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Breakfast in Bed Reciprocated, A LOT of fun playing games, Gingerbread Decorating, and New Year’s resolutions!

Lily has a very big heart, and even though we were up late last night for New Year’s Eve, she was determined to wake up at 7:30 and make breakfast in bed for our kids to reciprocate their kind act from yesterday and also to let them start the new year with some magic. I was exhausted, but followed her lead and in the end was so glad for what we did. The kids loved it!

Then we all played a TON of family games. The pictures below don’t do justice to all the games we played. We played San Juan, Lost Cities, Chutes & Ladders, Sleeping Queens, Barrel of Monkeys & Race to the Treasure. It’s was sooooo fun! Lily commented, “this is why we had kids, to have this much fun with them!”

After playing games as a family, I played legos with Ammon. We had a ton of fun acting out a scenario involving a bad guy in a rhino suit that was crushing cars and stealing things. Once the policeman and his allies locked the bad guy away, he celebrated by going to the market, buying some things, and decorating for Halloween.

Then we all had fun with the gingerbread kits that my mom gave everyone for Christmas. Everyone had houses to assemble and decorate, except for Ammon, who actually got to mix and bake his ninja gingerbread cookies before decorating them. It was a lot of fun! Thanks mom!

Clarissa was feeling so happy that she spontaneously burst into song for about 20 minutes about her melico plant.

At night, the older girls, Lily and I captured our New Year’s resolutions. Here is a bullet list as well:

Lydia:

  • Keep the splits another year
  • Be nicer to her siblings
  • Take better care of her hands
  • Use screens less
  • Get more sleep
  • Care more about the harp

Mary:

  • Be better at taking care of her hygiene
  • Play with an orchestra on the piano

Lily:

  • Integrate more with cousins on both sides of the family
  • Keep up her exercise 5-6 days per week
  • Enjoy life more and be less anxious and more present

Abe:

  • More responsive to needs of others around me
  • Run a mile in six minutes
  • Run 6 miles at an 8 minute mile pace
  • Do full 500 workout within one hour
  • Hit Q1 quota (I haven’t hit in 5 quarters)
  • Have my team create 3X Q2 qualified pipeline heading into Q2
  • Read: Lincoln Highway, Peak, Just Demo
  • Advance the finances
  • Buy Lydia’s harp
  • Go to the Philippines as a family

Lily and I get breakfast in bed, and Clarissa stays up until Midnight.

Fatigued from my end of quarter, I slept in until 10:40. At that point, stumbled to my desk. I think Lily was reading in bed. And then to our surprise, the kids presented Lily and me with breakfast in bed! It wasn’t just thoughtful, it was also delicious! They made avocado toast, pancakes with applesauce, an egg, cereal and fruit. I took mine at my desk and loved every bite. Lily had hers in bed and also loved hers. Thank you kiddos, that was so sweet!!

I then spent a lot of time on things like the budget, and installing our new doorbell, while Lily read some books to finish up her 50th book for 2022. Then in the evening, we spent two hours reviewing blog posts from 2022. We had so many amazing moments, trips and memories and it was so fun to relive them! Then, we played a ton of games with the kids. We let everyone stay up until midnight, including Clarissa! Here are pictures and a video of our games and midnight fun!

A Puzzle Complete and Caroling at the Vandagriffs’

Today we finally finished the super hard holographic 1,000 piece puzzle that Suzanne gave us. We are loving our puzzle/game table so much!

We’ve been wanting to finish the puzzle so we could play some games with the kids on our new table. Once we finished, we played Lost Cities with our kids. Everyone loved it!

In the evening, we went to the Vandagriffs’ house for a night of singing Christmas songs. Jessie and Morgan invited a bunch of friends, and she had over a dozen Christmas carol books from the Metropolitan Museum of Art that also featured art from that museum. It had a lot of well-known carols as well as ones I’m not as familiar with. Singing really gave me the Christmas spirit, and it was also fun to chat with their friends and eat their snacks (especially the cranberry wassail and Moosewood mushroom soup). We all had a great time and told the Vandagriffs that we’d love to do it again next year! Lydia and Mary joined the singers while Ammon and Clarissa ran around the house playing with other kids. It was a fun evening!

I’ve heard, “Bring A Torch, Jeannette, Isabella” before, however, I completely rediscovered it tonight and it is now my new favorite Christmas song.

Back at home, we put the younger kids down and we played San Juan with Lydia and Mary. We all love that game! Thank you again to the Olsens for lending us both Lost Cities, and San Juan!

Fun With Friends

Mary loves having pen pals. Here is a letter she recently wrote to her friend Ellie Co

Also, Lily and I had a great time at Daniel and Amanda’s playing games and eating their delicious baked goods. It was some much needed fun after a stressful end-of-quarter day for me.

Darais Family Party

Today we went to the Darais family party when I finished work. It was really fun to see everybody. Lydia played the harp and even though she struggled at the end of the piece, she played beautifully overall and she got an enthusiastic applause from the audience. Dinner was a yummy potato bar and ham. At the end of the event, Andrea distributed a thumb drive that Mark helped organize that had writings and artwork from grandma and grandpa Darais. What a treasure. All in all, it was a great time. The kids had tons of fun playing and Clarissa really enjoyed coloring at the coloring table. When she lost her drawings at the end of the party, Adam kindly went searching for them and found them!

Ammon helped ring a bell and lead the group in singing, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”. Ammon is so outgoing. Adrianne told me that right when she walked in the door, Ammon asked her, “can I spell something for you? T-h-e-space-c-a-t-space-r-a-n” She thought he was very very cute.
My dad gave the family update.
Lydia’s harp performance

Back at home Mary was in a very bouncy mood, and we got a great slow-motion video of her jumping face first to her bed, but YouTube doesn’t show the slow-motion unfortunately.

Fun With The Vandagriffs

Today I worked and Lily worked hard getting the house nice after all the Christmas activity. In the evening the Vandagriffs came over and we all had a great time hanging out together. The kids played together and the adults talked about schooling, politics and psychology. The kids were so cute all lined up around the table! We love that family!

Christmas on the Road

Yesterday it was really fun to have Christmas Day at our home. And today it was really fun to go and visit family. First we visited my grandma Forsyth in Ogden. She’s a bit sick again with a UTI, but she was in cheerful spirits and we had a really good time visiting.

Then we all went to my mom and Jay’s house for lunch. Victor, Melody and their kids were there which was so fun because I hadn’t seen them in forever. Jere was also there, as were David and Olivia (who just got back from Fiji) and their adorable baby Ozzy. We had so much fun holding Ozzy and playing with him!

After a delicious meal, my mom passed out gifts to everyone as she does every year (thanks mom!) and then we hit the road for our next stop, my dad and Suzanne’s.

They had their new home decorated so beautifully for Christmas. I should have taken more pictures! But I did take one picture of a painting my Aunt Christina made in High School that they are hanging on their wall. I love the painting so much and it also made me remember how much I love and miss Christina.

At home, Lily went to sleep early as she was feeling tired and battling a headache for the past couple hours. I decompressed over a puzzle and then worked a little on my computer. What a fun time of year it is!

Merry Christmas!

Lily and I went to bed late as we were prepping for Christmas, but Lily was up early prepping for brunch. I have felt very tired lately and I stumbled out of bed at 7:45, managed a shower and made my way upstairs. My dad, Suzanne and Jere had already arrived (not wanting to hold of the present opening). First we all walked Basil around the block and then we got to the present opening.

I love Mary in this hat!

After we all opened presents, Lily and I finished prepping brunch while everyone enjoyed watching “Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made” which my dad and Suzanne suggested. It was so funny!

At one point Mary disappeared for multiple hours to play with her art studio lego set that my dad and Suzanne gave her. My dad and Suzanne picked up Georgia and then we all had brunch together.

Brunch was amazing. We had avocado toast, grapefruit salad, popovers, chia pudding, and sausage.

Ammon loved his iron-man costume!

After brunch, my dad and Suzanne took off and Jere stuck around. I also took Georgia home when she started to feel like she needed rest. When I got back, Jere helped me clean up and then we puzzled together which was so much fun. After puzzling, it was time for round two. Lily was already in the kitchen prepping dinner and so I helped.

For dinner, my mom and Jay joined the party. We had spoon beef from Harmons, turkey, mashed potatoes, mushroom gravy, salad with squash and pomegranate and cranberry sauce. It was delicious!

Here Ammon is wearing the water backpack the Georgia got for him.

When everyone left, Lily and I did our final clean-up and we relaxed while watching “Knives Out: Glass Onion”. It was delightful!

Christmas Eve

We started the day by going to a candle light service at the Community of Christ church in Salt Lake. It was a beautiful service and it was really nice to socialize afterwards. Here is a video of the part of the service with candles:

Then we went shopping for groceries and went home to make a salmon dinner. Georgia wasn’t feeling great so she did not join us, but we had a really nice time eating as a family.

At night we put all the kids down. Ammon and Clarissa were very excited and had trouble falling asleep. Finally Clarissa fell asleep in the below position.

Ammon also fell asleep with his legs off of his bed. It was all quite amusing.

Once the kids were finally down, Lily and I got to work making preparations for tomorrow. We had fun setting the table, and got some pictures of our beloved table Christmas scene.

Lily assembled the stockings.

And she finalized the presents.

I helped clean and I also snapped some photos of some of our Christmas decor.

Lily decided to make some peppermint marshmallow, mint-chip, chocolate cookies. When they were done she announced they were the best cookies she has ever made. They were delicious!

Lily truly is the Christmas Queen (sorry Mariah Carey!) and she has done so much to make this season magical for our whole family!

“I swear, I really want to be in my desk the whole day”

I got today off of work. I still worked some on a deal we are trying to close before the end of the year, but it did not disrupt my day too much.

This year we have really enjoyed the routine of reading a Christmas story, singing a Christmas song and letting the kids each open up one present during each day leading up to Christmas. I think Basil enjoyed it too!

In the late afternoon, Lily took Lydia out on a mother-daughter date. They went shopping for Christmas and also ate at Aubergene.

I spent the late afternoon and evening putting together Mary and Clarissa’s Christmas desks. It was a Christmas wish for each of them and they were so happy went they were finished. I love that they are next to each other so they can chat while they color!

I caught a video of Clarissa saying, “”I swear, I really want to be in my desk the whole day”