December- before Christmas

5 months later... I am RACKING my brain on what that red stuff could be!! Lipstick?? Who knows. But nothing is safe with this guy!

Morrison Ranch Mrs. Claus party! I just took Weston and Olive because Collin was in big trouble for some reason and we decided this was a good opportunity to have him miss something that would teach him we are serious about consequences. He had a pretty magnificent tantrum. The most crying I've seen out of him in years. He hates to miss a party, but in the grand scheme of things.. this wasn't that big of a deal to miss. But to him, it FELT big, so that was the point. ANYWAY, these two enjoyed themselves! It was very crowded and the line for the amusement park ride was too long to wait in, but they did get to race each other on animal hippity hop, blow up toys, meet Mrs. Claus, "decorate" cookies (the icing was all gone) drink hot chocolate and look at lights.

Olive went straight in for the hug like they were best friends! Mrs. Claus laughed and said that was a first.

He has reached the stage of not wanting to eat! Ugh! Airplane and choo choo noises don't work either! It's so nice when he'll finally chow down.

Story time with cousins at the library! Then always feeding the ducks afterward too.

There is like three seconds of him actually dancing but it's so cute, I had to share anyway!

Two hours of dance class can be taxing.

She had her WCE (just 3 months late. It's fine.) and was begging to get a shot! I'm not kidding. I have no idea why. I didn't bribe her or really even talk about it. She was asking the MA from the very beginning when she would get her shot and kept interrupting the doctor to ask if it was finally time for her shot!! I was bewildered! 

She's chanting "shot! shot! shot! shot!" You'd think it was happy hour at the bar or something! She watched the MA give it to her and didn't flinch or anything. Where is my Olive and what did you do with her?!

Brother got a shot too!

Saddest thing... a little girl who dances at The Dance Loft, died. They had a candlelight vigil for her after class.

I wanted to give service this Christmas season. 

I wanted the kids to be involved.

I wanted to really HELP an organization that needed it.

I talked it over with the kids and sort of "guided" them to the idea of a bake sale for the Falco Children's home in Africa that I served in.

I had grand ideas of letting the kids help me make the dough and bake the cookies. All that went out the window when the rubber hit the asphalt! It was so much work on my own to bake this many cookies, I can't imagine how long it would have taken with kids helping me! 

We had our ward, Christmas party/breakfast at the park that Saturday morning. It was so foggy! It was crazy and didn't lift until almost noon! I was freezing and took Tanner home after an hour.

Luckily, by 2pm, the fog had lifted and the sun was out! I made Swig sugar cookies as well and we got all situated on the green belt in front of our house. I also made a cooler full of hot chocolate to sell.

Jenni had offered to help and when she pulled up and her passel of kids got out and started walking towards us with arms full of rice krispie treats and pumpkin loafs my eyes filled with tears!! Like a little army of do-gooders, come to save the day! I was feeling so stressed out by everything, that their support meant the world.

The kids helped take orders and attract customers by waving the posters at the end of the street. Jenni was able to stay for about an hour before heading to the next thing. I tried my hand at dancing on the street with the poster and I tell ya, it was exhausting!! I was doing high kicks and bum shakes and basically acting like a lunatic, but it seemed to work! We ended up selling at least half of the inventory, maybe 2/3 of it and got lots of generous donations too. It was too hot to sell much hot chocolate though. Besides selling bread for Joshua, this was my first big, fundraiser and it makes you feel really grateful for people who come out to support you!

We went with friends in our old ward to go see Jim Gaffigan. Laughed til we cried! "Hot pockets!"

I've been wanting to have Grandma over since we moved, so we finally got to have her over for dinner and FHE. I asked her to share the Christmas Orange story because I remember her telling it once at a Udall Christmas party when I was a kid and it stuck with me. The kids loved the story and she even brought oranges to share. We decorated rice krispie treats afterward. We sure love our Grandma Pomegranate! 

Anyone else obsessed with this potpourri?! It's my FAVORITE!! Love the colors and cozy scent! I look forward to making it every December and have a pot of it simmering all month.

Winner of kids' school Christmas crafts!

Collin had his first band concert! It was so fun to watch him in action! Travis takes him every Tuesday and Thursday morning to the school for practice. 

I have had this sugar cookie ornament on our tree since our first year in Buffalo. A girl made them for our ornament exchange party. I guess it's technically edible, but being that it's 10 years old.... not so edible anymore. It's made it through every toddler until Tanner. He took the first bite. 

Olive had her school, winter concert! The music teacher seemed to have a bit of a pop rock soul. 

Getting ready for our annual Lindblom cousin party!

I ordered Boca for dinner and made homemade gingerbread cookies to decorate as melted snowman! 

The older boys had other ideas for the cookie decorations.

Then we piled into Casey's truck and cut the big line waiting to see the lights on Comstock!

We brought the block rocker and blared fun Christmas music as we drove, dancing and singing!

Tanner was not a fan. 

Camilla and Posey invited us for another edition of Mommy and Daughter Tea Party! This time we went to Heritage Square in Phoenix and got to tour the Rosson house. There was a boutique going on too with such a cute backdrop!

The Rosson house is a 1895 Victorian home. I loooove touring old homes and imagining life back then!

Tea was at the The Bungalow next door! Oh it's fun having a girl!!!!

Camilla gave me his candle! I was dying!! The cuteness!!! 

This was Tanner's first day of nursery! He had done so well with me helping in there, but the moment I left he went bananas. SIGH. I stayed in the hall for about 5 minutes before they brought him out to me. I think the nursery leaders must be tired. Soooo, outside we went. And I got some darn cute pictures of him so I guess it wasn't a total loss.

Little turkey refuses to say Dada. He's totally capable. When we ask him to he'll either shake his head, no. Or he'll smile an impish, knowing smile and say "mama".

Craig turns 18!!! What?!

Grandma paid for us all to go to the Illumination light show in Tempe! The rest of the family met up for dinner but because of Olive's dance schedule, we just met them at the stadium. It took about 30 minutes to drive through the whole thing and it was pretty entertaining! We all hung out the windows and were dazzled by the synchronized music and light show!

Things got a little cray cray at the end when everyone started driving in circles together! I can only imagine what any passersby thought!

Us siblings got sushi at RA to celebrate Craig's 18th birthday! I put a 18, one dollar bills in 18 balloons and wrapped them up in a big present. 

Can't leave out yummy dipped cones from Creme & Chocolat next door! Park benches make good camera stands! Shelley started with a smile then gradually changed poses, lol.

Marcie and I spent an evening stuffing, addressing, licking and stamping Christmas cards for Mom and Dad! It's such a big project that is hard for mom to get to, but we couldn't let this year slide... the pictures were too beautiful!

The one and only picture I took of Elfie this year. He got into very minimal trouble this year. 

Just a mailbox.

Or is it?!!

Tanner's favorite game when we walk to get the mail! Makes me laugh!

Collin had been complaining about his foot hurting for weeks. It was during soccer season so I chalked it up to his cleats and just told him to essentially suck it up, the compassionate soul that I am. He's also our hypochondriac so he has many ailments. But this one persisted and he really seemed to be in pain. So much so, that he said he had stopped playing at recess and couldn't even participate in P.E. Ugh. I wondered if it had turned into a stress fracture or something. So we got him into a podiatrist who took x-rays and told us there were no breaks... yay! It's a common problem with his age group that I can't even remember the name of, but just requires a lot of stretching. So we bought him this boot thing that is supposed to extend his foot back to stretch out the ligaments. He should wear it for about 30 min. a day. We also bought him gel pads to go in the heel of his shoes. After a few weeks of doing that he said the pain had gone away! 

It was HYSTERICAL to watch all my children panic and shout out warnings or concern to me as I balanced on the stair handrail to hang these ornaments. They were beside themselves with fear that I was going to fall and hurt myself. It felt nice to have the tables turned for once! I think Elkie looked very festive!

It was bring your friend day at dance! 

Piper and Olive look like they're going to a school dance or something the way they're posed!

Christmas tree hair for her school party!

I volunteered to help with it and loved spending that time with her. 

As I was talking to the front desk, Olive found this book in the waiting area and thought it was so funny that it had Uncle David's name on it! Hehe! Yep, that book DEFINITELY fits Uncle David!

Since the move, dropping the boys off at the bus stop, just to drive to Ben Franklin and drop off Olive (who was 8x out of 10 sobbing because she didn't want to go), then going home for 2 1/2 hours, just to drive BACK to Ben Franklin to pick her up was wearing on me. If it was just that, I could have probably hacked it, but then I spent my afternoons picking the boys up from the bus stop and driving everyone EVERYWHERE. Dance, soccer, music, etc. I was done. Something had to change. So I moved Olive to Neely with the boys. She was so bored at home in the afternoons that I hoped going to full day Kinder might help as well. We met her new teacher, Mrs. Jensen, before the break. She seemed very nice and happy to meet Olive. 

For the Lindblom family, Christmas party, we have been practicing a dance to a remixed version of Santa Baby for the past month. There were naysayers, but we did it! We got it memorized and pulled it off!! It was SO FUN!! Like, I can't even tell you how much fun I had. My hip hoppin' heart was going to burst from joy, just during the practices. I give it up to Travis and my brothers for going along with this! We had parts where the kids could come out and break dance or add to the number and Grandma and Grandpa came out too a couple of times and once for a big smooch! We got lots of compliments and genuine praise for putting it together. We mostly copied it from a family who posts dances on YouTube, so thanks be to the Orgill family for choreographing a super fun, family dance! 

These are really blurry screenshots taken from the video but it was all I could get!

 My mom said that part of the fun being off stage was seeing the grandkids watch us with anticipation and happiness, proud of their parents, haha! 

 Jimmy and Rachelle's, little girl, Lauren (Lola) was born about a week before Tanner. Rachelle and I commiserated a lot during our pregnancies so it's crazy to see these two together so old already!