Christmas Shenanigans and a Happy New Year!

We had a wonderful Christmas season. A few things we did leading up to the big day: we had friends over for a cookie exchange - I made Mom's fudge and Justin made these fancy chocolate coconut bars - Nanaimo bars. I wanted to make my fudge look pretty so I wrapped the pieces up with tulle. We had fun playing games with everyone and of course we enjoyed sharing lots of Christmas goodies. Bunko was a hit - most of them had never played before!

Justin gets in a VERY festive baking mood so we had several boxes of cookies to deliver to friends all around.

 We also went to Boise for the Beal Christmas party. Hart and Jory are part-owners of a new climbing gym in Boise and they open in just a few weeks! They gave us the royal treatment and let us tour the facility, plus ransack all the shoes and harnesses to have a shot at climbing to the top. I had fun scaling the wall twice while Justin kept our boys from falling down the elevator shaft - thanks hun! Even Emmett had a go but got nervous once he felt Justin's hands leave him.

 Arco had a "Christmas Parade" the following week. It had maybe two or three cars and a couple fire trucks. It was short-lived but still a fun thing to get out and do. We followed Mom and Dad around town to see all the popular Christmas lights.

My "Grinch" cookies - sugar cookies baked in a pan and cut to perfection - these are SO good and my favorite way to eat sugar cookies now.

Christmas Sunday - all matchy matchy

  Christmas Eve I made homemade ice cream - I used Dad's recipe but I made vanilla flavor and mixed in Oreos for something different. It was snowing all day, so we went over to Mom and Dad's before dinner to do some sledding! We even partially built an igloo. We enjoyed Mom's cooking followed by her Christmas program. We brought our bells to do a few Christmas songs between the four of us - even Emmett joined in on the last song with Jingle Bells. 

shovelin' snow with Dad

Duke babysitting the ice cream maker

We got two kittens from the Traughbers for the kids for Christmas - they brought them over Christmas Eve but the orange one got loose and never turned up - so we have the gray one for now. Emmett named her Pepper.

 Christmas morning I made German pancakes and they baked while we all opened gifts. Logan's big hits were a new block train set and a barn play house with all the farm animals from Jon and Laura. Emmett was most excited about his dinosaur gifts - a gigantosaurus play set up with a volcano and a dinosaur egg excavator set with 12 dinosaur eggs from Jon and Laura - they know my kids well! Their gifts were my kid's favorites - what the heck guys! Ha. We got them some tractors and I got Emmett and Justin fishing poles for future father-son bonding. Those - along with a few practical gifts like new shoes - made for a wonderful morning. We loaded up a few toys and took off for Burley to hang out with Chase and Rachel. Rachel made us a yummy Christmas dinner - we played some games and went for a walk along the Snake River - they live in a beautiful area! Rachel's Christmas decorations were SO cute. I'm going to seriously try not to copy everything next year;) 

walking along the Snake River

I'm pretty excited about my juicer I got for Christmas - Justin even got celery for my stocking.  

Justin is less excited ...

Ha - Emmett's selfie 

 New year's eve Chase and Rachel came up to hang which made for two fun days! Chase dragged Dad up to the Mackay dam Tuesday morning and they ice fished for a while, then Rachel and the kids plus our family and Mom joined them. As soon as we showed up Chase caught a nice rainbow trout. We got Emmett's fishing pole set up and took turns putting the bait down in the many holes Chase and Dad had drilled. When the snow and wind picked up, we moved into Chase's tent. Justin saw Emmett's pole jig a little, so he said, "Okay Emmett, go ahead and reel it up" and BOOM! A Kokanee salmon was on the other end! We freaked OUT! Emmett caught a fish!!! Ha - we were too excited to get a proper picture but that along with Chase's trout were the only fish caught that day so it was way fun. It was 12" - nice job bud!

Emmett's Kokanee next to Chase's Rainbow Trout

 That night we had too much fun playing games. We did guesstures (classic) and then Chase and Rachel taught us a game you play with Apples to Apples cards similar to guesstures and catch phrase. It was so fun! We did girls vs boys and TIED so we had to do a tie breaker round and Rachel and I dominated!!! Turkey baster!!! It's always satisfying to beat Chase ha!!!! Sibling rivalry much? 

We took the kids home and I returned to play some rage. This morning we went sledding with all the kids and Chase and Rachel headed home. It was a great two days. 

German pancakes again New Year's Day

Chase and Dad went chuckar hunting this moring and got two birds

Justin and Emmett made this snowman on Christmas Eve and I can't believe it's still standing

Well happy new year! 2019 had a whole lot of change for our family. The failure of Metric Clothing Co allowed for a rebirth that has put us on the fast track to winning. I'm proud of Justin and all he's done to grow professionally in his career. 

Some thing I'm proud of personally from 2019:

- Potty training two toddlers🤣 (Emmett in February, Logan in December) 

- I read 41 books - 32 of those in July-December. 

- weighlifting and growing in my personal fitness

- earning an all expenses-paid cruise for two

I probably won't be "accomplishing" much for 2020, but I have goals that will keep me focused on my day-to day. I plan on doing another sprint triathlon this summer (last one was in 2013). I will continue to focus on my health starting with drinking celery juice each morning  and continuing with weightlifting. I want to read 50 + books - I'd like to get to 60 (we'll see). I will study the Book of Mormon with a brand new book so I can mark new insights and answers in my personal life. I got a preschool curriculum that I will work on with Emmett. I'm feeling more grounded in who I am and what I want with my life. I'll be applying that laser focus to the new year and new decade and I expect to totally crush it ✊ Happy New Year!