December 2019

Brooklyn had her preschool program and I was a little nervous to see how it would go this year.  Last year was a lot of tough adjustments for her and she had just started at this preschool a month or so before the program and would not move or sing the entire time. This year she was a champ and did all the actions and sang as much as she could. It was so fun to see the difference and I was proud of her for coming a long way from last year!

We tried out a new mattress topper from Costco (which ended up not working out- darn my 80 year old back!) and it provided lots of entertainment for the kids.  We would roll them up tight and then give them a push and it would unroll really fast with plenty of giggles.  We did this over and over again and Richard and I even gave it a try!

We took our annual trip to see the holiday train in the downtown library and then to see the lights at Columbus Commons.  I was super sad we didn't get to see the amazing lights at the Conservatory this year so this was at least a small consolation. We always have a lot of fun running around the fields and seeing the beautiful lights.

Kaylee got really into mismatch day at school this year and made sure every single thing was mismatched from her hair and earrings down to her socks and shoes! 

Brooklyn had a special Polar Express day at preschool where they watch a clip of the movie, go on a "train" to different stations around the school which all have fun activities, and then get her very own bell to ring. She couldn't stop talking about how much fun it was!

Richard and I were invited to a White Elephant party with a bunch of couples from the ward. We ended up with a pair of socks that had one of the couple's faces on them (making weird faces and having unibrows) and a super creepy sequin flipping pillow with Nic Cage's face on it. We very quickly "accidentally" left it at another friend's house and haven't seen it since :)

We also did our traditional gingerbread house kit that I sometimes wonder why we still do it...Brooklyn and McKenna's houses kept falling apart and they got pretty frustrated but since they are the only ones who eat them afterward, the frustration didn't last too long. 

The Sunday before Christmas, we had another potluck with friends from our old ward. After dinner, they wanted to go caroling with the sister missionaries and Richard asked if he could wear the new costume our friends got at the White Elephant party.  He had a little too much fun with it and was acting out his kidnapping all night.  Not to be outdone, our friend also dug out his own Halloween costume so we had an alien kidnapping Santa and a guitar-playing T-Rex caroling with us all night. I'm sure we were a very confusing sight!

The girls begged to do another Christmas Adam sleepover and I was so happy when they let me read a whole stack of Christmas books to them before we turned out the lights. There is something about reading Christmas books under the Christmas tree lights that always brings back good holiday memories for me and I hope it will be the same for my girls.  It made me laugh when I came down to check on them later: Brooklyn rolled over and her hand slapped right onto McKenna's face. It obviously didn't bother Kenna because she continued to sleep right through it!

Christmas Eve we invited the Biggerstaff's over. We planned a ton of fun games and didn't even get to play them all! One of the highlights was a game where we blew up a bunch of green balloons and McKenna drew the Grinch's face on all of them.  She did a fantastic job!  They all looked so great. We hung them up all around the playroom and took turns shooting at them to see who could hit them all the fastest. We also did a Hershey Kiss memory game, jingle bell toss, candy cane scavenger hunt, candy cane hook (you have a bowl full of candy canes and you put one in your mouth and use that to grab as many candy canes as you can out of the bowl in 30 seconds), Guess Who (we each had a Christmass-y person on our back and we had to ask yes/no questions to figure out who it is), and lots of fun paper games I had printed out like Christmas Scattegories, Mad Libs, Jeopardy and Taboo. We also frosted sugar cookies, acted out the Nativity and had a simple dinner. It was a busy day and the hours flew by! We were sad when they had to go. As I was cleaning up the kitchen, Kaylee spotted some powdered sugar on the counter and licked it off but didn't realize she also got some spilled food coloring with it. It was all over her hands, lips, teeth and tongue and it looked hilarious. Such a scary Christmas monster!

Christmas morning is never as good as the night before but the girls handled themselves this year so well! We had a few little tiffs but nothing more than a usual day so it made the day really great. The weather keeps trying to confuse us and it was 60 degrees and sunny and beautiful so we even went to the park and played! Kaylee was wearing her new high-heeled boots with scrunchies covering both arms and she just looked SO grown up to me all of the sudden. I had to take a picture to remember the exact moment I realized she is almost a teen and growing up way too fast! Unfortunately, McKenna caught her rollerblade on a stick and took a tumble that scraped her knees and so she spent some time sitting on the bench watching us have fun. Luckily it was such a gorgeous day that it wasn't too horrible for her.

The next few days stayed just as gorgeous.  So much in fact that the girls had a picnic lunch outside!  Whatever the reason I was so grateful for it and I was trying to soak up as much sun as I could. The girls and I have started a fun new tradition because they got so fast on their bikes that Richard and I couldn't keep up just by walking.  So whenever I want to go on a run, I ask the girls who wants to come and they will either rollerblade beside me or ride their bike.  It's so fun to have company on my runs and I love doing something active together.

A new Little Women movie came out and Kaylee loved the abridged version I read aloud to her so I took her on a little date to go see it.  Unfortunately, the movie was a little confusing and I don't think she loved it but it was nice to spend some time with her anyway.

We've been wanting to do a game night with the McKay's so we had them over the night before NYE. They brought a bunch of games that we hadn't played before and the adults played in the kitchen and the kids played in the living room. It was a super fun game night and the kids especially had fun when they busted out Curses and taught the McKay's how to play. They were all doubled over laughing at the silly things they had to do. I loved watching how crazy and silly they were all being.

The girls wanted to take care of all the activities for New Years Eve this year. They came up with all kinds of games and put them all in balloons so we could pop them and find out what our next activity would be. I was in charge of doing a mixed up menu for dinner and the girls loved it so much they want every meal to be like that now. We did 3 courses; Brooklyn and McKenna somehow ended up with a treat every course but Kaylee didn't' get quite as good of a deal. She got just carrots and a piece of candy with a giant spoon to start and then the last course she had to try to eat mashed potatoes and gravy with just a toothpick. We took pity on her and let her grab whatever food and utensil she wanted after our 3 courses were done. It was hilarious watching them try to eat with things like giant serving spoons, teaspoons, toothpicks and chopsticks. Then we did their games and I was very impressed with their creativity. Even Brooklyn created her own game where she taped a piece of a streamer in a corner and we had to stand inside it and jump out without hitting the streamer.  Goodbye 2019!

McKenna's Baptism Weekend

December started off amazing with Mom, Dad, Holly and her kids, and Sharon all coming out for McKenna's baptism.  Everyone but Sharon got in on Thursday evening and we just hung out at our house. 

Friday morning the kids played and then we got ready to go check out a new entertainment center called Scene 75. Because it was a school day, hardly anyone was there and so it was really fun to just jump on to anything we wanted to do. One of the games we wanted to play was a laser maze but it wasn't working so we asked a worker to come fix it. He was so nice and chatted with us while he rebooted the game and then gave us a few free rounds, plus $10 to spend on arcade games. We saw him later and he let all of the kids add free points onto their cards to go towards prizes.  He also let them all play a claw game for free and if they didn't actually get anything with the claw, he would throw something into the hole where you grab your prize. We decided to take a break for lunch and walked out to go to the mall food court when we saw him running towards us with his arms full of candy. He had gotten into one of the candy machines, grabbed a big armful, and was chasing up down to give all the kids free candy.  He was so sweet and made the kid's day! Scene 75 ended up being really fun too, even for the adults.  Besides arcade games, they have a laser maze, mini golf, go-karts, laser tag, bumper cars, and my very favorite was a game where you would go in a room that is lined with buttons on the wall.  There are two people playing and you each have half of the room. Random buttons will light up and you have to hit it as fast as you can and try to get more than the other person.  We all played it multiple times and it was a blast! And of course I was the ultimate champion :) Richard left halfway through to pick up Sharon at the airport and they came back to join us at Scene 75 because we were still having so much fun.  As we were getting ready to go, Kaylee still had money on her card so everyone else stayed by the prizes while a few of us went with Kaylee to find what she wanted to do. Apparently while they were waiting, someone handed them a card that still had $60 loaded onto it!  So we did another few rounds of the light game, a few more arcade games, and then everyone got to do the Go-Karts!  Then we went to the prize room and the kids all got to pick some good stuff.  It was seriously the most fun day ever but we have decided we can't ever take our kids back there because it will never live up to that magical first time! 

The next day we went to a holiday event at the library. They had hot chocolate, donuts, and muffins and had different musical performances.  They also had a snowflake scavenger hunt, photo booth, multiple crafts, and later they were going to have face painting, balloon animals and Santa but we had to leave before that all got there.  We have been to this a few times now and the kids always love it. 

We hurried back to the house to decorate and get ready for the baptism. We had a lot of people come support McKenna and it was such a great event. McKenna was beaming the whole day!  She was really nervous about going underwater but as soon as she walked up the stairs towards me she said, "I loved that! Can I do it again?". We invited some friends over for cake at our house afterward and had a great time chatting with everyone.  And as a bonus, we got a phone call telling us that Madeline had won a $25 gift card in a drawing she entered at the library!  Something about that weekend was very lucky for everyone!

On Sunday everyone came to church with us and we had a big meal for lunch. Then we took my family to the airport and got to spend one more night with Sharon before she left early the next morning. It was very depressing after everyone left but we were so glad they were able to come and be with us for such a special day.