December

We finally have a ward building!! No more driving 15 min. to church in Mesa! Hooray! And we got to be the first ward to meet in it at 8am. I feel bad even saying this since we are very grateful for a new building, but it's a bit odd how small it is. And they are adding stake offices onto the back so that it will serve as our stake center. Four wards meet here at 8am, 9:30am, 11am, and 12:30am. 

The boys usually walk home with their friends and I think they look forward to that more than anything else. Maybe once we don't have 8am church, I'll be better about walking with them!

I taught Sunday School on the first day and had to document my fresh, new chalkboard! 

The kids had fun decorating their tree in the piano room. Although, Collin gets indignant when he hears me call the other one the "pretty" tree and this one the "homemade" tree, haha. I guess he finds it insulting to his school made ornaments. Maybe I need to figure out different names for them!

We went to the Gilbert Giving Machine for the first time after church and loved it. So cool to see a physical representation of a donation and know exactly what it is used for. The kids all helped decide which things we wanted to give and then Travis added a few more things. It was also a humbling reminder of how blessed we are to be giving these things instead of needing them.

Morrison Ranch Mrs. Claus party!

 We got there early to beat some of the lines this time, but still got stuck in a very long line to meet Mrs. Clause. That lady needs to cut the chit chat, haha. We got hot chocolate, decorated cookies and saw lots of pretty lights!

Travis's hygienist, Staci, got us tickets for the Millenial Choir Christmas concert that I guess is hard to get tickets to. We had awesome seats just a few rows from the front and all the hype was true! It was a beautiful concert. The different age groups would sometimes filter in on the balconies and all around us and created a cool "surround sound" effect. We were able to pick out a few people we knew like Shawn Monahan and his son, Clayton. It would be so awesome to have your kids participate in. Maybe Olive one day!

We got the privilege of watching baby Cohen one morning while Abbey went to an appointment! It was so fun having a baby in the house! Tanner was insistent on holding him. I'm convinced that being an aunt is way more fun than being a mom, haha!

The kids' reactions to Travis getting a new truck! They had no idea. Collin's comment, "Now we're like Casey's family!!" had us laughing our heads off. 

I don't even know how to caption this. It's adorable. But dirty. And why??

Went to a boutique and bought some bows for Olive, then thought, why not make these myself?! I just used some fabric I had and I was pretty proud of myself for figuring it out without a tutorial!

And for some reason my closet is always a disaster, but who knows why?! I don't even care for cute faces like this!

Travis is finally ready to bite the bullet and buy a new truck! But that means saying goodbye to Ol' Dirtay. He decided to give it to one of his receptionists who is a single mom and needs a car for her son. The night he deep cleaned it and got it all ready to go, was kind of a sad moment, really. I remember the day he bought the Nissan Pathfinder. We were dating and I remember getting in it for the first time in his driveway and being so excited for him to have a new car. Well, new to him. We drove away from our wedding reception in it. It went across the country with us to dental school and we personally drove it back across the country together when we were done. We brought 2 babies home in that car and went on lots of east coast trips, semi-protected in it, haha. We'll never forget heading out on the freeway to Boston, when it suddenly started rocking back and forth once we got above 65mph or something. I freaked. I wanted to turn around and scrap the trip, but Travis just calmed me down and kept the speed just right. And somehow, we made it to Boston. We hadn't named it till the end of dental school, when after 4 years in snow and mud and road salt, it never seemed to stay clean. That's when we affectionately started calling it ol' Dirtay... from the movie Joe Dirt. We were never in a car accident in trusty (or should I say RUSTY) ol' Dirtay. Although, there was that time Travis slid into a curb on an icy day and busted a wheel in Farmington. One Valentine's Day I decorated it while he was in school and left kiss marks on the rearview mirror. He never cleaned them off. Such a romantic. We got so used to them being there, it caught us off guard when a confused babysitter or kid from the ward asked what was on the mirror. My mom always names her cars and feels sentimental about them. I get it now. This car was like a member of the family. A rather tired, unkempt one, but we loved it just the same. 

Our last, little Evans Family Dental Christmas office party! The last time I bake bread for everybody. It will be interesting to see what we figure out for next year! I liked our little gathering at Cheesecake Factory.

Camilla had the idea to go to a traveling exhibit in Scottsdale called Candytopia! Where everything is made out of sugar. It's the closest thing to Willy Wonka's factory we'll ever get, and don't pretend like you didn't wish to bite into a buttercup like that girl in the movie! 

Travis posing on this spinny platform was definitely the funniest part of the night! I was cracking up!

At the very end was a foam ball "marshmallow pit" that they wouldn't let us jump into. Lame! So I just suffocated Travis instead. ;)

Craig went through the temple! I happened to look over and see his face at a few different points in the session and he seemed very mature and thoughtful about it all. It was really nice being there with almost our whole family. 

Rusty Taco afterward!

Ohhh yeahhh, and Travis finally came home with his new truck the day before! It's supa fancy and barely fits in the garage! I'm so happy for him! Just don't ask me to drive it!! I'm scared to death of it and how little depth perception I have while in it.

Who needs cousins when Uncle Reddin is an awesome playground!

Evans family Christmas party. We had soups and salad and the kids played a Christmas Bingo game, but there really wasn't a program this year. 

I volunteered in Olive's classroom one morning and have to gush again about her teacher. 

She's magic in the form of a human. I'm SO grateful Olive was blessed to have her this year!

Funny girl had to show me an inappropriate picture she found! Her face is what kills me!

Collin had his band concert at Highland Park Elementary School. Now they teach band during school instead of before or after school, so they have tons more students and didn't fit in Neely's smaller cafeteria. He never practices at home, which is frustrating, but he seems to be slowly progressing.

Play date with his favorite cousins!!

I got my eyebrows microbladed by a new girl who did a much better job than the first girl I tried! This time I didn't feel like I was being murdered. She actually numbed me and the whole experience was 1,000 better. Thank you, Chandler!

Elfie didn't make very many appearances, but I feel like he was pretty funny for the times he did come. 

I helped Camilla with her December Kids for Kindness project which turned out to be a lot more work than I anticipated. Buying, measuring and cutting dozens of fleece scarves for the kids to tie.

For our annual Christmas tea party date we got lunch beforehand and let the girls enjoy a more "kid friendly" tea party with Anna!

Ruth asked me to do her hair for her winter formal. So fun! She's got awesome, thick hair.

The Hatch Christmas party was relocated from the normal Thornhill house to Donna's house out in Queen Creek. They had a huge backyard with a tramp and animals in neighboring yards and the kids had a ball. Tanner was pretty glued to the lawn mower.

I can't believe I didn't take any pictures of the piano recital! Collin is actually taking to piano this time around which is fun to see! They both really like their teacher, Annie.

Kristen's girls were doing a babysitting fundraiser and I was more than happy to sign up for that cause!

It almost didn't happen this year, but thanks to Marcie rallying the troops, we put together a family dance for the Lindblom Christmas party! Lots of practicing.

Mom and Dad participated in the actual dance part which was fun, but we were bummed to not have Craig make it in time. And that Dad claimed his Christmas jammies were too small and refused to wear them, ha. One thing is for sure, the grandkids really love this tradition!

I organized and put on Weston's class party this year since there isn't a room mom and his teacher doesn't seem to know how. I wish I had taken a picture! Then, I helped out with Collin's party afterward. Which just means I picked up all the Little Caesars pizzas, haha.

Kristen Arnett recommended this book to me and I found it to be really enlightening. I think it would benefit all members of the church to read. We have a very different dynamic right now in the church with many going through a faith crises. Being sensitive to their struggles and learning to love without judgement and listen without trying to change their mind goes a long way.

Hustling out the door to 8am church, running late, and then hearing a scratching noise in the garage made my heart sink. I knew exactly what that noise was! A mouse was trapped in our garbage can, jumping to try and get out. Ahhhhh!!! The boys were IN LOVE!! I was hysterical! They wanted to keep it as a pet! I made them run it out to the fields and let it loose. Quite a lot of excitement for one morning!

Christmas Sunday pictures. I was appalled that the boys didn't have red ties!! Who is their mother?!

Christmas was sneaking up so fast on us and we were running out of weekend nights so we stayed home from Grandma's house the Sunday before Christmas and had some quality family time decorating gingerbread houses!

And driving around the neighborhood looking at house lights!

And drinking hot chocolate watching A Christmas Story. 

It was perfect and exactly what I needed.

We had the Monahans over for our Grinch dinner! It's been a couple of years since I've done this, but I felt like I was actually a bit less stressed than I have been in the past so it was worth trying it again.

**Side note: I think the reason I've been less stressed is I gave up making dinner last month. It's a long story, but I sort of hit bottom and knew something had to give. I couldn't do all the things anymore and kids complaining and being ungrateful for yummy food I'd spent hours planning for, shopping for and cooking, was driving me batty. So I gave up. I told them I wasn't making dinner anymore and they were on their own. Collin was especially sad and tearfully apologized many times and begged me to cook again. I felt bad and almost gave in, but knew I needed this. Of course, I still had to shop and fill the cupboards with food, but not having to meal plan, prep, cook and clean up all by myself was so liberating, I can't even tell you. It was so flipping amazing to look at the clock at 4pm and know I didn't have to start dinner. Obviously, I still had to feed Tanner and occasionally helped Olive too, but the kids mostly ate nachos, quesadillas, cereal, Malt-o-meal or whatever they could figure out. I didn't give a dang what they ate. It lasted about two months, until the end of December. I knew it had run its course when one night I was getting after Weston because he hadn't eaten dinner yet and it was nearly bedtime and he asked if I could help him make a salad. A SALAD. A 9 year old boy was asking for a salad. I had to embarrassingly admit to him that we didn't even have anything in the fridge to make a salad with. We was crestfallen and went back to the kitchen to figure something else out. Then a few minutes later he was by my side with another idea. "Can you make me a fruit smoothie... you know, the kind where you put lots of spinach in it?" Oh my gosh, the poor child!! His body was just begging for nutrients! I felt terrible. And thankfully, had frozen spinach and fruit to make him a smoothie. As for me and Trav, I ended up ordering fresh, homemade meals delivered to our door that we just had to microwave, from a company called Freshly. I think this will be a new tradition I employ from Thanksgiving until Jan. 1 every year!

The Grinch punch is a crowd favorite! Just pour Sprite in a bowl and add scoops of sherbet!

Our Christmas card turned out really funny! I had seen an old fashioned family picture like this online that was made into a meme which gave me the idea to do our Christmas card like it! We hadn't taken a new family picture this year that I could use for a card so this was perfect! I bought all our clothes on Amazon and hung up a black backdrop in our kitchen, so I could use the window as our lighting. It was all so ghetto if you could have seen the set up. I love that the kids and Travis were on board. Obviously, the kids didn't really understand but I think they saw it as a "dress up" opportunity and had no arguments! I took the kids' picture, then I got Travis situated and the camera settings just right, then had Collin take over and snap the picture. This took many tries but I finally got a picture I could work with! I'm no expert on Photoshop, but with some pointers from Megan and lots of time, I was really proud of the finished product! 

At first I was going to just send out the picture, but couldn't come up with a witty tagline, so I ended up writing this and I'm so glad I did! I don't know where the ideas came from, but they just started flowing. I got text messages and comments from friends and family all month about how much they loved the card. Best card they'd ever gotten... going to keep it forever... hysterical... creative. I'm sure my head grew three sizes in December, haha! But admittedly, it already had me anxious about next year! I set the bar pretty high. I don't know if I could ever top this!

Being cliche with my letter board is my jam!

For the Evans nativity, Olive and Tanner were given the roles of Mary and Joseph! You can imagine how thrilled Olive was. And Tanner? Well, he was a hoot. He crawled in on all fours like the donkey. Then wouldn't cooperate unless Travis kept a steady stream of candy in his mouth. Finally, he kept trying to climb into the "manger" box while Olive held the baby doll. Everyone was giggling and he was so darn cute. 

We love our Christmas jammies from Grandma!

I ran a little behind this year on wrapping presents but I still got it all done before Christmas Eve. The tree, the nativity set, the soft glow of lights. I always love this scene, heading to bed. 

We had to wake sleepy Tanner up around 7:30am to begin. He first opened up his toy lawn mower and it was over from there! He wanted nothing to do with any other presents. I knew he'd love it and I wasn't disappointed. After all the other kids had opened all their presents, we basically had to force him to unwrap his other gifts!

The boys' big surprise was a trip to Universal Studios to see Harry Potter World! The part I should have made more clear, was that they were going to get to ride on an airplane. A week or two later when they realized that, I got an even bigger reaction than on Christmas morning. They literally jumped up and down ecstatically, shouting and squealing. 

Olive got a faux American Girl Doll. She has no idea the difference, but our wallet does! Thank you, Target. 

The final, big, family gift was a ping pong/air hockey table, but I ordered it too late, so it won't actually get here til next week. After they read the paper, Olive indignantly exclaimed, "I DON'T CARE ABOUT THAT!" I had to laugh. She definitely got the short end of the stick this year.

Ear phones, watch, sketch book and colored pencils, Legos, Plus Plus and an illustrated copy of Percy Jackson, The Lightening Thief.

A football, army men, ear phones, watch, Mr. Poppins Penguins book, Plus Plus and Harry Potter World.

Madeline, sketch book and crayons, Plus Plus, a new dress, doll with extra clothes, and a watch!

Tanner loves garbage trucks, tools, lawn mowers, Paw Patrol and having someone throw a ball for him to hit, so that's what he got!

He got hurt outside and even while being consoled, he wouldn't let go of his lawn mower!! Ha!

Christmas tree hair!

With my parents house still under construction, we hosted the Lindblom family get together and brunch. My dad showed up a little early to get started on the sausage gravy and biscuits. Amazingly we got the house cleaned up and ready for everyone to start showing up by 11am. 

Marcie made some danishes which were amazing. We had delicious food and managed to take a family picture and do the cousin gift exchange all in a couple of hours in time for the Goodmans to leave. They are always the first to go. Then Jefferson and his girlfriend, Aarica left and David and Abbey not long after. Thankfully, Marcie's family and my parents stuck around and we had a great afternoon visiting and snacking and just relaxing. Eventually, David and Abbey came back, haha! Oh, and Grandma came for brunch too, which was nice to have her. 

We eventually headed to the Evans around 6pm for that cousin gift exchange and the adult white elephant game. Grandma crocheted foxes for the kids this year which is always a high anticipated surprise! It was another beautiful Christmas full of good health, delicious food, more gifts than we deserve and loving family. I don't take these moments for granted. We are blessed beyond imagination.  

The week between Christmas and New Years is always a little indulgent. Too much too eat. Lots of wasted time. Just sort of in limbo before all the resolutions start! We had lots of rain, but managed to get out on a long, family bike ride around our neighborhood one afternoon.

We tried out a new park nearby and a friendly game of throwing the football around, ended with Tanner getting a ball right to his face! And I got it on video!! Oh, the poor boy, he was pretty hysterical. No doubt, it really hurt. Then, literally 15 seconds after calming him down and returning to the football, Travis threw it to Weston, who wasn't paying attention and got it to HIS face! This time, blood was spurting and there was no recovering from this one. Thankfully, I had a package of baby wipes in my bike basket. Poor Weston! He always seems to be the one to get hurt. Then the rain started coming down again and we had to hightail it home. Thats family time for ya!

A "before" shot of my kitchen! One of my Christmas gifts from Travis was money to put in backsplash! Hooray! It's all I wanted. I didn't think it would get done so soon, but Fred Ashby stopped by to get a key for the office and Travis asked him about the tilers they have been using at the office and Fred sent them our way the next morning! There's a whole story to that I'll tell later.

At the bank, to sign papers for the new business! Olive insisted on bringing her dolly.

Quin and Travis met over a year ago at a dental skeet shooting competition and started chatting because Quin's parents are temple presidents right now in Madrid, Spain, where Travis served his mission. Turns out, Quin was practicing 1/2 mile away from Travis and they both got talking about how they'd like to eventually not practice alone. Travis didn't really think it would amount to much, but very long story short. Here we are. We definitely feel guided to Quin and blessed by this partnership. We weren't even necessarily praying or gunning for this to happen, because Travis's lease wasn't going to be up for a year, but now recognize what a tender mercy that was for God to just drop in our laps. The building where Travis is currently practicing is very small and the parking lot is terrible. He knew he wanted to find a new place soon. Dr. Kevin Cook was looking to retire and his office is between Travis and Quins. After they each met with Kevin, he agreed to sell to them. So they are each bringing their own practices to Kevin's office and buying him out. Kevin will continue to work for them for 6 months to a year. We went out to dinner with Quin and his wife, Joy, a few months ago to get to know each other and I instantly liked them. I feel like a pretty good judge of character and I trusted Quin almost immediately. He has integrity, strong work ethics and is just plain a good person. I'm so grateful for the way Heavenly Father brought our families together. As it pertains to buying Dr. Cook's office as well, Travis felt very guided to him. Everything seemed and felt RIGHT. Of course, there are always challenges and hurdles to clear, and lawyers seem to always be in the way, but it comes with the territory. Dr. Cook's office was very outdated and so they've been in the middle of major renovations these past couple months with lots of decisions to make. But we're very excited for the future!

I started a tradition after we moved back to Arizona, to have Shelley's family over for in December for dinner and gingerbread cookie decorating, but this year, every weekend was just slammed. Casey's father, Randy, passed away a couple weeks ago and so there was a lot involved with that. So even though Christmas had passed, we persevered! And I'm so glad we did. We drove around looking at Christmas lights with hot chocolate and had a great time!

I think I'm so funny, hehe. My mom gets credit for coming up with Deleware though.

Another family outing... this time biking around Tempe Town Lake!

I don't even know what Tanner was mad about, but his pouting faces were cracking me up!

New Years Eve!

With no parents house to go to, we improvised again, this time at the Goodmans! It was a blast! We did homemade sushi, had fun with fireworks in the street, and of course... danced, danced, DANCED!! We missed Jefferson, but loved having Craig bring his girlfriend, Camille for the first part!

I made a huge batch of Paula's famous caramel corn and a batch of toffee for good measure. Marcie made cookies. The caffeinated pop was flowing and the sugar was plentiful! 

My dad brought his legit sound system from work and at midnight we blasted the tunes for all to hear! Then someone had the idea to dance in the street when a car approached to get it to stop. The ulitmate goal: have them get out and dance with us! It. was. HYSTERICAL!!! Even my mom joined in on the last car! Go, mom! The first car had teenagers in it and they looked like terrified statues, staring straight ahead like they were in a military ambush about to be killed. In another car, the guy driver looked super annoyed, but the girl in the passenger seat was nearly hanging out the window, animated face, eating it all up like it was the best thing she had ever seen. Sadly, we didn't get anyone to dance with us, but I think we started a new tradition!! It goes without saying, I was having the time of my life!! Another epic Lindblom New Year's Eve party in the books! Welcome, 2020!