One of my kids' favorite Christmas traditions is baking a ton of goodies, then taking them to friends & neighbors while we carol to them. We had ALL 6 of our kids this year so we made a lot of yummy treats.
And of course had some crazy family time too (which usually involves some sort of wrestling to prove who is the strongest Potter)
Then we went on our way & caroled to all of our friends & neighbors who we love so very much.
I love that my kids love this tradition. It's a special one to me & I love doing this together as a family.
And finally, rounding off a bazillion concerts & performances for Christmas, Craiger performed in his winter band concert. He is really excelling at French Horn right now. He's incredible. I'm going to have him audition for the higher level bands at the high school next year. He loves it & he's good at it. I love to see my kids do hard things, & find happiness in what they accomplish.
This is Canyon's first year playing the String Bass. I always laugh when I see him playing because it's literally twice the size he is. But he is AMAZING. His orchestra teacher tells me all time, "Please don't let him quit! He's amazing & we need him!" He loves it & won't be quitting anytime soon.
For this concert, they needed a piano player to play the piano solo with the Samba Labamba song, but couldn't find anyone to play it. Canyon (sweet boy) told his teacher his mom could "play anything" on the piano. (FYI, I can't, but my heart melts knowing that my little guy things I'm amazing). His teacher called me begging me to play for the concert so I told him I would. It turned out to be REALLY easy music so we had fun playing in a concert together. It made it extra special for both of us.
Taya took Jay to the Christmas dance at the high school this year. It's a fun dance because they get to wear matching pajamas & just have a great time.
They did a fun little day date of making gingerbread houses, then went out to dinner, & then played at the dance. They had a lot of fun together.
Taya has grown leaps & bounds this year playing viola in the chamber orchestra at high school.
She loves it & is doing so very well.
I loved watching her play at her winter concert in December. She's always hard to see (violas like to hide behind the conductor), but I could hear the viola parts & she made me proud.
Taya couldn't make it to the 3rd day of Dragonsteel because she was doing her dress rehearsal for
Dancing with the Hawks!
This was the most fun high school dance performance (it went for 2 nights so we went on the Monday so we could go to Dragonsteel) I've ever been to. The ballroom team got assigned kids from the school who have never danced before, taught them a ballroom routine, & competed for the title of Dancing with the Hawks Champion. It was a 2 hour performance, but it was SO FUN.
Taya is on the ladies ballroom team & they performed twice at the show. I loved watching her do her thing & she did wonderful. I'm so proud of how much she's grown this year as a dancer.
For the 3rd Day of Dragonsteel we went early because now that we understood the passports & cards, we were determined to fill every stamp so that we could get EVERY deck of cards we could, & in turn we hoped to complete all 3 sets of story cards along with the 10 heralds.
We quickly checked the schedules at some of the "areas" we hadn't gotten enough stamps at yet so we could plan our day around their panels so we could get stamps for them.
We got all those stamps including the difficult craft room stamp that was difficult to get. We found 2 sets of "ghostbloods" who gave us "wild" stamps where we needed them, & Jonah (who skipped the Michael Kramer/Kate Reading panel the night before) asked around, searched, & got every single stamp in the shop area including the 3 we didn't have. He took us directly to those 3 shops first thing & we completed them.
After going to several panels, shops, & the craft & game rooms again, we had every stamp completed in our passport books. We then got into the 2 hour line to get our cards. Yes, it took a full 2 hours. But between Trek, Lorien, & I, we got over 35 decks of cards which was AMAZING!
We went to several more panels throughout the day & in between panels we started opening & organizing our story decks. It was nice to have cards from Taya & Cadence (who couldn't go that last day), Trek, & Lorien with my own. . . & then Jessica & Jonah had a whole pile as well that we could trade with each other. We got all 3 completed sets by the end of the night. We were missing about 3 cards near the end, but everyone at the convention was trading to complete their decks & we were able to trade for what we needed.
We did NOT finish our heralds though. Cards 7, 8, & 9 were rare & so those would have to be completed later.
The last few panels of the day were great. We went to 2 or 3 with Brandon himself & we got front row seats for those which was AWESOME.
We also went to a cosmere timline panel which was really fun if you've read all the books. It was great.
I think my girls enjoyed the 2 "Intentionally Blank" podcast episodes they filmed while at Dragonsteel. It was just fun being so close to Brandon Sanderson & seeing him in person.
It was the weekend of a lifetime & I will 100% be going back to Dragonsteel as often as I can while living in Utah. This was amazing.
