Seeing that I am almost 2(!) years behind on the blog, I thought I would finish 2023. I’m afraid I’ll forget too much if I procrastinate much more. Onto December!
Eden had her Christmas dance recital. We were asked to stay to the end as a special guest would come, but it wasn’t worth it, honestly. There are so many cheer groups and sound problems. Oh well!
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| Santa!!! |
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| The only two tiny ballerinas who stayed til the end. |
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| Then Eden passed out after getting home! |
Grandma Kartchner gifted all the kids advent calendars with each of their interests! I think it was fun for them to open their own calendars with their own interests.
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| Joseph got a magic calendar. |
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| Eden got a gem painting advent calendar. |
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| Eli got a Lego calendar. |
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| Noah got a playdoh calendar. |
We decorated cookies as usual for the holidays.
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| A cute little backdrop at DQ! |
Timber Ridge ward had their very last Christmas party (although none of us really knew it at the time). It was Elf-themed with different activities in different classrooms.
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| The gym where Christmas dinner was held. |
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| The Primary (me) had a snowman building station. |
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| I found these snowman parts on Amazon and made my own dough. |
Each of the kids got a photo with Santa, though Eli was pretty sick and laid on the couch almost the whole time. Santa was super nice in coming to take a picture with him in the foyer.
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| There was also snowball throwing. |
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| Reindeer ring toss. |
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| And a backdrop to take photos with. |
Seaworld is always fun to go around Christmas time. They do a great job at decorating and have different activities and shows. Here is a dump of some of the photos.
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| Today was the day they unveiled the Aldabra tortoise exhibit. They are the second largest tortoise in the world. |
They had a new to us show called the Greatest Story Never Told. It starred the animals of the Nativity Story and had puppets represent them. They then brought the real animals at the end of the performance!
This December was special because Elijah turned 8! We took his birthday photoshoot at the temple.
Eli wanted a Legend of Zelda Cake so I took a store bakery cake and added all the symbols from the game.
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| Naturally Eli got Legos for his birthday. |
Christmas Eve tradition: opening pajamas!
Lastly, Christmas morning. We contained a special surprise from Joseph. A snake! And not just any snake, a hognose snake. He was named Hoggy (on brand for our kids). He has now gotten frogs, a fish, and a snake for Christmas.
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| Noah got a truck to ride. |
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| Eden got more stuffies to add to her massive collection. |
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| More Legos!! |
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| Hiss! |
It was a pretty exciting December. The worst part though? We got our first bout of lice! Joseph was complaining of his head itching beginning of December but I couldn’t find anything. Then Eli got an itchy head. Then during the Messiah performance I had a really itchy scalp. I didn’t want to believe it, but it was becoming apparent. Then during church the next day Sam said he found a bug in Noah’s hair. I pulled up a picture of a louse and it was confirmed 😱. I wanted to leave right there and then but Sam made us wait through Sacrament meeting. It was torturous. I saw a bug weave in and out through Eden’s hair, it was so gross. Then I let my counselors know (I was the Primary President) and we left to go to Walgreens to get all the lice removing things we could find. We treated ourselves with two kinds of treatments and took a fine comb and picked through everyone’s hair. We washed all bedding, vacuumed every surface, and quarantined all the stuffed animals. It was awful! A few days later we retreated and thought that was that. I figured any itchiness was residual and would go away. Then during a prayer one night I itched my scalp and a louse got stuck in my finger nail. AGH! None of the treatments worked, so I called my doctor and got an emergency prescription for Spinosad and treated everyone again. We also cut all the boys’ hair really short. And we had to rewash everything again. The worst part was trying to get rid of lice than the lice itself. Luckily Spinosad did the trick and we were lice free! Now I am good at spotting nits and can tell if it’s a nit or just dandruff. Any time I see one of my kids itching their scalp I get nervous!
Anyway, next up is our end of year Albuquerque trip!
