More December fun...

More December pics...Betsey keeled over in Chris' truck on the way home from a holiday party.

We got some serious stuff done on the kitchen in December, in fact...it was completely done before New Year's Day. Here is the open shelving area with the marble backsplash.

Here is my blue island with the last cabinet which had to be custom made and retrofit...twice. Just lacking some hardware.

My little buddy with is crossed ankles. I love how he always has his ankles crossed.

Gingerbread houses and cookies.

Betsey with her cute church class at church.

Tub time for Betsey and Leo.

I love the Ridgcrest Ward. I took this pic because I thought it was super funny that we had a black tablecloth next to a red and white holiday one. There are wards where they would have spent a week setting up for the Christmas meal and it would be super fancy and coordinated and look professional. Not how we roll in our ward. When I told them I was going to text this pic to my friends in the other ward, they were like, "We were so proud of ourselves for using tablecloths!" Well played, my ladies. I can hang with baked potato bar and mismatched table clothes every day of the week.

We find it difficult to find service opportunites in the community (plenty with the church) for the kids to help with. So we were able to sign up to take a meal to the homeless that eat at the local Armory in town I think they serve them like once a week there. So we made salad and collected food from other people who contributed and got to go down and serve the food. It was a good time. I took like five cute junior high boys from my neighborhood who live across the street and they were so sincere and interactive, sitting down with the people and talking about life. I seriously love that age. They are such punks and so endearing somehow. I'd venture to say that Chris hates that age. Anyway, I love it. They must have knocked on my door like five times wanting to help me assemble food and take things out to the car and carry things for me and they called me Mrs. Pierce and it was all just so much cute in contrast with their double pierced ears, mowhaks, Seahawks jerseys, skinny jeans and swagger.

Another super fun thing we found out about was going down to the Elk's Club and helping sort all the food that was collected around town at food bank donation sites. All the kids could do this and we just took shopping carts full of random food and dropped it all off in the right areas so that they can then shop for a complete meal. We went for short stints of like two hours twice and the kids loved it. They felt like they were grocery shopping and they were able to do it alone and we took friends so they would have two kids to a cart and get at it. It is a real need because otherwise it is all for these really old people to do and they claim they pull all nighters to get it all sorted in time for the holiday baskets to go out. It was neat because our local church donated 300 turkeys to accompany the canned goods. Definitely doing this again next year.

December 2014...

Composing blog posts a year late isn't ever fun. I'm sure we had a dandy Christmas. Here are the kids after we got the tree and other minimal decor up.

Penny cuddles.

The boy at the tree. It was a fun season for keeping him away, we lost some ornaments to the toy bins.

Co-op used toy gift exchange.

A winter double rainbow!

Hey, thanks for the pretty purple marker all over the white tile floor, Leo.

Alice putting her baby to bed.

This kid loves applesauce.

Betsey and Leo loving on the slide together.

Chris' co-workers always ask to have a picture of Chris with a permed mullet, but there seems there aren't any so I had to work a little photoshop magic. He's never had hair so full.

Rainbow Fish for Leo. He loves story time.

The Wilcox family came Christmas caroling to our house. It was so fun, that doesn't happen much anymore!

I love holding him while he sleeps.

Betsey was Mary in our family nativity reenactment.

Chris was thrilled to be a shepherd. We were down a few families.

Mason and Betsey and the baby and the blurred Leo.

Amanda was an angel and my mom was something too. Not gonna lie, it was another year full of laughs as the kids did this.

Ben Thomas's Funeral...

Ben Thomas has been a family friend since he was born. He is my Lyndsey's little brother, he's the same age as my Robb. He was diagnosed with ALS and it took his life slowly (and way to quickly) away over four years. I was really desperate to be with the Thomases at his funeral but how can you travel last minute during school Christmas break...that is the highest possible season. My friend Cindy offered me some buddy passes to make the trip possible, it hardly cost me anything. It was such a relief to be there and not break the bank.

The funeral was beautiful and well planned and heart felt and everything a celebration of a life should be. It was also heartbreaking and hard.

Ben had a six month old baby when he was diagnosed, she was four when he passed away.

Deb and Eric with their boy.

Lynz and her cute family with Ben.

Jena and Emmy, Ben's wife and daughter.

Matt and Charlie, Lyndsey's brothers on either side in the front.

Lyndsey is an occupational therapist and as such was able to move to Saint George and practice there with a week on and a week off schedule so she could be a huge support to Ben and his family. Her husband Brian was also very close to Ben and Ben's Emmy is like a sibling to Lynz's kids.

Lyndsey's Lily and Emmy.

Deb with three of her grandkids.

Lynz, Layne, Matt, Charlie and Katelyn. Ben is the fourth of six kids.

One of the days I was there we went walking around at a pretty place that I have no memory of what it was called, but Saint George is a gorgeous area with beautiful places like this.

Ben will be sorely missed all the days of life left to anyone who loves him.