I heard that she almost didn't audition for this show. She felt her body was just too big to really get a role. But she was cast as Betty and was incredible!

And here is everyone all happy and in love at the end. 

Brandon had a great time talking with everyone before the show, during intermission, and after the show. Our friends Marianne and Warren ended up in the seats in front of us so it felt like we were on a double date. At intermission Brandon went to the bathroom and then talked to all his friends at the concessions counter for a while. And then after the show we were both in the lobby giving congratulations to the actors for a long time. As we left I joked with Brandon, "you want to go to the after party don't you?"  He was like, "Yah, I'm all wired now."

But that wasn't really an option so we went home. I think Brandon was up until like 12:30. He gets so much energy from being around his theatre friends. 

Thursday had felt like Friday so it felt very unfair when we still had to get up for school and work on real Friday morning. But it was a half day so that was great. 

I got everyone dropped off at school and then went to work. This was my last "real" day of work for the year so I really wanted to get as much done as possible. I'll still work over the break, but my kids will be home so I wont be able to work as much as I have been. I was at work until a little after 1:00. Charlotte and Lydia were out of school at 12:40, but they went home with the other set of twins so I didn't have to worry about getting them. I drove over to Derrick's school and picked him up. Then I drove to Veronica's school to pick her up. She was hoping to take the bass home for the break, but the other kid beat her to it. But she was still happy to get a ride home. 

We got home and I was like, "Ummm, I didn't think we'd make it this far. I don't have anything planned."  So I took a nap. 

Derrick had a few presents from school. One of them was a wooden car. Veronica took it and painted it to look like a reindeer. She even made antlers for it out of hot glue. 

Here's an ornament that Derrick brought home. 

We also took a picture of our Die Hard Advent Calendar because we hadn't taken a picture of it yet. 

Brandon came home and I picked up the twins. Brandon started getting things ready for Christmas Under the Tree. I took this picture because I thought this was all the treats. And then he pulled out like 7 more things. 

Here are our beautiful shelves with lots of Christmas decorations. Earlier in the week Charlotte had taken Marcia on a walk and found a house that was giving away a lot of Christmas Decorations. She picked up a whole Christmas Village and a small leg lamp. 

We'd also found a tree on the curb in front of our neighbors house. The lights didn't work so Charlotte pulled them off. Brandon bought more lights and they strung them on the tree together. It was going to be the basement tree, but Charlotte wanted it up in the living room for Christmas Under the Tree. And now it's just staying there. The living room is starting to look like a forest. 

Here's the view of our snack table after Brandon was done with it. 

We started off Christmas Under the Tree with just kind of a collective sigh of "Oh we made it." I read the Nativity Story and Veronica acted it out with our wooden nativity set. 

Then the kids wanted Brandon to read "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." He was going to do a funny accent and so I decided to record a little bit of it. But then the kids got really into it. Derrick was reciting some of the lines and Veronica was acting out the role of the Grinch. So I just kept recording and recording and recording. 

There was a lot of nonsense and laughter. Here's the result in all it's unedited glory. If you have about 20 minutes you can watch all four of the videos. Or you can just skip this. 

We finished that book and then the kids wanted to do the same thing with The Polar Express. This time Lydia was the conductor, Charlotte was Hero Boy, and Veronica was Santa. 

This one went completely bonkers by the end. Derrick pulled his head into his sleeper and ran around like that. 

And let's take a moment to appreciate the way the internet has improved over the years. When I started this blog in 2008 it was sometimes a struggle to get a few pictures uploaded. And now I just uploaded SEVEN videos to Youtube in a small amount of time. I'm especially impressed by that last 8 minute video. I've always avoided recording things for over 5 minutes because uploading was often impossible - or at least really slow. This one went up with almost no trouble. 

Despite the chaos of the night, out living room was looking very dreamy. Here's a picture. 

Brandon passed out the newest ornament that his mom painted. This one is Three Turtle Doves. On Brandon's birthday Jori had been admiring the tree. She said, "I like these bird ones."  Then she nearly lost her mind when she found out that Brandon's mom hand painted like 90 percent of the ornaments on our tree. She couldn't believe the talent. 

We went downstairs and watched Poky's Christmas which is a cute little video that Brandon's brother made in High School. I set a little Marco Polo to Brandon's family saying that we watch it every year. I showed the kids smiling at the video. Later Bryan responded that he thought it was super cool we still watched that. He said his own kids haven't seen it in years. 

Then we watched Christmas Vacation.

Saturday started out with our ward Christmas Breakfast at 9:00. 

My friend Kori had organized a shadow nativity with some of the kids and teenagers. It turned out really special.

Then it was time to eat. I ended up in line with my friend Nicole. Her husband had to work so she was there by herself with her three kids - and one was a baby. When we went through the line I made sure to help her middle boy. I put food on his plate and carried it to his seat for him. She was really grateful. 

We were at the party for almost 2 hours. It was really fun to talk with friends. 

When it was over we went shopping for a gift for Marcia at PetSmart. 

And then we just hung around the house taking care of little things. Derrick had been wanted to watch a really low budget movie called Alone for Christmas. It was basically Home Alone, but with dogs. So I took one for the team and watched the movie with Derrick. It was so boring and I fell asleep for most of it. But Derrick felt supported. 

Then we watched Home Alone Three. It's not a great Home Alone Movie, but it's an okay movie and it looked like a masterpiece compared to Alone for Christmas. 

Our friend Heather is going to watch Marcia at our house when we are in Utah later next week. So Brandon took her a key. It was easiest to meet up at the theatre. He ran over there for what he thought would be a real quick trip. But it turned into a lot more. (Trips to the theatre often do.)

He ran into my friend Laura. Laura is in charge of getting things organized. She's helping with a lot of the production for Anastasia and she wanted to talk to Brandon about helping with the set. She has a spreadsheet where she is building a database of everyone who is available to help with upcoming productions. So she put Brandon on that and then also added me and the twins in various things we are willing to help with. 

She also has a spreadsheet for every upcoming production. She listed Brandon as a set builder for Anastasia, and Seussical which will be next September. 

Then Brandon talked to Crayson who is directing Anastasia. Crayson went over what he needs Brandon to do with the set. He's going to be in charge of two arches and the train. 

He came home all excited for next year. 

Jori and Tim had another company Christmas party so we watched their girls again. The kids watched Klaus and then K-Pop Demon Hunters. I spent most of the evening blogging. 

Around 8:30 Brandon and I started getting ready for the White Christmas 4th Wall event that night. I realized that Brandon needed a haircut about the time Jori and Tim showed up. So we kind of rushed everyone out the door. I was like, "Thanks for coming. We have to get ready for our thing tonight."  Then I gave Brandon a haircut. 

I got ready for the event and was finally really happy with how my hair curled. 

I was also in LOVE with my dress. I'd tried this on at DI when I'd been looking for my dress for the November 4th Wall. It fit perfectly, but I'd talked myself out of buying it. And then I regretted not buying it. 

I went back about three weeks later when Veronica needed new dress pants. I'd looked for the dress hoping that it would still be there, but I was certain it would already be gone. But it was still there!  I was so happy and bought it right away. It was only $6. I can't believe that I ever talked myself out of buying this dress. 

Brandon was also sporting and awesome look. He'd redone his top hat to be Christmas themed. He looked so good. 

I always love the 4th Wall event. But this one was super special because it was Christmas themed. Everyone was so festive looking. 

I love this event. 

Brandon and I split a burger and fries and fried pickles. Everything was so good. 

Here we are together. 

We sat with Chris and Karin. That was such a treat. I adore them. We also mingled a lot. At one point I told Karin, "I'm just accepted the fact that I'm never leaving this party. Brandon is going to stay as long as he can."

As it was we were there until 11:59. It had been such a fun night. I love our theatre family so much.  

Oh and I might have ended up with ANOTHER side project. Our friend Brian is going to run for Congress. I missed the first part of the conversation so I heard he was running for something, but didn't know what. And without really thinking I was like, "Oh do you need a treasurer for your campaign?"  I don't know if this is a thing in all states, but in Idaho every campaign needs a treasurer. A lot of the political adds even list the treasurer's name in small print. So I knew he would need a treasurer and well I can do that. He was like, "let's talk after the holidays."  It was only later that I put all the pieces together and realized he's running for like the national congress and not just something local. 

He'd mentioned that he needed help getting word about his campaign out to the rest of the state and it dawned on me that I actually can help with that in a small way. I'm Facebook friends with Wendy Norman who ran against Mike Simpson a few years ago. And I know Steve Brown who is a political consultant in Pocatello. So I sent Brian a Facebook message telling him that I was serious about helping with his campaign and offering to connect him with the few people I know. 

So we will see what happens with that. 

Yes I'm fully aware that I am the cause of most of my stress. But helping with a political campaign was already kind of on my bingo card for 2026 - I just didn't know what candidate to help yet. And now I know. 

Anyway, that gets us caught up to today. My next post will be all about Christmas. 

Thanks for reading!