December 2020

New Christmas Jammies!

When Graham was around 2 years old, he and his cousins Lucy and Jake all wore these cute "bear cheeks" pajamas.  Now they all fit Harper, Jack and Jo so we decided to have them wear them for their Christmas jammies and have all the kids match.  My boys are obsessed with the one piece pajamas so that's what I got them and they LOVE them!  I tried getting the boys matching ones, but the ones I ordered super early, never came.  So then I was just trying to get whatever I could find.

Once again, our elf Buddy found the pajamas and hung them on the tree before I got the chance to give them to the kids myself.  

Harper was super excited about her slippers.

Decorating for Christmas

Graham always gets excited to help decorate for Christmas (although it doesn't last too long), Paxton doesn't really care for it but he will help if told to and Harper LOVED it!  Of course she wasn't always helpful, but it was fun to see her reactions with a the things.  This tree is the kids tree so Graham and Harper decorated it.  She was so excited to put on each ornament once she figured it out and then once the all were on, she started to take them off.  Silly girl.

Virtual Piano Recital

I was bummed that Paxton's Christmas piano recital was pre-recorded and played over a zoom meeting.  And yes he was wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt instead of dressed up.  His piano teachers text never came through to my phone so I had no idea what was going on.  Later that day she text me the video's and asked me if I wanted him to wear something nicer and re-record the songs.  I left it up to Paxton and I already knew his answer would be no because he hates piano and he hates dressing up.  He did really well on his songs and it's fun to see his progression over the last year.

Service Project

We decorated boxes for the Utah Food Bank so when they give people food in a box it's more than just a plain box.  We hope these will bring some smiles to them.  The kids had fun helping with this project.  Even Paxton seemed to enjoy it once we forced him to get started.  He hates drawing and writing.

My sweet Grandma

My mom's mom passed away on Sunday, December 6 at 6:00 pm.  She was such a sweet lady and such a fighter.  She was 91 years old, was without her husband for 19 years, lived in a care center for 7 years, had 2 hip replacements and many other things she recovered from, one of those being Covid.  

Sometime at the beginning of October we got the news that they were putting my grandma on hospice.  She was in stage 4 kidney failure and near the end of her life and they were giving her 4-6 months to live.  While this was sad news, she was 91 years old and had lived a good life.  We now could go in and visit her one at a time to bed with her in hopes that she didn't die alone.  

It seemed to only be a week or two later when we got the news that she along with 17 other residents and 12 workers had Covid.  This news upset us because we were sure that this would not only end her life sooner, but now she would die alone.  To our surprise she possibly had mild symptoms from it and she recovered from Covid and got a negative test!  Once all the residents and workers were cleared (they had 3 deaths) we were able to start visiting her again.  She had some really good days and then she had some bad days.  December 4 was the last day that she was coherent.  The hospice nurse gave her 24-48 hours to live.  My mom gave me this new on Saturday evening so I planned to go visit on Sunday afternoon.

On Sunday my sister Jamie went to go visit my grandma with my mom.  They now allowed 2 people at a time.  Once she was done with her visit then I headed over.  Jamie had stayed longer than expected so I was leaving just before dinner time and was thinking maybe I should wait until after dinner, but I ignored those thoughts and just went anyways.  I got there around 4:15 and soon another nurse came in to check her vitals.  At this point the nurse gave her maybe a couple hours to live.  My mom just wasn't believing it because of the previous news, so she told the nurse that she would plan to stay the night with her, but the nurse told us that she didn't think she would make it through the night.  During the next hour or so my cousin Don came to visit, said some sweet things to her, my mom and I talked and I tried to keep her focused on stories of grandma.  Then I soon noticed that her breathing was slowing down (we could hear her breathing almost like a snoring sound, she was sleeping).  We then went and sat on either side of her bed and held her hands.  The hardest part of watching my grandma pass away was watching my mom lose her mom.  I was really glad that I was there for her and that she wasn't alone and I know she was glad too.  My grandma passes peacefully and there definitely was a spirit or spirits in the room.  We watched her take her last breath and then we felt for a pulse and she was gone.  My mom then said to me, "Do you feel the angels?"  Yes mom, I do.  I'm not sure that I would've recognized it in that moment had she not said anything.  I was happy to have shared this experience with my mom.  She is so strong and did so much for her mother and showed her unconditional love.  She is such a great example to me.  

I love my grandma and I will miss her sweet smile, her funny faces she always pulled and her tender heart.  But I am so excited for her to be reunited with my grandpa and know that she is in a better place and that I will be able to see her again someday.  She collected owls for as long as I have known her and had many in her home.  I now own one of her small wooden owls that I keep in my home to remind me of her.

This picture was taken 5 minutes before she passed.

We had a wonderful funeral service for her where I got to see all my cousins.  It was small, but it was perfect.  It was great to hear about her life and all the things we all loved about her.  As her grave was being dedicated on a cloud covered and snowy day, my grandma opened up the skies for the sun to shine through.  It was as though she was letting us know that she loved us and was there with us.  It was a special moment that many of us felt.

Gingerbread House Party

We almost cancelled our annual gingerbread house party due to Covid.  We talked about only inviting a few couples rather than our usual of 8+ couples, but we were ho hum about it.  December was dwindling away when we decide we had to do it, we couldn't skip a year.  So we quickly invited family and our neighborhood friends to join us virtually.  We were so glad we did because we had so much fun and I think there were things we liked better about doing it this way that we may have to adapt to for years to come. 

We did our voting on social media which was fun to get way more votes than just the few neighbors that come over to judge.   The only down side to this is that sometimes pictures just don't do it justice.  It was fun to see what everyone created and then we did a Zoom meeting to talk about who won and played a game for everyone to guess who made what.  Ali Hill took first place with Bora Bora, the Goodmans came in second with the Up house and the Latimers came in third with the Christmas Barn.  We had a lot of super awesome ones this year that made it hard for people to vote.

We ended up not doing gingerbread houses with the kids this year.  I wanted to let them help with ours and do it as a family, but ours was a little difficult this year and had a lot of  fragile trees that easily could be broken.  They seemed fine that we never did it.  Graham asked every once in a while, but wasn't sad about it when it didn't happen.

Little Red Riding Hood

Christmas in Color

Our friends invited us to go drive through the Christmas in Color lights with them.  We took Zoey in our car and Paxton went with Kai and his family.  We first picked up hot chocolate and then drove through the lights.  We took Harper out of her car seat which she thought was the best thing ever and was super hyper as we were waiting for our turn to drive through.  But as we got driving she mostly was cuddly with me.  I think I enjoy seeing the joy on the kids faces more than seeing the lights.  It was a great time.

Luminaria at Thanksgiving Point

My parents took my whole family to Luminara.  We had never been before and it was amazing!  We dressed super warm and walked around outside for over an hour which I thought I might hate doing on a cold evening, but I loved it and didn't even notice the cold.

Santa Visit

Santa came and visited our home on the 23rd.  Harper still did not like him!  She clung to me and any time he got near her (even when giving her a candy cane) she would cry.  As soon as he left, Graham said "that sounded just like Grandpa".  Rems reply was, " I think Santa uses magic to make his voice sound like someone that we know and love."  Graham still continued saying that it was Grandpa.  Paxton didn't really say either way.

Moss side Christmas Party

We felt very lucky to be able to get together with my family for Christmas Eve this year.  My sister and Dad both tested for Covid right before, but both came back negative.  So we did have a few of us that still had some sick symptoms and Harper had gotten a fever and runny nose the night before, but I was thinking hers was maybe from teething because she had her hands in her mouth a lot.  So we all still wore masks (except for dinner and pictures).

We started off by watching some videos we all made of the kids singing and answering a few questions.  Jamie and Dan's video was the best because it revealed that they are having a GIRL!  I'm so excited for them!  And I'm excited for Harper to have another girl cousin.  Then we did a little program of singing The Nativity song and reading a story.  Afterwards we had a delicious dinner of prime rib and lots of delicious sides.  And last but not least, we opened presents.  Grandma and Grandpa once again spoiled us all!  Paxton's favorite thing was his Leonard jersery, Graham's was his fingerlings and Harpers was her Frozen play set.  Which ended up being a few of the kids favorite toy and sometimes made her mad that others were touching it.  We had a great time being with family and feel so grateful how blessed we really are!

Harper was playing peek-a-boo through the hole on the toy with baby Hailee, it was so adorable.

Christmas Morning

Graham slept down in Paxton's room in a fort they made on Christmas Eve.  We asked the boys to stay in the basement until we woke up.  We promised we wouldn't sleep in super long, but didn't want to be up super early either.  Harper was still sleeping when we decided we better get started by 8:30 since we had company coming for breakfast at 10:00.  Harper woke up soon after we got started.  It was so fun watching the kids open their presents and get so excited!  It was such a good Christmas and everyone seemed happy with what they got.  I even surprised Rem because we had said that we weren't really getting each other anything because we are putting a front porch on our house right now.  But I got him tickets to see Le Miserable at the Hale theater.  He was so surprised and excited!  I just enjoy watching my family being happy that I didn't even care to open my stocking (mostly because I already knew what was in it) until later that day when I was doing some clean up.

Paxton's favorite gift was either his double shot basketball hoop game or his new bed.  We finally let him have our old king size bed that has been sitting in our guest room.  He was due for a new mattress so instead of buying a new one we upgraded him to a big bed and got him some new zipper bedding to go with it so he can easily make his bed (which he hates doing).  Graham's favorite gift was probably his new video game Animal Crossing and his Alexa dot for his room that he has been asking for for a while.  Harper's favorite gift was her kitty cat that meows and moves.  It was so cute to watch her open it and hug it and laugh when it moved and meow just like it meowed, it was the most adorable thing ever.  I think that was my favorite moment.  She also loves her new kitchen which we put in our kitchen and it's super fun watching her play kitchen while I'm working in the kitchen.

We had no where to go the rest of the day which is just how I like it.  We just played with new toys, relaxed and that evening we watched The Grinch.  It was a perfect day!

My parents and my grandma came over for breakfast.

Paxton's new huge bed!  He loves it!

Harper loves her new tea set from grandma.  She likes to bring me a cup and pour me and herself some tea.  It's super cute!

We had a play date with cousin Jo and Erika.  The girls got along for the most part and it was so cute watching them play together.

Christmas in Color one more time

After Christmas, Rems brother invited the kids to drive through the lights in the back of his cute red truck which is a way better way to see the lights.  The boys had a good time with their cousins!

New Years Eve

November 2020

Wheeler Farm

I let the kids each invite a friend and took them to Wheeler Farm.  We had fun walking around, exploring, climbing trees, and getting wet in the creek.  It was fun following Harper around, I just let her walk and didn't bring in a stroller.  She had fun exploring and looking at all the animals.

New front porch

Back in May we decided to put a front porch on the house.  We have been talking about it for a while and searching for ideas and finally decided to get it done.  We contacted a contractor in June and they moved so slow and finally started in November.  They wanted to start in October, but we told them no because of our big Halloween display.  We are loving it already and are super excited for it to get finished and can't wait until Spring when we can start using it!

Chocolate Pudding

One night after dinner we decided to make some pudding.  Harper was loving it!  We were all laughing at her messy face which she just thought was the best thing.  So she got even messier and this was the end result.  

Quarantine/Home School
Well here we are again, but only for a few weeks, which still seemed forever long.  On November 9th we found out that Paxton's best friend (next door neighbor) had Covid, which meant we had been exposed because he's at our house all the time.  It was a Monday so the kids were at school so after I got off the phone with his friend Kai's mom, I called the school.  They had me come pick up the boys right away and the quarantine began.  By the end of the week we decided to get tested for Covid because we all seemed fine.  Rem had a few symptoms, but nothing major.  All of our results came back negative except for Paxton, he tested POSITIVE.  So weird, he never got sick or had any symptoms at all.  I regretted testing at all because this made our quarantine last 3 weeks long instead of the required 2 weeks.  It was a rough few weeks of home schooling and I hope we never have to do it again.

Paxton returned to school for one day on the 24th and then it was Thanksgiving break.  Graham couldn't got back until December 1st.

Thanksgiving

With all of us (except Paxton) still being in quarantine we had Thanksgiving by ourselves.  We were going to join our next door neighbors because their quarantine was over and we only had a few days left so they invited us over.  My neighbor, Annie loves to cook and had already bought all the food so I didn't have much to contribute.  The day before Thanksgiving her oldest daughter woke up with a sore throat and a fever so we decided we better not chance it. So now we were on our own and I wasn't sure what I was going to do about Thanksgiving dinner since all I was planning on was an appetizer, jello and a pie.  Luckily my friend Annie insisted that she bring us dinner because she was making it anyways and had tons of food.  I was so grateful!  It was fun that day taking each other food back and forth.

We missed my family, but we had a nice and quiet Thanksgiving that day.  And the food was SO good!

October 2020

Halloween time!  

We started putting Halloween up in September when we got home from the Ranch.  There's always lots to do with our huge yard display.  We have so many ideas for new projects to add to the yard.  For several years when Rem first started the Halloween display I was starting to dislike the month of October which is sad because it's my birthday month and I usually love it.  But with him always in the garage building something, spending money on something, only could talk about Halloween projects, I was starting to dislike it.  Finally this year I started getting more into with him and started having fun with it and liking it more.  One of my favorite things is that we started taking walks with our neighbor friends almost every single night.  We would walk around the block and enjoy looking at some of the other Halloween houses and then stand out in front of our houses and talk for a while and just hang out.  They started getting into Halloween this year too and did a yard display.  I really enjoyed our October evenings.

Harper loved watching the singing pumpkins.

One of the fun Halloween houses in our neighborhood.

Farm at Gardner Village

We went to the farm and Gardner Village with my mom and sisters and our little ones that weren't in school.  They loved seeing and feeding the animals.  Poor Harper got bit by one of the bunnies.

Then we went to lunch and explored around the shops and all the witches.  I love spending time with my mom and sisters.

Goodmans Halloween Party

Our good friends in the neighborhood always throw a fun Halloween Party.  They did it outside this year because of Covid.  Rem and I won BEST COUPLE COSTUME.  

Carving Pumpkins and Outdoor Movie Night

Our friends, the Suprises wanted to carve pumpkins together so we made a whole thing out of it.  We first went over to Gardner Village and picked out some pumpkins and then back to our house to carve them.  They picked up some pizza and we turned on a movie.  It was super fun and such a nice evening to be out all night.  We will have to make this one a tradition.

Silly kids

Our kids really love Halloween too!  This was on the 11th of October and they all went and put on costumes and went trick-or-treating back and forth to each other's houses.

Harper and her friend Julian playing.  Harper is 10 months older than Julian believe it or not.

Black and Orange Halloween Day

Another Halloween party!  We started this tradition last year where the kids invite some friends over all day long and we do a craft, games, lunch and/or dinner (with black and orange foods), treats, movie or whatever we want that goes along with Halloween.  We did it all outside this year in the driveway including the movie.  Even Rem and Bobby were doing their Halloween crafting and building some projects together.

Flag Football

Another season of flag football.  We signed up a little late because Paxton had told me he didn't want to play, but then later changed his mind.  So we didn't make it on the same team as other kids from his school.  We weren't too worried about it though because Paxton makes new friends pretty easily.  This season wasn't as great of an experience though because his coach would hardly play him.  I do admit that this is not Paxton's sport, he seems to get confused in the game so he's not the best player on the team.  We finally had to speak up to the coach about playing Paxton more because he was so bored and disappointed not being able to play.  Finally the last few games he got played more and was able to show his coach that he wasn't that bad of a player.   If we ever get him as a coach again, I think we will request to switch.  At this age and on a rec team you should play the kids equally, they are there to learn.  Paxton (and this other kid that hardly got played) will never learn if they are never played.  This coach didn't seem to understand that.

Pumpkins with the Adventure Boys

For my church calling I get to do Activity Days with the boys now that they have ended scouts.  We took quite a long break with Covid and then summer.  We finally got started back up and took them to Wheeler Farm earlier in the month and then we did pumpkin painting at the park.  They seemed to have fun but rushed through it so they could go play ball for the remaining time.

First Snow

This was the first snow of the season and Harper and Graham just had to be out in it!

Sorenson Halloween Party

We love doing a Halloween party with the family.  We have them over for soup, hanging out and seeing our fun Halloween yard.  I love seeing everyone dressed up in costume.

Cute cousins Harper, Jack and Jo hanging out.

Neighborhood Trunk or Treat Covid Style

Instead of Trunk or Treat this year they had all the neighborhood kids stand outside their homes and they came around in cars and passed out a bag of candy.  We hurry and threw on whatever costumes were most accessible and lined up at our neighbors house.

Halloween at School

We were bummed this year that the kids weren't allowed to wear their Halloween costumes to school.  But we tried to make it fun and they could wear Halloween colors and I made them each a mask to wear.

Happy Halloween

We had a lot of fun with our family Halloween costume this year.  We loved the new Onward movie by Disney and got everyone to agree on it.  It fit perfectly for us with Graham being Ian Lightfoot, the skinny brother and Paxton being the bigger and older brother.  Then Rem and I as the mom and dad (the pants) and Harper needed to be a little bit girly so we chose for her to be the biker fairy.  I went to about 3-4 thrift stores and found most of our items for cheap which made me excited and I had fun piecing it all together.  The only things I really had to buy were my blue wig, blue face paint and Paxton's blue body suit.  The rest of it was at thrift store or found items around the house.  I think it turned out really well and we got lots of compliments on it.

We love inviting my family over on Halloween night to come over for soup and trick-or-treating.  Not everyone comes every year because they like being in their own neighborhoods, but they call came this year!  It was so much fun and we had so many trick-or-treaters.  It was fun to see how some of the neighbors got creative in how they passed out candy by dropping it down a big tub from their upstairs window or catapulting it across the front yard.  When we got back it was fun to hang out in the yard and Paxton and Kai were creeping around in the fog and popping out to scare people.  We had people driving by the house probably until 11pm or so.