December

Kindergarten is so fun and exciting, at least it is according to Molly. In December, her class got to take turns sharing one of their holiday traditions. Molly wanted to tell her class about going to the Festival of Lights each year. I developed pictures of her at the Festival when she was 3, 4, 5, and 6. She glued them to a posterboard and decorated it with stickers, pom-poms (to represent the lights), and a drawing she made. I brought it to school on her specified day and she was able to show it to her class. So fun!

Justin and I celebrated our 9th anniversary. It gets a little crazy in December with everything else going on so we don't really do a whole lot to celebrate...but I was surprised to see this when I woke up:

It's the Logan Temple and Olsen Park. It was given to us for our wedding from the artist himself (Eric Dowdle-he was Justin's Young Men's leader growing up, Justin also worked for him) and we never got around to having it framed. I love the barn wood.

Molly got a reading award in front of the whole school. I didn't know she was receiving it so I wasn't at the assembly but I am proud of her. She really loves reading and is doing so well...she is on Level I (the letter I), although I didn't know what that meant until my friend asked the teacher. Turns out she is reading at an end-of-first-grade reading level. Go Molly!!

Grandma Fletcher passed away on December 14th. We were sad to lose her but celebrated that she was undoubtedly reunited with her husband, who passed away 28 years ago, and two granddaughters who also passed away at young ages (mid-twenties). I, of course, don't have as many stories of her since I didn't know her my entire life but I always looked forward to seeing her and visiting with her. I loved listening to her stories and she was always so interested in what was going on in our lives. She was a sweet lady and I hope that Molly will always remember her a little bit.

Justin, Brynn, and Grandma Afton Fletcher-May 2011

Our elf got a little silly this year. It wrote messages on the bathroom mirror, hung underwear where the stockings should have been, snuck into the marshmallows, and toilet-papered the Christmas tree. The funniest, though, was when he drew funny faces on the kids pictures. We all got a good laugh at that one!

Molly's class sang "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" at the school sing-a-long.

We went sledding on a day Justin was home. We have so much snow this year!! I think Molly could go again and again but we were only able to get Stockton to go once. He was having fun and then got sprayed with some snow...and that was the end of that. (Good thing we were just across the street from our house.) Brynn was just there...not totally excited but not crying either. Well, not crying until she got sprayed too. Oops. That was the end of our sledding...at least for me and the younger two, I think Molly and Justin stayed out longer.