Getting in the spirit of Christmas!

Hello Elders!!

How are you doing?  We at home are doing well.  We are in the full swing of December activities.  It's a wonderful time of the year to focus our attention on the Savior and what his life means to us.  We are enjoying starting each day watching "Light the World" clips and thinking about how we can be more like him that day.  It can be easy to get distracted by so many other things, I am glad the church has come out with this program to help us to stay focused. 

A few happenings this week were:

Grandma and Grandpa left on Tuesday.  They had a nice visit but were also anxious to get home to get their mission call.  It did come and they opened it Wednesday night.  I am sure they are writing you telling you more info, so I will let you get that from them. 

The night before they left, I met them in SLC to go to the "Lower Lights" concert at Kingsbury hall at the UofU.  It's a group of about 20 musicians that get together each Christmas and put on a week of concerts. (they use to just do one concert but they have become more popular).  Uncle Josh has a few college friends in the band so he had told Grandpa about them years ago.  Grandpa and Grandma went to a concert about 5 years ago and loved it, especially Grandpa.  So one reason they stayed so long was to go to this concert.  I joined them and it was very good.  Now I want to go every year. 

Here is a picture of Grandpa enjoying the music....
Josh got Grandpa back stage passes before the show.  Grandma and him were the only guests.  Grandpa LOVED it!!

All the Findlays came too..

Lydia's school choir sang at the mall last week.  

It was good and we enjoyed a little bit of shopping and lunch with her after.  

Lydia wanted to go lunch at the German restaurant in the mall and get a Doner box.  

Gracie had fun finding "Ulm" again!   

Remember "Holly" Lydia's american girl doll?

Gracie has taken it over and carries it around the house.  

Lydia enjoyed helping Gracie one afternoon.  

Uh oh, I left Gracie for a little bit while dad was taking a shower.  When he came out she had found a Christmas present that was hidden and she looked just like this.  Ooops!!!

But that is ok, I think we can still surprise her.  She is very into Christmas and on Sunday, she wore this Christmas dress.  She was so proud to show everyone that she was "Christmas". Including telling Dad at church really loud so that it made a little bit of a scene.   She also asked if she could wear a hat with it.  I told her "no hats at church".  Kind of reminds me of someone that always dressed up like Santa every year;).  

It's a miracle!!!! NO fail on the gingerbread house this year. (remember how they failed badly last year?) We kept it to one house and went a little slower to make sure it would stay strong.  

I went out again with the "missionary moms".  Koltons, Brighams, and Jake's moms.  It was fun to visit with them.  Your missions are all so different yet so similar.  The ups and downs are normal amongst all but the overall feeling is that all of you are doing great, growing and learning so much.  

We certainly feel your absence this time of year but we are so happy you are were you are and how blessed we feel as a family because of your service.  We pray daily for you and have faith the Lord is with you while we are apart.  We love you!!!  

Finally, here is a picture of our new Christmas lights this year.  Dad has been very excited to get new LED lights.  We decided since a lot of people do the candy cane colored lights we would do "white, green and red".  After Dad got them up he stood back and looked at them and said it looks like Mexico.  So we are thinking of putting up a sign that says "Feliz Navidad" 😜

Yep we finally got a little snow this week.  Not too much but enough to make it cold.  brrrrrrrrrrr