New Years Eve

We typically trade-off which family we celebrate New Years with (mostly because New Years Eve is actually Amy's birthday). This year was a Walker year. When we made plans in the beginning of the month, we planned to get together for a Family Christmas Party, and then stagger our trips to Wyoming because there isn't really space to house everyone yet. But when it got a little closer, we knew that we would be so SO sad not to celebrate New Years with the Haderlies so we called Jenna and started making a case for why they should come back for NYE (including bribes). They jumped on board and it made it SO fun! 

We did a countdown with 6 different activities for the kids to do through the afternoon/evening. Some of the things were bigger and some were smaller. It was simple but the perfect way to celebrate the last day of 2024. 

We started with an outdoor scavenger hunt that Lydia put together while waiting for the Haderlies to arrive. She had lots of things to them to find and do and it took them all over: the fields, the corrals, the shop, the underpass. 





Austin got a radio-flying airplane for Christmas and he was SO excited to try it out. We were so impressed with him and his flying skills. It was a stretch of a gift this year, but he loves it so much - it is perfect for him. 


We ate dinner, talked about favorite things from the past year (we made a little book of highlights), and talked about things we were excited for in the upcoming year. 


We had a Glow-Stick Dance Party and danced the macarena (a Walker tradition) and ended with watching the "ball drop/fireworks" in Australia or something while shooting off confetti and putting the kids to bed by 8. Ha. We did let the big kids stay up until about 10, when we did the same thing with the live ball drop in NYC. Jenna, Kevin, and I ended up staying all the way up until midnight for our midnight kiss and then straight to bed. 

Why do I have no pictures of my parents? I have no idea! They were there every step of the way cheering us on and celebrating with us. We love this little home and I love that my kids are now experiencing this as their grandparents house, just like I experienced it as a child. 

We are so grateful for the blessings of the past year and are looking forward to 2025. Happy, Happy, New Year! 

December Wrap Up

Right after Thanksgiving Shantel got a call one night from Nathan about his sewing project for this sewing class. He was headed back to Logan (Yay USU!), but had some questions. After talking for a few minutes Shantel invited him over and next thing they spent hours with him working on this project and Shantel teaching him/giving him some advice and instructions. You could tell Shantel just loved it and I think they both had a good time chatting while he worked. We are grateful to have a good relationship with the Rencher's kids. 

Lydia had a couple of friends over this month to play/work on some cooking projects. One day was Alli Milward and they made cookies. Then a week or two later Jaiden came over and Lydia and her made a dish designed to look like spaghetti and meatballs, but that was actually made of cookie. 

You have spaghetti and meatballs, peas and garlic toast all made out of dessert items. I came home and tried it and they had so much fun. 

After Christmas, we spent the whole week hanging out, playing games, and being together. 

Shantel took Lydia and Austin Ice Skaiting. 

The kids played with all their new toys. 

We had the Peaden Family over for 3 days in a row. We played games, ate delicious food, and watched some movies. First we watched the second Lord of the Rings movie. The next night we made everyone watch While you Were Sleeping with us because we firmly believe that this movie should be watched every year between Christmas and New Years. 

Christmas

"It's Christmas! It's Christmas!" We hear our kids voices bursting through the door and soon feel their bodies jumping up and down on our bed. We are already awake and have quietly gotten up to put in contacts and brush our hair, sneaking back into bed to be "woken up" by the excitement of of children. We take a few minutes to snuggle, read a Christmas book, and say a prayer before the bustle of Christmas Morning starts. Then it's pictures on the stairs with Mom while David goes downstairs to turn on the tree and start some Christmas music.

This may just be the perfect start to Christmas Morning. 

We knew that Christmas would be different this year and that it might be hard in a lot of ways. But, as if Sue was sending her magic and her love from heaven, it didn't feel heavy or even bittersweet. It just felt full. Full of love. Full of family. Full of kindness, generosity, and surprises. It felt full of the true meaning of Christmas - and that was a gift in of itself. 

Stockings were filled to the brim with treats and treasures! Then it was time to distribute gifts. This year our Secret Christmas Names are all things that Sue loved around Christmas: Sugar Cookie, Secret Christmas Name, Pinyon Pine Tree, Chocolate Crème Cookie, Beautiful Bow, Holiday Inn, Sees Candy, Potato Supreme, Cheese Chip Cupcake, Dickens Village, Christmas Roll. 

Some of the kids predictions were right: Lucy was beautiful bow like she thought. Caleb was confident that he was potato supreme (he was), and Austin wanted to be "See's Candy" SO badly and he wanted it to BE See's Candy - which necessitated a last minute See's trip to grab one of the last remaining boxes of Mint Chocolate Chip Truffles. It was worth it to see his face light up! 

We threw them for a loop though, because we also added secret Christmas names for Bruce, Amy, and Kevin! This was a fun Christmas surprise, Cal gave us the money to buy Christmas gifts for the three siblings to make sure that they had a magical Christmas morning, too. Amy- Holiday Inn, Bruce- Pinyon Pine Tree, Kevin- Chocolate Creme Cookie. 

Bruce, Amy, Kevin and Cal all stayed at our house on Christmas Eve and we loved having them there on Christmas Morning. It was fun to open up the stockings that we did together (everyone contributing something for everyone else) and be together to celebrate Christmas (even if it was earlier than they are used to).  I think that the decision to host Christmas at our house instead of Cal's was the right thing for everyone. 

When you look at the amount of presents that these kids got- it looks like SO many. In reality, our budget is pretty small, it's only about $70 per child plus $20 for stockings. But we found some really great things for each of them and we know they were excited and happy with what they got! Plus, when you add in gifts from aunts and uncles and grandparents - it makes for a wonderful Christmas morning. 

I think some of the favorite gifts this year were: 

David- Ski Ball Machine (from Shantel) or set of Tom Clancy books (one from each child that they picked from a library sale). 

Shantel- A pink "Utah" hat and matching gloves (from David) and a giant Utah cutting board (from my Utah History Coop kids/Oliver)

Lydia- A new kindle cover and remote control that clicks through the pages for you (from us)

Austin- A RC Airplane that really flies (from Cal) 

Caleb- A Marble Rush marble track (from Cal) 

Lucy- A giant gumball machine (from us) 

But truly, there were so many amazing and thoughtful gifts. 

We spent the day hanging out and playing with our new toys. Then we went to the Rencher's house for dinner. We gave them our presents, ate delicious food, and played games. Then, on our way home we drove by a bunch of houses with Christmas lights. The kids loved watching them change in tune to the music and I particularly loved driving through a neighborhood with over 40 giant inflatable santas. (I just love the idea that one person was like "hey, lets get giant santas" and then like 40 other families did. This is totally something that I would do, ha.) 

It was a wonderful Christmas for our family this year. 

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is one of my favorite days of the year. You have all of the anticipation of Christmas ahead of you and we have so many fun traditions. Certainly one of the things that was such a big part of this Christmas was just missing my Mom. She loved Christmas so much and we loved going to my parents house and celebrating. We invited my Dad, Bruce, Amy, and Kevin to come spend Christmas Eve and Christmas at our house. We are glad that we can bring them into our home and traditions even as things change without my Mom here. I was also grateful because Shantel talked to my Dad to see if we could help him buy some presents for Bruce, Amy and Kevin. That is something that he could not do on his own and while he could just give them money, it is so much more fun at Christmas to have presents to open. 

We started the day with our traditional Christmas jammy pictures. 

We played games in the afternoon and then got to work making pizza. We had crazy trees, a star and then a bunch of ornaments that people could make their own custom pizza. 

The food was so delicious. 

After dinner we did a present organization and also voted on our favorite wrapped presents. 

Then we did a small Christmas program. We had a book with the Christmas story and then it had songs mixed in, so we would read a bit and then sing Christmas songs. 

Then we had Christmas roll and frappe. (We could not find any lime sherbet, so we decided to make some using our Ninja Creami, it was okay, but not quite the same). 

We did our kids secret names this year with things that my Mom loved from Christmas (I'll share the names in our Christmas post). 

The kids set out stockings and then were ready for bed. We had a great day and I love Shantel and each of our kids so much. 

Lydia and Lucy stockings:

Austin and Caleb stockings:

Then we also did stockings with Bruce, Amy, Kevin and my Dad. We all contributed a few things and it was really fun. (Shantel and I still did stockings for each other and just exchanged those on Christmas morning). 

We also did our special breakfast stockings for the kids to open first thing in the morning when they wake up. They love that so much. They all got a banana, cereal and a juice. Merry Christma!