December

I love that I get regular pictures of Caden... sadly I haven't seen a single picture of Kami in MONTHS because the computer shop she emails from is "sketchy" and she is afraid of catching a virus:

December was filled with all the regular things; concerts being one of them.  Isabelle at hers, (standing beside ToniMae Hutchinson):

Pace's Kindergarten program.  Pace is the top row in a striped red sweater:

Nolan and Anni:

Lots of basketball games as Nolan and Abram both played on separate teams:

Shawn coached Abram's team:

Nolan's games were more fast-paced and because of it, I got caught up in the game and forgot to take pictures:(

The best part of December was a nativity that we made (I drew on plywood and Shawn cut out and I painted) and delivered for our neighbors and friends, the Ware family.  They spoil our family rotten and we wanted to do something nice for them, so we made and delivered one piece of a nativity per night.  They have a surveillance system so we had to be sneaky and go in disguise.  We managed to keep it a surprise the whole 12 days!:

The first days delivery: I stole these pictures from Brittany's instagram:

The final product with all of the pieces, including a light-up star:

This made Christmas for me this year!  I spent so much time thinking about and creating these pieces and the deliveries were always exciting! I'm so grateful for Shawn and that he supports me when I tackle hard and often time-consuming projects and helps me make them come out just right.  He takes on the project to, and spends lots of time helping me achieve what I am envisioning. He took the time to cut out all of the pieces as I finished drawing them and he figured out how to attach the pieces so that they would stand, and drove over to Hermiston early one Saturday morning to go to Home Depot just so that he could see what they had for a light up star... all because it was important to me!  He doesn't complain but gets excited about it with me. I love him so much for that characteristic that he has! We are a good team, because I could never pull something like this off on my own. 

This was so worthwhile!  My only regret was that I couldn't trace these big pieces onto anything and now if we ever want to do it again, or even make one for ourselves, I will have to start from scratch.

Pace got to see Santa at Kindergarten:

We also hosted a fun live nativity at our house on Christmas Eve.  But first we got to talk to Kami because it was Christmas day for her!  Boy were we excited to talk to her and see that she is doing so well!!:

We're all so excited that she will be home soon!!

This year we had Lisa Foust and her two girls, the Ware's and Casey Severe for our live nativity.:
l-r :Isabelle the narrator, Emma Ware (Mary), Abby Foust (Angel)

l-r: Abram (wiseman), Oliver Ware and Pace (Shepherds) Nolan (Shepherd) Anni (baby Jesus):

l-r: Oliver, Emma, Anni - who we got to hold still by giving her an apple to munch on) and Lexi Foust:

Emma and Anni:

I don't even know -  but in my opinion it's the best picture of the night: it reminds me of one of the Herdmans in "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever"  It looks like Pace is yelling "Unto You is born..." :

As a little side-note, Anni was our baby Jesus last year, too.  I think this was her last year in that role:

l-r: Nolan, Anni and Isabelle:

Snuggling with a couple of my girls: 

Lisa and Abby:

Christmas morning:

Beginning to load the table for our traditional Christmas breakfast:

It was really fun to watch Anni experience her first real Christmas.  We brought her presents last year, too, but she got to experience all of the traditions this year and it was really fulfilling:

We open one gift at a time and this year the kids were doing a countdown before we would all open a gift.  Every time we started the countdown Anni would get really excited and start dancing around and saying "Yay!!!!" :

A contented Christmas girl:

End of December pics:

 President Nelson challenged all the women of the church to finish the Book of Mormon before the end of the year.  I am happy to say that we all got it done.  I caught some pictures of the girls doing some last-minute cramming:

Neither one of them were happy with me for taking the pictures, hehe:

We spent New Year's Eve at mom and dads.  The big activity was supposed to be a huge bonfire with the old barn as fuel, but the wind was blowing too hard and the men worried that it would burn the power lines.  So we will do that another time.  But we still had a good time all together.

Isabelle, mom and Caleb:

Dad:

Ila, Katie and Gideon:

Lydia, Ezra, Thomas and Pace:

Thomas with Marjorie below: