January's snow, basketball and a new deacon

In January, our family and the Church got a new deacon! James turns 12 this year and so he joined the Young Men program and was ordained on Sunday, January 12.

He now passes the sacrament every Sunday and is getting better and better at it. JB took him to the temple for baptisms.

During the school winter break, Ben took James to see "Sonic the Hedgehog 3" as his Christmas gift.

Ben played lots of basketball. JB and I always tried to catch the tipoffs on camera, where Ben almost always got the ball.

Our favorite spots to sit were right behind the bench. Though often JB was at the scorers' table for JV games.

Millie also came to many games.

One game was at East High School, and we were so happy to have cousins and Nona and Papa come.

 We also had to search for the sites from the High School Musical movies that were filmed there.

During the month, Andrew helped James make a T-rex jaw for his science fair.

We were asked to sing in sacrament meeting and two people sent us these photos.

James did a Junior Jazz season.

I was invited onto Studio 5 to talk about movies and shows to watch now that Hallmark Christmas movies were over.

Random breakfast picture. Ben would love to have the newspaper come every morning. It comes Wednesdays and Fridays in the afternoon mail.

It snowed a bunch!

We took Millie with us to a wedding reception in Lindon on a Wednesday night when the boys had Young Men activities.

JB and Ben now have matching black vests.

Millie made a First Vision scene in a shoebox from an activity in the Friend magazine.

JB took the boys to a Utah Hockey Club game.

And here is one of the photos of our missionary! Gosh we miss him! 

Busy holiday season!

This post is going to go all the way back to Thanksgiving, hence the title "holiday season." 

New Year's Day

We went to watch cousin Emily as she got her mission call! Nevada Las Vegas West Mission, Spanish-speaking.

New Year's Eve

Celebrating with our friends the Peters!

School winter break

Ben had a basketball tournament Friday, Saturday and Tuesday after Christmas and before New Year's. JB works at the scorer's table and here is Ben waiting to check back in.

I'm 5'6 and he's almost 6'5

These were our seats near the scorer's table and bench. Both JV and Varsity won all their games, and Ben played a little in Varsity as well.

On Thursday after Christmas we went to see "Mufasa" in the theater. I'm to the other side of Millie, it was hard to get everyone in the shot. (The movie was so-so).

On Saturday, Dec.28, we went to eat at Millie's burgers.

I had the Chicken Fried Stake Burger and was so happy that JB teased me and took my picture,

On Monday, Dec. 30, we met with the Deardeuff cousins in Utah for some dinner and play. My brother Joe's family got rear-ended on the way, so we were bummed! We saw Susan and the kids but he had to deal with the truck. We are glad everyone was fine.

We all especially loved holding this cutie cousin Sarah.

Christmas

We got to talk to Max for a while!

Here he is with a picture of our family we sent to his mission president. Because the mail system is so weird, the mission office had families email a letter and a video and a picture and it was part of a special mission conference. 

Here are the kids with some of the things they got for each other.

Andrew's new Chiefs jersey.

A hug between James and Ben.

Concerts and performances

Millie and the 3rd graders sang on Friday, Dec. 30. She has loved this dress since I found it -- it has a sparkly top, but the material of the rest is like sweatpants/sweatshirt material.

At our stake sing-in on Sunday, Dec.15, Millie read from Luke 2.

Her tap dance performance was on Saturday, Dec. 14.

Andrew's middle school orchestra concert was on Thursday, Dec.12 in the evening.

James's 6th grade orchestra concert was Tuesday, Dec. 10 during school.

Millie's dance studio put on a performance of the Nutcracker. This is my blurry photo of me and Millie going to see it on Dec. 7.

Traditions

Each year, we love to drive to Christmas Street and see the decorations, then drive through a neighborhood where scriptures from Luke 2 are lit on big signs on each lawn. We also have gone twice now to another street that has these huge oak trees all lined with lights. It is spectacular.

We put up the tree on Dec. 1. 

If a ward in our stake does this again, we will make it a tradition -- a live nativity outside with animals.

Christmas Eve we spent at the Richards' house, with the traditional pizza and matching PJs with cousins. We used to go to the bells concert at a nearby chapel but that didn't seem to be happening this year. It's crazy that 20 years ago on Christmas Eve at the Richards house after pizza and bells, I told everyone I was pregnant with Max.

Thanksgiving

JB's sister Sarah invited us to their property in St. George for Thanksgiving and we had such a great time.

The kids remembered the pool from our summer trip, but it was cold, so they spent a lot of time in the hot tub -- but still did some polar plunges!

Sarah knows all the great parks, like this one where you can time yourself running different courses. (This is Uncle Joe's phone's camera below. My camera takes dark photos like the one in the hot tub above, haha)

We went to the Western Sky Aviation Warbird Museum and I really loved it. Our guide was a 70-something retired pilot and that's the kind of guy you want talking your ear off about planes. 

We played games together and did puzzles.

The feast itself was delicious, thank you to Sarah for all her hard work.