We opened our Christmas book on the 3rd. This tradition has almost run its course, but of course we'll keep reading the books on the day they were opened each year. I've had my eye on the book "Holly and Ivy" for a few years now, since it has Ivy's name in the title, and this year was the year I bought it. It is a cute story, but very long! More of a short chapter book rather than a picture book. I dutifully read it that night but it took close to 30 minutes, phew!
Ivy made her second cookbook recipe, which was a dinner and some sort of pepperoni pasta. She did great and I was happy to have a night off of cooking!
Molly discovered a recipe for chocolate orange cookies at the beginning of the season and made them several times throughout. No one complained when she made them because they were so delicious. Like top three cookie for me.
Brynn's first high school cheer competition was the first Saturday in December. It was a full day with a 5:15 AM roll call to ride the bus down. Yes, I said 5:15 AM! They performed three different routines: situational, band chant, and show cheer. Before situational, while they were warming up back stage, Brynn took a pretty bad fall out of a stunt when one of her bases came down from full extension and the other did not which caused Brynn to fall over sideways all the way to the ground, landing on her shoulder/neck. It shook her up and her whole group. It took some mental toughness to get out there and throw a clean routine. Everything mostly went okay except Brynn's back spot got tripped up on one of their signs and didn't make it to her place in time to get Brynn all the way in the air. They got her up, just not to full extension. So they were docked points for that. A shaky start.
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| flyer on right |
Justin couldn't go to the competition so I drove down with two of my cheer mom friends, Kary and Becky. They needed to stop at Costco on the way home so we decided to feed the girls and us while we were there with a giant pizza. Yum! |
| Brook, Brynn, Abby |
Sunday's are when we can gather for our Christmas traditions. We watched the Christmas Devotional, ate caramel popcorn, and made snowflakes on the first Sunday of the month. 
We did Bethlehem Dinner on the second Sunday; everybody's favorite! We had all our traditional finger foods and ate on a blanket in the living room but this year I also had each person draw a figure from a nativity set and then we talked about each individual figure and how we can be more like them (angel, wise men, Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, shepherd). We also watched nativity videos the church's YouTube channel. 
Justin had a meeting at the church for an hour that night but when he got home, we ate brownies with peppermint ice cream and homemade hot fudge sauce while watching Mr. Krueger's Christmas. It was a triple tradition night because, after the movie, the kids wrapped presents for each other!
It was a legit Christmas miracle that we found a night to go jingling together. Ivy would have been so, so sad to miss this tradition. Molly helped bake some cookies that day for me and we ended up doing chocolate orange cookies (no brainer), M&M cookies, and gingerbread oatmeal cookies. 
When we got home from jingling and seeing some Christmas lights, Brynn read her favorite Christmas book, "Olive the Other Reindeer" while Molly helped Ivy finish up a book report project that was due the next day (an Alexander Hamilton cardboard character).
Humphrey's First Christmas is a book Justin especially loves-and the girls too, apparently! With the warmth of the fire, it doesn't get much better than this. If I had to guess, Stockton was sitting on the couch or chair, also listening. He likes to be close but he's just not much of a cuddler.
Brynn had a cheer banquet that was held at a fancy reception center (owned by a cheer family), where they dressed fancy (church dress for Brynnie), ate lasagna and Olive Garden salad, and exchanged gifts. This really is a great group of girls who have put in an incredible amount of hours working hard. I hope they felt pampered and spoiled because they deserve it!
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| Brynn is on the bottom, second from left |
To celebrate the last day of school of 2025, we were treated to this gorgeous sunrise!
On the last day of school before the break, Ivy's class had a pajama party. There were no mom-helpers this time but I did send a treat (a bag of oranges to balance all the sugar they were getting) and her teacher sent this picture. I can't believe we are already halfway done with school at this point! Middle school is looming ever nearer for Ivy (insert crying face here).
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| Ivy's in the back on the right |
One of Ivy's cute friends started a baking club and it was our turn to host in December. I had planned to do something really easy (muddy buddies) but forgot that Lydia is allergic to peanut butter so had to change plans last minutes. I had everything on hand for another batch of M&M cookies, which were so good the first time, so they did that instead. I left the kitchen and let the girls do it all on their own and the cookies turned out delicious!
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| London Mathis, Joanna Quinn, Kallie Gehring, Lydia Evans, Ivy |
Stockton made this bookcase in woods class. He did a really great job! He is using it as his side table by his bed.
Here is a picture of us for Christmas Sunday. I suppose we clean up pretty nice. Justin had no meetings but I was playing piano for the choir program so I went early, then Justin came a little later than me, then the kids came after that. So we still had three cars at church that day, haha! This Christmas Molly was 19, Stockton 16, Brynn 14, and Ivy 10. Ivy joined the ward choir several months ago and has really enjoyed doing that. She even sang a little solo in "Go Tell it on the Mountain."
We had the Goodrich Family party that Sunday. The best food ever! We also played Left Center Right, with money, and everyone got their gifts that they had picked out and sent to Grandma. This year Justin got: a gun scope, Megan: Family Proclamation sign, Molly: Burkenstocks, Stockton: Nike slides, Brynn: hoodies and lip stuff from Sephora, Ivy: make it minis, charm necklace, journal, bracelet. Molly won the contest because she guessed whose gift was whose most successfully...she got them all right, actually! We also sang Christmas songs around the piano which is up there with the meal in term of being everyone's favorite part of the night.
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| Ivy, Brynn, Evie |
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| April, Molly, Tiana, Corbin |
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| Enzo and Ivy |
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| winner |
The kids had already set up their beds to sleep under the tree when we got home that night. I took this picture the following morning when they were still being sleepy-heads. Molly had started on the couch but had moved down to her bed sometime in the night.
I had my piano party the first Monday of the break. I knew one family that was out of town but several parents texted me that morning to say they had sick kids...out of my 16 students, I only had 6 kids come to the party! There was definitely something going around (which had already started at our house by this point and that we would all get as well). The 6 of us had a good time, we played Bingo and they played their Christmas songs for each other. It was a quick one this year! |
| Bree Allen, Sam and Emery Pearson, me, Alina Quinn, Mallory Pearson, Oaklyn Holm |
The kids only slept under the tree one night but the mattresses stayed out for the next afternoon, which meant a lot of resting and a lot of not resting! We had our Christmas crepes for dinner that night.
On Christmas Adam, or Christmas Eve-Eve, we decorate cookies for Santa. Molly and Stockton each only did one, to leave out for Santa, Brynn did all of hers before heading off for her last train shift before Christmas, and Ivy was sick with the flu so she only did what she was feeling up for. We actually left several cookies not frosted and not decorated, but we had enough for Santa!
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