Christmas again! December 2014

Christmas time again!

The ward Christmas party with Santa is always a hit!

 One of our favorite things to watch every year, and the reason Sophie and Raegan were never home--the Choraliers!  They performed almost daily through December and their Christmas concert was great.  They travel around one Sunday and perform at all the churches and I cried listening to their beautiful songs about the Savior sung so perfectly.  How great that 80 kids are learning songs to celebrate Him at Christmas time.

We loved watching Alivia in her Strings Winter Concert

 Christmas eve! We were excited to have Romney home and to be ALL together as a family again.  We decided to go all out and have Christmas eve lunch at Arctic Circle--chosen by Hartman for the corn dogs and approved by Brent and I for the coupons we had in the car...plus, that fry sauce!

 The kids wanted to dress up to read the Christmas story this year, and Raegan thought she did a pretty good job being a fancy wiseman.  She's legit alright.

Landrie and Sophie as the choir of angels

Shepherd and tired sheep...

Joseph and Mary of course

 And Christmas morning! Always a miracle...

 These stockings were saved for last...each had a lanyard inside with a letter.  The letters spelled MIRACLE.  The Carnival Miracle!  Leaving in February for our last family vacation ALL together!  There was hugging, screaming, disbelief...we can't WAIT!

We tried to recreate the stair picture from last year, but Hartman had had a fever for two days, and Christmas was the third.  He just wasn't himself until that motrin kicked in...poor boy!

Landrie's favorite gift.  She's been practicing non-stop.

 We headed to Utah the day after Thanksgiving to see the family and the lights at Temple Square.  Hartman wanted a bow tie for Christmas, and it arrived the day after, as we were getting in the car for our drive East.  He put it on and was thrilled to notice that Joseph Smith has a bow tie too!

 We stayed at the JS Building for a while waiting for the Bocs who met us downtown.  It was so fun to see them and Graham in his awesome police uniform and spend some time catching up. We didn't take a picture all together, or of the awesome party that Shafer and Lindsey put on the next night at their house.  We loved seeing everyone.  A very Merry Christmas it was.

Raegan and Sophie stayed home so as not to miss a stake New Years Dance. We missed them!

The Boy is FIVE

 It just warms my heart to see how much Hartman wants to be like his dad.  He tries every day to look like him, and Sundays are his big chance to match exactly.  I had to snap this photo because he was so carefully watching everything Brent was doing after his meetings and copied him.  Brent set his suit coat on the chair, Hartman took his off and put it next to Brent's.  Brent sat and ate chips and queso, do Hartman did the same (after making sure his hair and tie looked identical).  Presh.

 Brent doesn't usually paint his face green, but ever since Hartman dressed up as the Hulk for Halloween a couple of years ago, he likes to have his face like this every once in a while.  When you know you look this impressive, you can do anything.

 Even nap.

 Hartman could not WAIT for his birthday to come.  He wanted tiny legos like the cousins have, and a Spiderman watch.  He didn't take it off for weeks.

And he wanted to go to dinner with ONLY me and Brent, just like Landrie did.  He chose McD's.  He's such a sweetie cutie boy (that's still what I say to him), and he's in preschool 4 days a week with two very sweet teachers, Mrs. Ames and Mrs. Tate.  They think he's awesome.  Half his class is from Spanish-speaking families, so he has learned to count to 20 in Spanish and his best friends are Edgar, Oscar, Emiliano, and Estevan.  He's the best!  I can't believe my baby is five.

Brooke and Chris, the ex-husband, and Svetlana

Photo credit to Brooke's son who loved being the photog

It was so fun to have Brooke and Chris Zollinger stop by our house one afternoon on their way back to Utah from California.  We had lunch and a great visit, and it was great to catch up for a bit.  Brooke has the exact same Honda van that we have--same interior and everything.  As they drove away, Hartman said, "Why are you letting them take our car?"  We really love them that much!

 I snapped a picture without Brent knowing...we were invited to a birthday party before a baptism later that day of a great lady and her three daughters who live in our ward.  They have bonded with us, and asked Brent to baptize all of them. (They were the ones at our house for a lesson the night Raegan was in her car accident). This is their dad/ex-husband who lives in Spring Creek, and who did NOT like the idea of some other guy baptizing his kids, even though he's not a member of the church.  He ended up cornering Brent at McDonalds to have a nice long discussion about the gospel and the priesthood, and was finally okay with Brent performing the ordinance.  I was proud of Brent for explaining our beliefs and the importance of baptism to this guy.  He's planning on being baptized as well sometime in the future.  And I didn't even get a picture of Amber and her girls!  I'll have to...they're great and SO excited about the church!

This is another amazing lady on her baptism day. Her name is Svetlana and she's from, you guessed it, Russia.  She's the greatest!  The Sisters in our ward met her on our street at a friend's house but were disappointed that she lived in a neighboring ward.  They still got permission to teach her, and asked me to go along.  I could tell from that very first lesson that she was golden.  Her husband is not thrilled, but she is strong.  She really is thrilled, this is just the biggest a russian smiles I think.  I had to send this picture to our dear Sister Purcell who found her and taught that first lesson so she could see what came from her labors.  I've loved seeing Svetlana at church and activities and her baptism was a spiritual experience.  The church is growing in Elko!

October 2014

We went to Utah for Halloween and the Geertsen Party.  Such great times!  Romney and Parker met us in Provo and all the kids (about 30 cousins!) went trick-or-treating together.  We also went to Cade and Ashley's for some family photos.  They were so nice to be our photographers.

 I had to put them all here so I could look at them again.  Thanks so much, Cash!

 Scarlett and Hartman could hardly wait for the big day. Hartman could not bear to take off the Spidey mask, even for a nap.

 The Geertsens know how to rock a party, that's for sure!  Look at that decor...

Brent and I just started to teach the Domestic Violence classes in Elko to the men sentenced for DV.  That was our inspiration for our costumes...

We had a few things to get at Ikea for Brent's new office, so we took advantage of the eat-for-free once again.  With Parker there, plus the nine of us, we were able to consume a LOT of food.  It was a fun weekend all together.