Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve bowling with families from the ward! It's become a new tradition although Xander wasn't with us. 

Love the cousin pictures!

Mom hosted Christmas Eve dinner and, once again, it was a bittersweet evening as we all felt very strongly Dad's absence. His passing has left such a hole in the family but the gospel of Jesus Christ and the celebration of our Savior's birth is extremely comforting and brings so much peace during these difficult holidays without him. Being together means everything!

The cooking crew!

Uncle Bryan is always a favorite!

These two cuties always make me smile.

The kids table.

The only picture I got from the adult table was this and it immediately made me cry when I saw it.

We had a clean up crew this year which was fabulous!

The Martinellis made the rounds, ha ha!

Our Christmas program was filled with songs, scriptures, and sweet stories about Christmas.

We grabbed a few pictures before heading home.

Back at the house it was time for Christmas Eve pajamas!

One final picture before heading off to bed!

More December Fun!

We got Savannah back for the Christmas break and we're so excited to have her home for almost a month! One of the first things we did was head to Dad's grave so Mom could place a Christmas wreath there.

We sure do miss him!!

We then headed back to the house for some delicious tomato parmesean soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. It was perfect for the cold wintry day.

Our church youth helped assemble and deliver Chrismtas packages to some needy families in our ward. Needless to say my delivery experience was one of the worst experiences of my life and by the end, when I couldn't find either house and we had been driving around Lebanon for over an hour, I was close to tears and messaged the YW leader that I was done. So incredibly frustrating! But we sure did try to do a good thing!

The Nutcracker ballet on the big screen. Check out their amazing ballerina moves!

And at work my sweet friend Jennifer got me my favorite Grogu...

and I got lots of kisses from Kona, the cutest little therapy dog.

Every Wednesday he visits the offices spreading some much needed doggie love and happiness.

Noah Tries Out Wrestling

A new sport for our family - wrestling!! Noah decided to give it a try and is having a lot of fun! David and I are clueless about points and what it means when the ref makes the traveling sign and apparently you're supposed to cheer rather than cringe when someone gets picked up and thrown to the mat but hey, we'll get there. 

I don't have any pictures or video from his very first match because we were running a little late and got to our seats right as Noah's match began. I didn't even have time to pull out my phone and turn it on before he had been pinned. I looked at David and said, "That's it?" Unfortunately for us he only had the one match that meet. But we learned. Now we make sure to get to each meet with plenty of time to spare. 

Here are a few pictures from his next meet.

This Centerville wrestler was super good and beat Noah pretty quickly.

But I love how Noah just keeps working hard and, despite another loss, seems to really be enjoying himself!

This guy was more of an even match for Noah but he's still learning so wasn't able to get the win...this time.