This holiday season started off with a Lighting of the World. We lit the world up!! I love this new tradtion of going to our local mall and searching for items that we want to purchase in the Giving Machine that will ultimately help someone, somewhere... that we will never know probably.
The kids love doing it. They think long and hard about their choices and they feel so good afterward.
Papa and Nana give each of them $50 to spend and they put their selections into the machine and wait for the vending machine to drop their item card on the tray below. It's the most fun.
The selections this season were very local. We purchased sweatshirts and shoes and hygeine kits for kids right here in our little town.
The High Schools have rooms where kids can go to wash their clothes, take showers and put deodorant on. Then they can grab a warm sweatshirt or shoes. It is heartbreaking to think that there are kids who are living in their cars and don't have places to go to do homework, or take showers. I loved donating locally.
This year we didn't even have to wait in any sort of a line at all. We were in and out in a hot minute.
SO FUN
Some of us came straight from work, others came
straight from weight training.
Well.... here it is.
The official groundbreaking for our new building.
Scheduled to be move in ready on November 1, 2026.
It's going to be massive and super nice.
Our CEO said to us while we were driving in his car one day...
You guys keep talking about going to 4 day work days or
working remote one day a week... but our hope with
this new building is that it will be so nice, no one will want to leave.
Bro.... what?
When you are getting your head chewed off by someone
you have never met, about a problem you did not cause
and cannot fix with the help of other many people
from other departments ...
it doesn't matter how gorgeous your surroundings are...
You. Just. Want. To. GET. OUT. OF. THERE. As. Fast. As. Possible.
And go somewhere that feels safe and loving to recover.
Haha
It will be so fun to watch the progress and it will be SO fun to
get to work in the beautiful space.
But, I will still be pushing for remote work one day a week.
Working remotely is the only way to get things done quickly and
correctly. Distractions are the worst when you are trying to concentrate.
And what will be more distracting than a building that will have unbelievable decor, a
gym, a soda bar, a patio balcony, treadmills under desks, a hundred more people
in the building, 2 massive fully stocked kitchens, 2 gigantic conference rooms,
200 phones ringing, 200 people talking?
Our ward Christmas Pajama Party was early in the month
We were so pleased and proud that our kids wanted to wake up
early on a Saturday and go to this.
And we had a lovely time
Peyton was laughing so hard in this picture because
she said "mom you were looking at yourself so much, you
almost cropped me out"
There....Geez
Rals and Ryker were the champions of the Gingerbread
House building contest at Teachers Quorum
activity. They are both so careful and meticulous
I would expect nothing less
Meanwhile, Kaleigh who had a nice little case of the flu
that took her out for a week,
spent several hours alone in her room and she
sketched and created the most beautiful works of art.
She is incredible.
She starts art classes in January.
I cannot wait to see what she does after she has
had some training
She also has taught herself how to do nails.
She hasn't had one class or any sort of professional direction,
but somehow has become an expert. Like she is better than
people I know who have had real training in this industry.
She just sits up in her room and practices.
I cannot believe how talented she is.
Whether she wants to our not, we are sending her to nail school.
She will hardly have to try and she will be the best in the class for sure.
And then she will be set up with a way to make a living, or have a career
or simply help contribute to the family funds without having to leave
her home or her kids.
At work, we have an award that the owner's of our company
give to someone each month.
They choose the person, after reading over all of the nominations
that come in for everyone within the company all month long.
It is called the Rockstar Award.
In addition to the amazing trophy that you get to put
on your desk, the recipient receives
a day of PTO
a free meal
a bundt cake
a Swig Gift Card
and a $100.
So at our Company Christmas Party,
they announced the Award Winner
And it was me.
I had to give a little speech.
I said that the real award is getting to work for this amazing company.
And I said how blessed I am to get to work here.
And because I am so blessed to get to work here....
I am giving all of my fun gifts to
4 people on my team because they work so much harder
than I do and they deserve to be awared way more than I do.
It had a big impact.
I HATE awards.
It's nice for the people who receive them for sure...
but it's not so nice for the people who work their butts off
and don't get awarded.
All of the sudden they are thinking, am I even noticed, appreciated?
I work hard too.
I deserve a day of PTO too.
I would love a free meal too.
I would like to see a trophy on my desk too.
I am SO grateful to be a Rockstar Award winner
but I wish that while we are calling out and celebrating one person,
all of the other people who received nominations from their coworkers
over the past month would be given those words of praise and affirmation
so that they could feel loved and noticed too.
It's a good feeling, but what good is asking people to send in nominations,
dozens of nominations come in for dozens of people
if ONLY one person is chosen and then all of those beautiful nominations
just get filed away somewhere and no one (who didn't get selected)
never sees them. So they are feeling like "am I even seen or appreciated?"
and the reality is.... YEAH, 4 of your coworkers said the nicest things about you
in the month of December.... here is what they said about you.
So now instead of 1 winner, you potentially have 20+ people feeling really good
about themselves.
I am going to push for this change.
It needs to happen!!
Why limit the celebrating to ONE person when there are SO many people
working their hardest?
Our company parties are EPIC.
There are hundreds of us.
We eat really good food
They give each of us $50 in ones
We use the ones to bid on thousands of dollars of prizes.
There is a real life auctioneer and I don't think there is any one better
than him in the world.
He is so good
Then when we are walking out the door with all of our prizes
they give us an envelope with hand written sentiments from the owners
and Christmas money in cash...
SO FUN!!
The most fun
We went to the temple on the Friday night before Christmas.
It was our ward temple night that we have every other month on the even months.
It was really fun because the session was small and I had a great seat.
It seemed to go really fast and I picked up on a couple of things that stood out to me
that I hadn't noticed before and I very much love that I heard it.
We were invited to go over and have treats afterward with a super cute older couple in our ward.
They are darling.
They serve in the temple 4 days a week all day long, so we ask them all sorts of questions.
They've served 3 or 4 missions in all parts of the world.
We love them and learn a lot from them.
The husband is a character. He is never serious and if you don't know that, you could get
confused really fast or very easily get your feelings hurt.
I learned super early on that he is a rascal and so he and I have a constant back and forth
of trying to out-do the other with outlandish tales.
I am expert at keeping up with him, in fact I am getting better than him at his game.
Here we are in our Christmas Sunday attire
Kami and Brent came into town on Monday December 22nd
so we all went to dinner at Sakura to celebrate her upcoming birthday
since that is always a New Year's Day tradition and they won't be here on that day.
We had our favorite cook, Jonny B and that was so fun
It's Walt's 14th birthday this year.
So it's his turn to have his room upgraded to a teen bedroom.
He chose a bunk for his bed selection.
Our only hope is that when he grows to be 6'4 by his senior year of high school
he will still be able to sleep diagonally in this bunk bed or he is going to have
to hang his legs over the rails
This is how our tree looked after the last present was wrapped
and the guests were about to arrive on Christmas Eve
We had a taco bar and we were SO unbelievably greatful that
Papa was feeling healthy this year
The three of us huddled in this corner, so we didn't get anywhere near
the sick people. There were some really sick people at this party.
And we all played a couple of gambling games.
KK was the big winner from our family.
By the end of Christmas, she had $290 dollars to put in her savings account.
She is planning to go on a shopping spree in New York.
Christmas Morning
We made crepes in our PJs
And Dad and Kaleigh learned how to thread her new sewing machine.
I cannot wait for her to get really good at sewing...
I have so many things I need for her to fix for me.
Just as with her art and her nails, she is going to perfect this
skill in no time and wow us with her creations.
We set her up in a little corner of the gym upstairs so that she can
work on her masterpieces
Christmas Day was a bit of a bummer. All of Garrett's family was sick
with Pneumonia and so they all stayed home at Russ' so they wouldn't expose any
of us further. Poor Evie was at Instacare on Christmas Eve.
Grant and Kailee 2
All of the teenagers took 3 hours out of the Christmas Day Party
to get caught up on Stranger Things
Kami bought all of the men these cute shirts
Then we had a massive putting contest and the final
winner of the night was...... none other than
K.A.L.E.I.G.H
it was SO fun to see her win.
Others played Cornhole
On Saturday, everyone came over again to watch the BYU game.
We set up the projector onto the big screen and ate WAY too much food...
ONCE MORE
For the third time in 4 days, this bar was filled up with
delicious, fattning food
Our baby boy turned 14 on December 29th.
He was not feeling well all day.
I went in early in the morning to wish him a happy birthday
and he said "thanks, can you bring me some tylenol?"
And then he laid in his bed for the rest of the day.
I brought home a cake and he felt good enough to eat 2 pieces.
He is such a good boy.
I love that he loves life and is living it to the fullest.
We had fun going out to eat for almost every meal during our days off
Cute sister friends
New Year's Eve
....................................................
We finished off the year weak.
Most of us were sick.
Those that weren't sick were on the edge of being sick.
And we didn't feel like going anywhere or doing anything.
Peyton rocked in the New Year with all her friends at a gathering,
But the rest of us were asleep by 10:30
It's okay. We are ready to get on with 2026
SO excited for Come Follow Me with the Old Testament.
SO excited for several design projects happening at work.
I am excited for upcoming travel plans, growth opportunities and new adventures.
I think there is a lot to be experienced.
So thrilled that we have a Hobby Lobby in our town and now I have another
super exciting place to go on my lunch breaks plus it will help me a ton
with design projects.
Also Christensens is coming back and so I will be able to give good gifts
to people again and have cute new shoes.
I am determined to lose at least 8 pounds before March.
I am determined to make service a bigger part of every day.
That is going to require a lot of personality changes for this introvert
and demand that I step WAY outside of my comfort zone.
I am committing to TWO monthly temple visits each month this year at least.
I need the blessings and I have really felt them this year.
Twice the temple blessings is even better.
I am going to make several new behaviors turn into habits.
I hate change.
But I LOVE personal change and growth, so I am getting busy right out of the gate
and I have a very achievable game plan all set up.
Enough is Enough.
Jesus is coming and I need to be ready for Him.
Happy New Year
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