December's "To-Do"'s

December is a special month. It's also the busiest month of the year. I tend to get overwhelmed by that December to-do list. Each year I try hard to not just check things off my list, but really enjoy them and to treasure the holiday season because it's over in the blink of an eye. I did better this year. It was a great month.

It started off right with Holly's first orchestra performance.


What adorable 5th graders!


Next, I got to take a little weekend trip on my own to get acquainted with my brand new niece, Viviana.


She was UBER precious. I just died over her. You can see why...


Lulu came and woke me up the next morning. She is just the sweetest.


And I loved hanging out with my buddy James back there too.


We got to celebrate Lulu's 2nd birthday too while I was there:)
And she finally got to hold Vivi which she was super excited about. (She was sick so she had to wait awhile).

So sweet! The weekend ended too fast but I had such a fun time.

To help us keep the true meaning of Christmas in mind and of course to help this family, we, along with our ward, sponsored a family coming to the US from Africa. It was a special experience that really reminded us how blessed we are and how important it is to serve others.

They were super thankful for the items we donated to them. They were coming to an empty apt and our ward provided everything they needed to live. A family in the ward even bought then 2 new bikes! They were a family of 9 so grateful to be moving into a 2 bedroom, teeny apt. It helps put things in perspective a little.


My awesome husband installed his second garbage disposal...

He gets handier every year!

Lots and lots of primary stuff happened (but it was managed a lot better than last year:)- including these gifts for the kids...


We had a lot of COLD but amazingly beautiful weather.


I found selfies on my phone that surprised me by how the kids are looking older.



Our neighborhood won ABC's "Light Fight" contest by having the coolest neighborhood lights synchronized to music. This brought everyone from AZ to our neighborhood to see "Christmas on Comstock". We felt grateful we could beat the traffic by walking there. We're so happy to live in this awesome neighborhood!