December Happenings

 I better get this posted before January is over.  We did our best to make December fun, even though we were missing all of the family events.  Kate had her first high school choir concert.  She also accompanied for the first time.  That brought back a lot of memories!  She did a great job!  Sage had a mini dance performance.  She's getting to be a good little dancer.  Zack got his first job not for Jake.  He works at the Soldier Hollow tubing hill.  It's been good for him to see what other jobs are like, I think.  And it was definitely good for him to have something to keep him busy over the break.  Although, since school started he's still been working a lot.  Like 30 hours/week on top of school!  Too much I think, but he won't do anything about it.  The kids wanted to decorate sugar cookies because they complained that they mistakenly didn't like it years ago and now they never get to make sugar cookies.  I told them they were welcome to do it, but I wasn't helping.  Jake was super nice and jumped in to help.  And guess what happened?  Yep, they decorated a couple of cookies and were ready to be done.  Shocking.  Hopefully this means we never have to make sugar cookies again.  New Years was fine.  We're not good at New Years here, especially during Covid.  Too many introverts in this house.  The girls invited a couple of friends over and they had good fun staying up until midnight.  Jake went to bed at 10:00.  I managed to stay awake and get everyone home.  Oh yeah, I got my first Covid vaccine.  I get my second one this week.  So far I haven't gotten cancer or turned into a zombie, so things are looking good.

We keep working on the trailer.  Well, mostly Jake does.  It looks a lot different than this now.

Kate accompanying the choir

We rode horses at cousin Season's

Zack is bigger than the horse

The beginning of sugar cookies

We did our annual food drive as a drive by food drive this year.  Not nearly as successful, but still good

Sage's dance performance

Zack is always so detailed 

I made them finish all the cookies

Proof that Jake wore Christmas antlers for a brief moment

We did make it out to dinner.  One Christmas tradition we accomplished

One of Jake's subs gave him this minky blanket.  It's so big and fluffy it's now my favorite blanket of all time.

A beautiful pic of Midway with the Christmas star.  No I didn't take it.

I let the kids pick a Christmas treat to make.  This was Sage's.  She's currently obsessed with all things Oreo

I've been taking care of a lot of Covid patients at work.  This is what my face looks like after a few hours wearing a mask.

New Years

Christmas 2020

 Christmas was good.  I enjoyed all the family time, but I also missed the extended family time.  So I'll try to be positive about this year, but honestly it felt long.  A lot of other people were able to get together with family because they'd had Covid.  Or didn't care about Covid.  Unfortunately, none of our family has had Covid and Jake really can't afford to get Covid since we essentially have no employees.  So yes, I enjoyed Christmas with my family.  But we've been spending a lot of time with just our family and I'm getting tired.  That's all.  

I spent Christmas Eve in the kitchen.  I didn't think I was making anything too fancy, but it still took time.  Obviously I was off my game as far as planning ahead.  Kate also decided to make a cheesecake at that exact time (I tried to get her to make it the day before), so there were definitely too many people in the kitchen.  Sage was in charge of Christmas Eve.  We put her in charge of all events.  Some day I'm sure she'll hire herself out as an event planner.  We did talents, pinned the star on the Christmas tree, talked about the real meaning of Christmas, and watched a Christmas movie.  It was a most excellent night.

Christmas day was good.  Sage didn't wake everyone up until 7:30, so we're slowly making progress.  We opened presents and then had yummy breakfast and headed to ski.  The rest of the day was spent being lazy and enjoying new presents.  

Sage's decorations

Kate learned a song on the ukelele

Zack, being the compliant teenager that he is, played jingle bells on the piano with one hand.  There was no practicing involved

Sage choreographed a dance

Jake, as always, has extreme amounts of talent.  He made holders for skis so you can wax them.  Then gave us all a lesson in waxing

We had a basketball tournament

Pin the star on the Christmas tree.  Sage gets us to do all kinds of fun things.

Kate finally had success with her cheesecake.  Which hopefully means she won't be making any for a while.

I forgot to take a picture Christmas Eve, so the kids were thrilled to have me take one first thing in the morning.

Present opening aftermath

The kids were living the dream when they got the nintendo hooked up in the theater