Priesthood Ordination

Happy New Year!!!

2021 is going to be GREAT!  I just know it.

This year, Bladen will be turning 12 years old.  In our church, the year you turn 12 years old (boys), you get ordained to the office of a deacon & receive the Aaronic Priesthood by the laying on of hands by someone who holds the authority to give the priesthood.  Bladen received the priesthood from Trek on January 3rd, 2021.  Bladen can now pass the sacrament on Sundays during our sacrament meeting.  We are SO VERY proud of him & his worthiness to hold the priesthood.

 

Mandel Sterne

After Christmas, Taya had to complete a German 1 project for the new year.  She had to bake a German treat using a German recipe, all by herself.  First we took a trip to the German supermarket to buy ingredients.  (Thank heavens we found 500g of almond already pulverized, I was dreading doing that).

This was the first time Taya has separated egg whites from yolks.  It took a few extra eggs to get it right, but it was great practice for her.

We also had a lesson on what happens to egg whites when they are whipped.  The egg whites were mixed with powdered sugar & then 1 cup of the mixture was set aside to use as icing.

The rest of the egg mixture was then mixed with ground almonds, cinnamon, & cherry juice.  Magically, it turned into a dough almost like sugar cookie dough.

She rolled it out & cut it into Mickey shapes (since we didn't have a 1 inch star cookie cutter)

After that they were iced with the egg white mixture & left to sit overnight.

They were baked fresh the next morning.

They turned out delicious.  They tasted like cinnamon marzipan cookies.  SO GOOD.

It's crazy to me that Taya is in German 1.  She's in 7th grade, but this is a high school credit class so she'll get high school credit for taking it.  She's doing SO well.  My kids make me SO proud.

 

Christmas Stockings

Stockings are my very favorite tradition at Christmas.  Everyone always looks forward to stockings.  In our house, Santa doesn't fill the stockings, we do.  Each person buys, makes, writes (notes), or does something to put in each person's stocking.  This is a huge tradition in my family (my parents & siblings) so my brother & my parents even mailed stocking gifts to us for me to put in the stockings.  These are always my favorite "gifts" because they are from the heart. 

Some of my favorite stocking gifts are "coupon books" from my boys with coupons for hugs, kisses, & snuggles.  Sometimes there are really unique items in the stockings, & sometimes there are practical things like toothbrushes & ibuprofen.  You never know what you'll find.

 Merry Christmas!

Christmas!!

It's Christmas!  It's Christmas!  Yippee!  It's Christmas!!!

I love the fact that nobody sleeps on Christmas Eve night.  Everyone is too full of excitement.  I love that feeling of popping everyone up out of bed at 5 am & having all of them bright eyed & bushy tailed ready to open presents.  It's SO fun.

Santa came & brought each of the kids something he thought they'd enjoy!

Cadence got a set of luggage. . . her first real "adult" gift.  She can use these as she moves to the states this summer to start college.  She's going to be out on her own, so at least she has something to use to get her there.  Living in Germany, she's going to have to pack everything she owns into these suitcases when she moves. 

Taya got a magical coding Harry Potter wand.  Taya is like Cadence.  They both love to code things.  This is a wand that you program yourself using computer code (python & scratch) & then build your own Harry Potter game with challenges & spells created by the code you make.

Lorien got what she's been asking for for over a year now.  She got an air soft rifle.  Lorien has this group of friends (there's about 10 boys . . . & then her) that go out once a week & have an airsoft war in the forests.  They camouflage themselves, hide, dig trenches, climb trees, etc, & then play a giant game of tag with air soft guns/pellets.  Once you get shot, you're out until the next round.  She LOVES it.  This rifle shoots several shots at a time so she's excited to have more than just a pistol with 6 shots now when she plays.

Bladen got a huge 3.5 foot tall dinosaur that you have to mechanically build yourself & code.  We're still on the building phase of this thing (it takes HOURS) & will be there for a while, but Bladen has done the whole thing all by himself so far.  He can't wait to finish it so he can code what the dinosaur can do.

Canyon got 2 Mario lego sets.  These are really cool because the Mario has bluetooth & is codeable.  (What is it with my kids & coding?)  This is a GREAT toy.  Kids love building legos!  This is basically a Mario world & you can build it however you want it to look.  When you turn on your Mario, he plays through the world like he would in the video game.  He reacts to the different blocks & bad guys in different ways.  It's REALLY fun.

Craiger is my space loving future Astronaut!  Of course Santa would bring him a telescope.  What better idea was there than that?  He's been out every night paying close attention to the Saturn/Jupiter/Mercury convergence.  It's SO cool.  We also love looking at the moon through this.  It takes GREAT pictures when you attach your phone to it.

The kids were SO excited to see what Santa brought them.

Craiger's face in this next pic is priceless to me.  The excitement on his face in getting a telescope.  This kid was born to be in space.

Lo was pretty excited about her gun too.

Lorien liked her Among Sweatshirt I got her for her "need" present.

Justin & Cari got us a really cool popcorn machine for our entertainment/game/TV room.  I can't wait for COVID to get over so we can invite friends over for movies, games & popcorn.

Tylee & Jeff got us a movie system (so together with the popcorn machine), it makes a VERY cool living room upstairs.

The kids all got legos so we had legos out for most of the day.

After presents from family, we started sorting through our "Nancy presents."  Nancy is a dear dear friend of mine.  We've been friends for over 20 years.  She lives on her own & doesn't have any family so she kind of adopted my family as her own.  She lives to buy Christmas presents for us.  She cracks me up.  We are SO spoiled.  We love her so much.

Nancy's presents are almost always shoes, coats, socks, & new clothes.  My kids basically get a whole new wardrobe every year for Christmas.  It's WONDERFUL.

Below are the pictures of everyone with their Nancy gifts (clothes & shoes), & then with their family gifts (3 gifts from Trek & I, & gifts from grandparents, aunts/uncles/cousins)

I got spoiled this year.  Nancy always sends me SO many fun things.  I got several ornaments, a whole Harry Potter Christmas Village, stationary, some cookbooks, some bath stuff, TONS of clothes, hats, scarves, etc., a purse, boots, & more.

I also got the most WONDERFUL gifts from my own family.  Trek got me a wallet, a green screen with a frame, Adobe Photoshop elements with an online photoshop class to take this year, & a Villains (game)  Cadence surprised me with a water bottle like hers (I'm always commenting on how I like hers).  An my sweet mom & dad got me a new stocking cross stitch pattern, an amazing leather wallet, & a projector that I can use when we travel or for night games/movie nights outside with the whole neighborhood.  I'm SUPER excited about it all.

The rest of the day we relaxed, built dinosaurs & lego, & just chilled as a family.  It was a blast.

 Merry Christmas from our family to yours.