John and Kylee

December started with me still being sick. That one was a doozy. The start of the advent calendar and first day of December party was fun though. The girls were so cute in their new jammies (they seemed more classy jammies according to Ellie). John got a little choked up reading the Christmas book More Than Just a Star.

Christmas preparations were a little scattered this year. We knew that we wanted to get Miriam a bike. We weren't sure what we wanted Eliza other than a new mattress. Actually the number one thing they asked for was new lighting for their room. We tried to get an electrician to do it, but they wouldn't respond so John decided that he could just do it. It made it a lot cheaper.

Darcy and Holland were a little harder. We had a few smaller things in mind for them, especially some cool things from Jolene's garage that I took home. We deliberated quite a bit about different options but ended up landing on a secret passage between Holland's and Darcy's rooms. Spoiler, they loved it, so we were happy with that choice.

We bought Miriam's bike at the beginning of December, but I made a pretty bad mistake and text on our family group chat that I had bought the bike instead of the one with just John. I couldn't believe it. I don't think I fooled anyone that we were talking about bikes for ourselves, but she still liked her bike.

One fun activity I didn't with my friend Jenessa was that I helped her decorate her tree. I was surprised that she didn't want to do it with her family, but she was just feeling overwhelmed and wanted to get it done. She is so fun and easy to talk to.

We went to Holland's orchestra concert. An elementary school's first orchestra concert is equal parts cute and hilarious. Holland was definitely one of the more advanced students.

The next day was the Caldera Christmas Party. John won the Family Feud game with the engineers. He won movie tickets and popcorn. The Caldera gift was a nice swim bag. That party is always fun and bit boring.

The next day the Partridges had us over for gingerbread house decorating. Jennifer makes the gingerbread by hand, which makes it so legit. They had a ton of candy and we brought a little too. I enjoyed chatting with them.

We went to Tommy's baptism and then made sausage at Marc's house. It was great to hang out with my family. That night there was a funny moment with Miriam's friends. We have never really had teenage boys come to our house, but there have been a couple that occasionally showed up on our door to chat with her. So that night Ellie was gone to volunteer for Kids on the Move, and we had all showered to get ready for bed. We heard a knock on the door and assumed it was Ellie locked out. Miriam ran down there in her pjs, hair towel, and no bra. There were her two guy friends. She just says "Hi." They say hi. And she says my family is about to have our bed time prayer. The boys then just kneel down on our front porch while she is standing there. I am up on my bed and wondering what is taking Miriam and Ellie to come upstairs. So I yell down to hurry up, and Miriam just says to them "I gotta go." and shuts the door on them while they are still kneeling down. We are just not prepared for teenage boys at our house. So funny.

December gets pretty busy. We do this to ourselves, but also it is a busy time for school and extra curriculars. It just happens to be a perfect storm of school tests and projects, MCO concerts, swim meets, all of the holiday events, cold and flu season, and we add all of the fun things we can think of in our advent calendar. That actually sounds insane when I list it out.

Heading into MCO week, John made three dinners ahead of time on Sunday, which was so nice of him. He's the best. That same night we did Remember London Day for our advent activity, which included fish and chips, cottled cream fudge, and Les Misérables songs. It was a good time.

The next day was the first MCO concert day, which is always longer than you'd think. We were gone from noon to 11pm. That doesn't even count the time I spent preparing for it - packing food, picking up kids from school, and getting them concert ready. Actually Ellie could drive her and Miriam home from school which was amazingly helpful. And they can do their own hair, which is so much more efficient.

I volunteered with Holland this time. We had some fun moments that day! She is so cute and cuddly when it is just us. She's adorable. I actually ran into my long time friend, Julie Guinn who was volunteering also. It was fun to chat and catch up with her. It was also fun to chat with Ellie on the drives back and forth.

Volunteering for the concerts is fun, but nothing beats watching the concert. I literally cried happy tears. Darcy got so into the singing and actions especially "Go tell it on a mountain" Even just remembering it now makes my heart squeeze because of how adorable she was--her bouncy, enthusiastic singing and actions are pure joy. Some other favorites was Silent Night and Good King Wenseslas. John and I had a fun date of out it too. We enjoyed yummy food at PF Changs and walked around temple square. One particularly cute moment was when John actually cried at the Taylor Swift "Ronan." He doesn't generally cry, like ever.

On the last MCO concert Ellie and Miriam were particularly emotional. They said it was full on sobbing. We prayed a lot that they would stay healthy for the MCO concerts, and they did. But the next morning they woke up pretty sick the very next day. It feels a little bit like a miracle.

The flu season this year was so bad. It really makes you appreciate the difference between a cold and the flu. My cold medicine seemed to be a placebo. We tried using a humidifier in our room for kind of a while which did maybe something… I thought I had gotten over my sickness, but less than two weeks later I got hit again back. So frustrating.

But December continued on despite the illness. We tried to catch some sales at places like Bath and Body Works so we can get good friend birthday presents while everything is on sale. It was ridiculous though because we all can’t smell very well and were exhausted, so we were fairly pitiful and didn’t has as much fun as normal. But it was still good to be together. Thrifting never fails us though, and we found some amazing Taylor Swift dress up pieces.

Ellie took the official ACT for the first time. She was so medicated, alternating ibuprofen and tylenol. We were just hoping she was happy with the results considering the situation.

John and I decided that this was the moment to tackle the garage storage situation. This is my fault. I accidentally bumped the rickety second hand particle board cabinet with the giant Sequoia’s tires when I was backing out. It was bad. The particle board stood no chance. I felt pretty smart… Not! So this cabinet was only still upright because we had wrapped it with tape. It was destroyed really. So we decided to install some shelves along the walls up high. I am so happy with how it turned out though. A lot of the things we really don’t need often so it doesn’t make sense to have them down where they are in the way. I loved that we opened up the side walls so that the van and sequoia don’t have to be quite so precisely parked. It isn’t exactly roomy in there, but it works.

We didn’t do a Taylor Swift dress up day every Sunday because not everyone went to church because of all of the illnesses. I think we were on the album Red for like 3 weeks in a row. Don’t worry, we still decided to do a Sunday dress up theme. We just went with “Seasons” this time. The kids are so cute.

And the advent activities just kept coming: Santa Shakes are always a hit. We did Lake Powell day this time which was great. We loved watching videos and photos of our warm summer.

There were also so many school things too: band concert, gingerbread house for Darcy (we made it out of cardboard and beads and it was a multi day project, the girls actually missed a swim meet because they forgot to inform the coaches about missing the last meet which means they were out for the next one.

John found out about his yearly raise and bonus: $25,000 and 4.1%. That was amazing. I am so grateful that John provides so well for us.

One day, I had the craziest stomach pain. After all of the meds and a blessing, I went to the urgent care. They couldn’t find anything wrong, but they gave me a shot of Toradol, which is the heaviest duty stuff they have at the urgent care. That literally made all of the difference. I was so nervous to even move once the pain stopped. It really makes me appreciate how pain free my body normally is.

The next day I took Miriam to the doctor for a sinus infection. John actually took a sick day that day too. Miriam and I ended up at Sam’s to get her meds and picked up a couple of presents while we were there, including a giant bunny for Darcy. It is so fun to go shopping with Miriam but it definitely isn’t great for the bank account.

The next day was the Ward Christmas breakfast. We went sister gift shopping that evening at the mall. We day stopped by the giving machines. We love doing the giving machines. This time we chose to donate towards: lunches for the needy, hygiene kits, newborn kits, and dinners for seniors. There are so many important things to choose from.

We love doing the candle lit dinner for winter solstice. It also coincided with finally doing Red day, love it! We probably should have done a Christmas dress up day because it was the Christmas sacrament meeting, but we had waited so long to do Red. Also red is a Christmas color so it kinda worked.

The next day we had a big play with friends day for Christmas break. Miriam and Holland played at a trampoline park with the Cavallinis. Ellie went to SLC on frontrunner with her friends. We watched the movie Noelle and painted Christmas nails for advent.

I had the best birthday: spa morning, pickleball, thrift shopping, coming home to shrimp scampi, fries, and a chocolate shake. I was so spoiled for my presents. John got me a nice red light mask that I had asked for. I also got new silk pillowcases, a dress from Ellie and Miriam (I used it for Evermore!), and dried mangos from Holland (she bought them herself!). And the cherry on top was that the orchid bloomed again!

Christmas Eve dinner was amazing. We had a roasted veggie salad and grilled chicken. I loved the reading of Luke 2. Dad came down and spent Christmas with us. He got the almond in the rice pudding. We reenacted the nativity, and this definitely errs on the side of chaos more than reverent even with my kids getting older. I always love putting out all of the presents. This is normally quiet, but exciting because I am eagerly anticipating giving the kids their presents. I always like making it look pretty. We brought it Miriam's bike. (She actually hadn't come across it in the shed which is a stroke of good luck.) We had all of the girls sleep in Ellie and Miriam's room, which weirdly no one questioned. I was astounded that no one heard the dry wall saw in Holland's and Darcy's rooms. My dad was astounded that we were cutting a hole in the wall between their room. Of course we couldn't finish out the secret passage in one night. John cut the hole and put in a couple of blocks of wood to stabilize the drywall. Later we finished it out nicely with doors, but it was fun to have a splashy gift for them.

Christmas morning was delightful. Miriam's new bike, Ellie's mattress, Holland's Echo, Darcy's bunny - and the surprise presents. New lighting for Ellie and Miriam's room. The secret passage was such a fun surprise. We finished opening presents at 12:30 with a break for brunch. John loved the chocolate pretzels and hot honey.

John and I didn't get our major present on Christmas. We were waiting to order nice new bikes for ourselves, but then the warehouse closed for a few weeks around Christmas. We got our bikes in January. It was kinda disappointing, but okay.

That night we had a Deru dinner at Kayla's house. She likes to breakfast food for that meal, which is yummy but isn't my favorite. I love crepes, but Christmas is just a day when a lot of sugar is consumed, so it would be nice to have a savory dinner with some vegetables.

The day after Christmas John took a half day, and we did a lot of work to get ready for the new lighting and secret passage. We also did Korea day that day (not that we went to Korea or anything, but our love for Kdramas runs deeeeep). We had ramyeon and tried to remember to bow to each other throughout the day. It would probably be offensive to any actual Korean person. We even tried a new Kdrama.

The next day we got the new lights in for Ellie and Miriam. It actually made their room seem so much bigger. I couldn't believe what a difference it made. The lighting in their room was truly atrocious before. We had Cafe Rio for dinner and watched that fun new Kdrama.

That weekend we visited Aunt Carol - she's always so nice. It was funny though, I tried to tell her the funny story about shutting down capitol hill, but she just kept saying that they had to be that careful. The story didn't land. :) That evening we had an informal Pearson dinner at John's parents' house which hasn't happened forever. It was yummy and nice to visit with people.

The next day was Remember Paris Day. We surprised John with his Paris tshirt at work and kidnapped him to a French bakery. We loved the savory croissants that we got there. That day was a blast. We played so many games and did Taylor Swift karaoke. We finished up the day with macarons - everyone loved the lemon and apricot ones. You never know which ones will be good.

Remember DC day included biking on a chilly day. Probably not our smartest move. But speaking of smart, but speaking of smart Ellie found out that day that she got a 35 on the ACT. She was so sick the day she took it. I couldn't believe she did that well.

New Years Eve is so much fun. I loved reflecting on the year. I liked that this year we gave awards for what everyone accomplished this year. We did so many bucket list items this year. We also made goals for 2026. We watched the Santa Clause and a little documentary about the first Christmas. We saw a really close fireworks show for like 45 minutes just at our church. Crazy!

This is the list of our advent activities. We're such fun parents. :)

Advent

M Dec 1. (MCO practice) - Advent Kick Off - PJ’s, story, 25 Days of Christ, candle
Tu Dec 2. (Holland Reflections Award, RS Dinner) - Snowball Fight Inside
W Dec 3. (YW, Holland Orchestra Concert) - Holland’s Concert
Th Dec 4. (Caldera Party) - Sock Skating
F Dec 5. Gingerbread House Decorating
S Dec 6. (Eliza Respite Care) - Remember London Day - fish sticks, fries, Les Mis
Su Dec 7. First Presidency Christmas Devotional
M Dec 8. (MCO Concerts - Kylee volunteer) - Reindeer Poop for Breakfast
Tu Dec 9. (MCO Concerts - attend) - MCO Concerts
W Dec 10. (MCO Concerts) - Breakfast in Bed
Th Dec 11. Remember Arizona Day - Hike, orange stuff (weather dependant)
F Dec 12. (Games with Jacobsons) - Pickleball Day: pickles, popcorn, ball games in basement
S Dec 13. (Eliza ACT) - Sister Gift Shopping
Su Dec 14. Santa Shakes
M Dec 15. (Showcase?) - Miriam Band Concert
Tu Dec 16. Donate to a charity
W Dec 17. (Swim meet) - Lake Powell Day - swim meet, frozen peaches
Th Dec 18. Christmas Karaoke
F Dec 19. Visit Grandparents and Temple Square
S Dec 20. (Ward Party in morning) - Neighbor gifts
Su Dec 21. Candlelit Dinner
M Dec 22. Christmas nails in kitchen and movie
Tu Dec 23. Kylee’s Birthday
W Dec 24. Christmas Eve: rice pudding, Christmas story, nativity
Th Dec 25. Christmas Day: presents and family dinner
F Dec 26. Dance party
S Dec 27. Remember Paris Day - bakery, sleeping queens, macarons
Su Dec 28. Korea Day - ramen, bowing, makeup tutorial
M Dec 29. Candy Cane Hunt
Tu Dec 30. Remember DC Day - falafel, bikes, drink milk out of pan
W Dec 31. New Years Eve party

Holland went to District for her reflection's story Shortie. This was the celebration at the district offices.

Advent kick off party!

We're having too much fun with AI photo editing. This is Miriam as Hermione Granger.

Ellie as a ballerina

Gingerbread houses at the Partridges' house.

She is actually the cutest

Playing Neon Reign with Holland while I was volunteering with her for MCO concerts.

New shelves in the garage. I love the wooden shelves that John designed and built in the corner.

Christmas elves at MCO

MCO concerts are always spectacular, but this one really stood out.

Yummy yummy PF Changs

Our fortunes

Walking around Temple Square lights

What an amazing experience!

Dirty hands after helping Daddy in the garage

Can't imagine why she was dirty

Breakfast in bed is always a bigger hit than I would have anticipate

Holland ate at Miriam's desk so she could be in the same room as her sisters.

December flowers

The gingerbread girls Darcy made to represent me and her.

We went on a hike for Remember AZ day

Heart rocks!

Bath and Body Works stock up day

All the seasons for church.

Santa shakes

A dress up day at school

Dressing as a snowman day

Watching Baby Lucy for my friend, Bailey Mena

She's so precious

We met up with the Bonds

Sunday afternoon nap! Its a busy time of year.

Winter Solstice

Quotes for the month:

D: One time I went a whole night without eating pie!

J: Do we live in America or not?

D: MCO concerts are so long! We stay up so late singing beautifully and feeling the spirit.

D: How I like to be pleasant on Christmas is to lay on the couch with a blanket while I have hot cocoa, and have a bunch of rice bags in the microwave, while I slowly doze off.

D: The audience only has two jobs: to cheer for us and to feel the spirit.

Darcy burned me so bad one day when I told her I missed her at school. "I forgot all about you." Ouch.

D: The main point oof Christmas is Jesus. Everyone knows that except robbers. They think the main point is stealing presents.

H: I have an inference of what I think happened.

D: Why are we digging in? We haven't taken a picture yet!

D: I am going to translate (transplant) this one!

D: I think Daddy is a great Daddy and I love him. And I love cuddling his wife. (At prayer compliments)

We met up with some friends at a new park. It was a good time. I love taking my older girls to parks.

Christmas nails

I am 39! I love spa days!

Thrifting fun

Spoiled mama!

There is nothing quite as scary as my new red light mask.

Darcy about to wrap her present for Holland.

Kayla dropped off Dad on Christmas Eve. She also brought about 1,000 Georgio products. Turns out we have them for Christmas though, so it got returned to her minus a couple of fun bags that my girls picked out.