Merry Christmas!

Christmas week is my favorite week of the year! This was a great one. I snapped a picture of us all eating happily together at our festive kitchen table sometime last week. I had one of those moments where I thought this is what I have always wanted. It felt perfect. Happily together as a family, eating around the table, chatting about the day. It was simple and so beautiful. 

I took Aaron and Genevieve with me shopping a day or two before Christmas and I had to snap a picture of Genevieve. She is just growing up so fast. She turns ten later in 2022. It's hard to believe she's nine, but also only nine because she already looks so much older. She's really maturing and starting to understand bigger concepts and it's just so delightful. And I just love the way she dresses. She's so cute. 

We hosted our Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas program. It was delightful. Spencer and Genevieve volunteered to play their instruments for everyone. My nieces brought bells to play. We had just the most lovely evening. My brother was able to come as well. My sister-in-law has had some health issues this week and been in the hospital and we've all been spending a good amount of time there with her, but my brother and their adorable dog were able to join us and it felt so nice to be gathered together. 

Sasha the dog was enthralled by Genevieve's flute playing. 

Grandma gave the kids lifesavers and they were so excited about it. We all just love having this chance to be near family again after so many years far away. 

Me and mini me funny facing it up. 

Ah, Christmas morning! We had a great time. We woke up later than I expected and opened gifts and then family came over again for Christmas brunch and later dinner and we played games and watched movies and had a really lovely day all in all. 

Don't mind me and Bill's very sleepy faces. One of our delightful children decided to come in at 1:30 and Bill ended up trading places. Neither of us got a good night's sleep. 

Chloe got some makeup. Hahaha! Love her and her style!

Strawberry lemonade dessert. It was divine. 

We had a few sniffles and coughs waking up the day after Christmas, so while I went to church to lead the music, everyone else stayed at home and watched and got mighty comfortable while they did it. 

All in all it was a great week. There's always low points, but so many high points to make up for any bumps along the way. It was a lovely end to this rather rough year that was 2021. 

Snow and racing and holiday things

It snowed this week! And it was so beautiful! The kids had a remote day, which equals mostly a snow day with a little itty bitty amount of work. We had a great day and there is still snow around. It's supposed to snow all Christmas weekend, so I'm just thrilled. For all of the years that I've lived in Colorado and Utah, I actually haven't had that many white Christmases. 

We ran a Santa race! I ran a 5K and took 10th overall for women, 29th for the whole race. Bill did a ruck and took third overall.  Aaron and Chloe and Genevieve ran a one-mile race and rocked it. Aaron was really into it and took 11th overall and Genevieve and Chloe took 17th and 18th out of 30 or so runners. It was so fun. I ran with the girls. We had a great time and they got so much awesome swag. We had only paid $5 for the race, not including a t-shirt, but they had extras so the kids ended up with one anyway, plus a bucket and shovel, a candy cane, and a South Jordan Recreation snow hat that is just awesome. South Jordan knows how to woo the kids! We all got medals too and Bill and I got shirts as well. Bill dressed up for the race and won some skin care items as a prize for being the best costumed Rucker. Ha! It was so fun. Spencer didn't want to run in the cold, so he stayed home and was pleased with that, so everyone had a great Saturday morning. It was gorgeous running with all the snow around the trail. 

Bill's parents got us an amaryllis. Those were our wedding flowers and he remembered and got us one. So thoughtful and they're such beautiful flowers. We thought it was going to be red, which is the color we used, but it opened and is white! And I love it just as much. It's such a beautiful bloom.

We had an early Christmas Ashman family party as some of them are traveling for Christmas and it was so fun. We had a gloriously tasty spread of food. This is just part of it. We did aWhite Elephant gift exchange and just had a great Sunday afternoon and evening. 

Spencer had his DARE graduation this week. He's such a great kid. I'm really enjoying this current phase of parenthood with all elementary school aged kids. They're pretty awesome kids all around. 

Music, Santa, Snow, Lights

We put up our outside Christmas lights this week! I love them. Bill added a couple colored lights that we have blinking between red and green to our porch light and above the garage and it's just very fun. 

The kids got to visit Santa at the Ward Christmas party. He was great! Spencer wasn't interested, but the other three still were. They're all so cute.

It snowed this week! The kids spent hours one evening out playing in it with friends and Chloe and I went sledding on Friday when she got out early from school. She kept eating the snow, silly girl.

Five of the six of us got new haircuts. I only have photo evidence of Spencer and Genevieve, but suffice it to say, we all look much cuter post haircuts, lololol. 

I got my last piece of artwork for our house this week to go over my bed. I love it so much. I got turquoise and yellow pillowcases to tie my room together. The yellow ones arrived today, so I'll have to get an updated picture with it all finished. 

Spencer and Genevieve had their holiday concert this week. Grandma and Grandpa came and our other two grandmas tuned in on Zoom. It was so fun. Spencer on the guitar, Genevieve on the flute. They both played solos. I was so proud of them and how you can tell they're practicing. They sounded so good. 

And this may be the most amusing thing that we realized this week. Genevieve and Spencer are now exactly the same height! I even got a book and a level out to confirm it. Sure enough. Exactly the same. I forecast Genevieve is going to keep growing and be taller than Spencer for a while, but then he'll hit his growth spurt and shoot past her, but we shall see. As is to be expected, she's thrilled and he's appalled. 

 

Early December happenings

My sister owns these vases and I loved them so much when I went to her house this summer that I decided to get a set of my own when my front entry needed something more. I'll change out the flowers regularly for the seasons.

Another new piece of art in my front entryway. I love it so much. 

It matches my ginkgos on the other side. 

Styling glasses. 

Christmas Nativity activity. We walked through and then made little Christmas tree decorations/ornaments afterward. My kids really got into it. I was pleasantly surprised. 

Chloe loves having her hair done these days and it's finally growing a bit. Someday she'll have super thick hair like her siblings, I'm sure of it, but she's taking the long road to get there. She won't let me do it curly very often but it's actually all ringlets on the bottom half of her hair if I get it wet and scrunch it. 

I swore off of paint by numbers for a while because I didn't find anymore I liked. But this one grabbed me. It's a picture of the Salt Lake temple. I've only just started, but I'm excited about it. I was planning to buy one for my living room shelves, but I like this even better. 

Thanksgiving

 It's been a lovely week, a perfect start to the holidays. We started it spray painting pinecones with Grandpa. That was really fun. 

I picked up another plant because hello, there's never enough plants in my life. Lol. 

We hosted Thanksgiving dinner this week. 14 people! I was a little nervous about everyone fitting, but it worked to perfection. We use moved our couch over to the wall and put a table there and everyone fit comfortably! It was so lovely. The food was great. The company better. 

We finished this puzzle while we were finishing up dinner prep. 

I picked up a new duvet cover for a deal. I need new pillowcases for those blue ones since they don't match with the headboard, but otherwise Bill and I continue our love of blue and gray in our new house, lol. 

I finished this very last puzzle from the box of 12 I started a few weeks ago. Bill tried to help me, but while his eyes are WAY better, they aren't quite up for the detail of a puzzle yet, or reading a standard-sized print book. The vision is coming along though. 

What do we do the Saturday after Thanksgiving? Why go cut down a tree of course! We headed up to Strawberry Reservoir and had a great time tromping around looking for the perfect tree. And we totally found it. I love it so much. We brought my Grandma along and we all had a great time. 

We decorated the tree this weekend and put up all the Christmas decorations. Chloe asked me why the second floor wasn't decorate and I replied, "Because we've never had a second floor to decorate! Guess we better start adding to our decorations. 😁 But our first floor is beautiful. 

This little tree is for our 25 days of Christ activity we do every year. It holds all the ornaments in the kit. I love this tradition. 

And the tree all lit up is just the prettiest thing ever. I love how magical it looks.

Last but not least, we stopped by Walmart this weekend for some Santa hats and an ugly Christmas sweater for the bigs' concert next week. Genevieve makes that sweater look entirely too cute. 😍 It's a size XS in women's. The sleeves are long but otherwise it fits perfectly. They're growing too fast! Spencer comes up a bit higher than my chin now and Genevieve is not far behind.