12 Days of Christmas & Tuba Christmas

This year we hosted the 12 Days of Christmas dinner and cousin nativity. It was tons of fun, as usual. We moved our couches into the ping pong room to make space for cafeteria style seating. All the original Coles and their families were there, except Uncle Mike (who was in Missouri at the time), plus the Darrin and Sera Caldwells. 

On Christmas Eve we went to a fun event called Tuba Christmas. It is exactly what it sounds like. There were probably over 100 tuba players playing Christmas carols and a crowd of people singing along. It was a lot of fun. There was a Santa working the crowd and Tim could only be persuaded to get his photo taken because of the promise of a candy cane.

 

Gingerbread Houses and Ornaments

This year we had the Mott family over to make gingerbread houses with us. The kids had a great time building the candy repositories that masquerade as gingerbread houses.

This year's ornaments are:

Shower tile: mom, Owl: Clara, Burst water pipe: dad, Oboe: Eliza, The Star of Bethlehem: Leona, and Big Boy Undies: Timothy and mom collaboration.

 

First Ever Accordion Recital

Leona was the most advanced accordion player at her first recital. There was one other player, a 12 or 13 year old boy, but her song, "Silent Night" was much more complex. She did a great job, and didn't appear nervous at all. We are all so proud of how far Leona has come on the accordion in the six months that she's been playing.

 

First Part of December

So remember the ice-skating tips that Leona would. not. listen. too? Well she evidently was listening as she employed them at her friend's skating bday party. Here she is is with her best buddies this year, Allie (L) and Allie (Center).

Leona wanted me to take a photo of her long hair braid knot.

Leona performing Jingle Bells at the ward Christmas party. It was a big hit! She also sang with the Primary kids.

 

Family Photos for 2021

 

Thanksgiving in Colorado

Portrait of a family roadtrip: Mom drinking Dr. Pepper to make it to the destination and the back seat totally out of it during hour 14 of the drive. Dad got home on Saturday night from Great Gma Roueche's funeral and we left Sunday morning to drive to Colorado. It wasn't a super early start time because we knew that Gma and Gpa Roueche were also driving home that day.

Leona being Queen of the Stump on a hike.

Lev thought it was hilarious to "chase" the kids in his stroller. Leona did too.

They were so excited that it was snowing. They had all been hoping for a really huge blizzard while we were there. While that didn't happen there were at least a few flurries and the kids got to be in the snow for a bit. So much drama over such a small snowman, those photos are included for posterity so that they can't deny that they ever fought.

Leona's contribution to Thanksgiving dinner was helping to make the deviled eggs.

The most important thing at Thanksgiving, having as close as possible to a 1:1 ration of pies to people. Just kidding of course it's celebrating all of your blessings with people who you love, but pie is a close second. Thanksgiving day was a real triumph for dad as he ate his first full meal since we got to Colorado. He got food poisoning (or was the only one to fall to a stomach bug) during the trip and by the time we got to Gma and Gpa's house he wasn't feeling great. He then spent the next 24 hours being violently sick. He was shut up in the basement bedroom on strict quarantine. On Wednesday he finally ventured out of his cave, but he clearly wasn't back at 100%. Thursday we were all grateful that he could join us again in the land of the living as well as the fact that no one else had gotten sick. 

We had originally planned to go skiing over Thanksgiving, but with dad being so sick that plan had to be scrapped. We went ice skating on the outdoor rink next to the library instead. It was a lot of fun, and the weather was beautiful- around 60 degrees. This made it ideal to be outside, but we were glad that we got to the rink right when it opened, because things were getting slushy by the time we left. Leona was super grumpy about falling a bunch and didn't want to accept any tips on technique, but she was dogged in her determination to keep getting up when she fell.

Other highlights from the trip included seeing "reindeer", playing games, staying up late, movie night, going to the Parker tree lighting where there were ice sculptures as well as performances, and Leona getting a hold of dad's phone to take way too many photos. We had a really nice time and the kids were very good sports considering the drastic change of plans and the slow pace of the trip.