The kids went back to school after Christmas break on January 9th but had a snow day the next day. They went back to school the next two days, but after another major snow storm, church was canceled that weekend. It was a 3 day weekend thanks to Martin Luther King, so they went back to school on Tuesday only to have another snowstorm cancel school for 2 more days. Temperatures rose quickly after that and the snow has mostly melted. But we got almost 18 inches of snow which is a lot for Boise! And the kids thoroughly enjoyed their snow days.

On the day of the big snowstorm we acquired a new member of the family when a friend offered us a free, runt of the litter baby bunny. Snowball (yes, Wilbur was voted down) is as small as the lego bunny Libby got for Christmas! He’s super cuddly and we are going to try having an indoor bunny and see if it works out. He’ll be allowed in only a few rooms of the house and if he starts to stink things up, outside he goes. Amber, our old bunny is still with us, but probably wont’ be for long. She’s pretty old. So far Snowball has been a breeze to potty train. Keep your fingers crossed. 

Levi’s choir has been preparing for a big performance at a music teacher’s conference in Spokane but all the snow days were cutting down on their practices. So the kids organized a snow day practice at someone’s home, which I think is pretty dedicated. When he came home from that rehearsal he found this on our doorstep:

This is how he answered her:

This boy is really enjoying high school life. Someone took this picture of him at a basketball game for their Be Real:

Liberty had her Winter ballet recital this weekend. It’s really fun to watch her on stage and see how far she’s come. She is thoroughly enjoying pointe. I thought I recorded her dance, but ended up only getting the bow. :-(

For my birthday dinner Rock (and Libby) made homemade gnocchi with pesto-my favorite Italian food and a delicious and beautiful peanut butter chocolate cheesecake.

Cade is settling into mission life, though it’s pretty chaotic when you are the district Monkey; the companion of the district leader. He’s learning a lot at a fast pace and is doing really well. 

He described his experience so far (and all of life, I think) perfectly in a letter: “The work has been slow, a lot, amazing, boring, tiring, beautiful, miraculous, etc. Its going to be a long, short two years.” ALL of life is that way, isn’t it?

Reagan had some adventures getting home this year for Christmas. He bought an overnight bus ticket which would have been perfect-get on and sleep the whole way and arrive in the morning. However, he missed his bus coming up, had to stay the night in the airport and then rode the day bus home the next day. We are grateful we got to have him home for a week!

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve we made Rock’s yummy pizza stone pizza. Reagan hadn’t experienced it yet and it is our new favorite meal to make! The kids raced to see who could get theirs done the fastest. I think Libby won.

This year the new book we opened at Christmas time was actually the Christmas Eve book. I’m sad Cade had to miss it because he would have loved it. There was only one book that my kids would have been ok reading instead of our traditional Twas the Night Before Christmas, and this was it. 

Christmas Morning

Reagan made sure everyone got legos to put together that day.

I can’t believe I somehow missed photographing the building process picture this year, but here are the finished products…

My favorite gift that I gave this year was this cross stitch for Allie and Cam. Allie made one for Rock and I our first Christmas and I’ve waited a long time to make one for Allie. 

We had dinner that evening with my extended family and that was Christmas Day.

Reagan had more bad luck when he tried to go home after Christmas. When he showed up at the bus stop at 11:00 PM, to head home for a friend’s wedding the next day, he found out his night bus had been canceled. He then had to figure out a way to get back to Utah before 11 the next morning. He ended up buying a plane ticket and got to Utah just in time. This meant that I got to get up at 4:30 in the morning for the 2nd time in 2 weeks to take one of my boys to the airport to catch a plane. 

For New Years Eve this year we had our standard finger food night. The highlight was cheese fondue and apples, surprisingly enough. After dinner we put together a mystery puzzle. You have to solve the puzzle and then the puzzle morphs into something else crazy and cool. We spent 5 hours on it in total but didn’t actually finish until the next morning. 

And that-was 2023!

Levi turned 16 and tried to get his license and his first date on the same day. Neither worked out, but he was able to do both very soon after his birthday. 

For his birthday he got a bike rack to put on the car so he can do what he’s always dreamed of doing-drive himself to the foothills and bike.

Liberty sang in a duet for her Christmas concert this year. She and her good friend did a great job!!!

Libby also had a piano recital, but the video I took was terrible so I will just have to tell you that she did an awesome job playing Charlie Brown’s Christmas theme song and she got the loudest and most vociferous applause. A neighbor told me she stole the show. 

Liberty’s closest friends are two sisters; one just younger than Libby and one just older. They come from a large family with lots of younger siblings. Libby has become like a member of their family and the littles in the family adore her. I’m so grateful for this sweet family that has given Libby sisters and little siblings. They had us over to decorate gingerbread houses this year and here are the results.

On Christmas Eve, Levi and his good friend dressed almost identically for church. It was not planned, but I wanted to show that these two cross country stars clean up nice. Levi can’t resist the GQ look these days.

We started off December with an early Christmas for Cade since he would be leaving on the 13th. Christmas is not all that exciting when you are leaving on a mission-all you get is mission stuff, but we tried to make it as exciting as we could. Here he is wearing or holding every gift he got: a Moroni tie, a Moroni tie pin, a mountain tie clip, snazzy heated gloves, a mission bag, Moroni socks and stripling warrior socks, a framed picture of his family, a mission cookbook with all his favorite recipes and tickets to see Gentri in concert a few days later. (It was an Awesome concert!)

A few days later the MTC sent him a Christmas present in the mail…

On the 10th, Cade was set apart as a missionary. 

That night he needed to run his suit coat over to a seamstress for a quick fix. He took his companion, Elder Hymas, with him….

On the 11th he began his one day of at home MTC. 

On the 13th, we got up nice and early and dropped this handsome, talented, faithful, stalwart young man off at the Boise airport for his flight to the real MTC in Provo.

He found five other missionaries getting on the same flight and they all bonded before take off. A few hours later, he landed in Salt Lake where Allie picked him up and took him to breakfast with Reagan before dropping him off at the MTC.

We talked to him on his P-day a few days later and he was LOVING the MTC. He loves his district, his companion, the spirit, all of it. I was so relieved! On Christmas Eve he sent us a picture of what he got for his Christmas Eve gift this year…

Santa sent him his stocking and his Christmas cereal as well. Elder Cook came an spoke to the missionaries that day and Cade sent us a picture of who he got to sing with at one of the many concerts/devotionals he got to go to on Christmas.

We get to Zoom with Cade every week and that is really nice, I gotta say. His aunt took pity on him and made him some of her Christmas truffles, sent them home to Utah with Allie in a cooler, and then Allie found a company that delivers daily to the MTC, so he got a little late Christmas joy from home. He has had an amazing experience at the MTC and will fly out to Colorado on Friday, Jan. 5th. That’s when the rubber really meets the road. Can’t wait to see what awaits him in the mission field!