B&M WHITING CLAN: December

My sister Aleisa flew out for a visit in December. It has been a long time since we have been able to just sit and chat. I had almost forgotten how much fun she is to be around! It was great fun to have her here! She made the comment that my kids are much quieter in the mornings at our own house than when we visit my mother and that she was able to sleep so much better here than there when we are visiting.

My sister's visit was the motivation we needed to finally venture to the lights at Temple Square. Despite living here for 9 winters we have never been because it is always so cold and then I just didn't want to try and keep track of so many small children in a crowded place at night but with the help of another adult I figured it would be a breeze and it was great!

Me and my sister!

There were lots of nativities from around the world and lots of candles in paper bags with different designs (Love in lots of different languages, peace, joy, and then lots depicting different scenes from the nativity and Christ's life. They were some of my favorite things and so easily overlooked!

We had some more snow the day before my sister left so we all got to go out and play in it with our 3 snow shovels! You can never have too many shovels. I actually drove past a house that had 4 sitting outside by their door.

Over Christmas break we had the train tracks out almost every day! It was amazing. Connor has just recently started being interested in driving trains on the tracks and putting the tracks together. I was close to giving them away because we had rarely been using them but I held out for Connor's growing interest and was pleasantly surprised that everyone was able to share them all so well for almost the entire 2 week period.

For a Christmas present for my mother we all took our picture wearing the now immortalized monster hat and made a collage with my father's picture for her to hang on the wall. The picture of my father wearing the hat has been used numerous times since his passing. I will state now that he gave us the at several years ago and it has been in our possession ever since. If anyone else wants a picture in the hat you will have to come visit us for the chance :)

Brylee finally turned 5! She was so excited! She really thought that by turning 5 she would get to go to school in January. It has been a long month of conversations, sometimes very saddening for her, that she will start school after the summer. She is now telling people she needs another birthday to go to school. While not true at least she is beginning to understand that school will still be a ways away for her.

She finally got a booster car seat of her own! She was truly overjoyed at being able to get this car seat for her birthday.

Brylee also opted for a simple layered cake, well it was so easy that I decided to make it a little harder on myself and added her name and age in sprinkles to the top.

Our best friends in the circle moved away just 2 days before Christmas. The father of the family finally received a job after graduating last April so we are thrilled for them but we are still sad that they have had to leave our lives. They moved to Louisiana and have no family here in Utah so we will likely not be seeing each other again anytime soon. It has been strange not having friends readily available just a couple doors away.