Happy New Year!

Courtney spent some time with friends and then we watched movies until Bryan decided he didn't want to stay up and he went to bed.  I stayed up because I needed to get a baptismal appointment for the youth and the new appointments opened at midnight.  Courtney stayed up and rang in the new year!

Hair Dye

Courtney has always wanted to have pink hair.  I hate colored hair so I haven't ever let her.  She was shopping with her two friends and they found temporary hair dye on clearance and wanted to try it.  They said they would only do the underneath of their hair and that would be gone after 5-10 washes.  The older sister of one of the girls does hair and she was going to supervise so I thought it would be ok.

They went to the one girl's house and they tried it out.  

Yeah, it didn't really work.  You can't see it very well and it STINKS!  But they got to try it out.

Jedi Kids

Ethan's last phone call home of 2021.  He was cold (we found out later that they didn't have heat or hot water for 3 days) and so was Courtney.  They both looked like Jedi masters with their hoods on.  It was hilarious to watch them tease each other.

Cold

It has been really cold here.  It has been raining quite a bit so we have gotten snow in the mountains but none in town.  When we went to move the truck, we found ice in the bed.  Crazy!

This is ice!

Christmas

Courtney warned us that she was going to be waking us up at 6 am to open presents.  We thought it would be funny to go in and wake her up but we ended up pretending like we were still sleeping when she came in.  We had to make a spoof of a video of Ethan when he was little.  If you haven't seen it, you are missing out because it's a hilarious Christmas video.  Here is Courtney's version (at least the first part of it is):

We opened presents.  Santa did indeed come and brought Courtney a camera that she has been wanting for a while.  Ethan took his with him when he went on his mission (actually, we took it down for him when we went through the temple with him) and Courtney has wanted one of her own to take pictures with.  She got ski clothes (surprise!), a bunch of books, and a new Minkey Couture blanket.  She got money from her grandparents so she is going to buy new cleats and she got another year of Spotify premium.  She was pretty happy with her haul.

We had our traditional breakfast of sausage, eggs, orange rolls (a different brand this year since they were sold out of the usual ones we get), and orange juice.

My parents came over and we had lunch and opened more presents.  Then it was time for naps and games.  Santa brought us Connect 4 for Christmas.  Bryan and Courtney played for a long time and have become addicted to it.  I don't play because I'm too easy to beat. ;)

Ethan got to call later in the afternoon.  He opened his presents with us watching and it was fun to see things that the ward members had given him and all the packages from family.  He has a ton of gift cards and so much candy!  They were invited to a member family's home for the evening and he was excited for that.  They were going to have a big dinner with family.  I am glad he was well taken care of for Christmas.

It was a good Christmas day!

Drywall Process

We took a video of the basement drywall process.  You can see all the dust in the air down there.  But you can see the walls and the progress they have made so far.  You can also see that it is taking shape.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was kind of hilarious.  We had the drywall crew in the basement for half the day.  They had their music up full blast and were singing along.  We were dying! It was the best entertainment, especially when Courtney started karaoke along with the songs.

Our tradition is to have Pizza Hut pizza for dinner on a blanket in front of the tree.

Then we play the chimes, which actually went ok this year. We got one song good and that's all you can ask of us.

Courtney read "Queen of Christmas" which is her favorite Christmas book.

I read "Davey's First Christmas" and then Bryan recited "The Cremation of Sam McGee".  We tried to be scary with the light on his face but it wasn't dark enough outside to make it really work.

Courtney got to open her Christmas pjs from "Christmas Eve" (that's what I would always write on the tag so I could remember which were the pjs so they could open them on Christmas Eve.). 

She was actually surprised that I got good pjs for her.  She doesn't trust my clothes buying skills sometimes.

We watched a movie and hung out until it was time to go to bed.  Courtney is hoping that Santa comes!!

Drywall

Drywall begins in the basement.  It's been kind of a weird process so we have stacks of drywall in our driveway, a dumpster in our driveway, and stacks of stuff in our basement.  We also have latino guys singing at the top of their lungs in our basement.  It's been hilarious!

Enjoy the fiesta in the basement!

Sick Courtney

Courtney and two of her best friends hung out Friday night.  Sunday morning, Courtney wasn't feeling all that great (low fever and tired)...and neither were the other two.  One of the girls thought they probably had Covid. Courtney told her that they didn't but the girl said that someone had to take one for the team and get tested to see for sure. One girl didn't want to take it because her brother has cancer and, if she is positive, it would pause his chemo treatments.  The other girl didn't want to take the test because she was scheduled to work all week and didn't want the mess of canceling.  Courtney was sure she didn't have Covid so she decided to take one for the team.

I bought a home Covid test (I don't know how reliable they are, but that's what we did).  Yes, I got to shove the q-tip up her nose but it said not to go too far up.  We followed the directions to a T and it came out...negative.  Courtney could say "I told you" and the other girls could feel better about the situation.  

Courtney decided that DayQuil and NightQuil are the best things and work so well.  I bought her the new honey flavor and, while she didn't like the taste, she did like how it worked.  She had a couple of days where she felt yucky but then she was over it.   She did take a nap, which isn't like her, so we knew that she really wasn't feeling well. 

Gingerbread Houses

Courtney and I made gingerbread houses!  We bought the kits because they had candy, but the frosting was horrible!  We glue gunned the house together (we didn't want to wait for the frosting to set up) and then we began decorating.  The problem was that the frosting was really runny and lumpy.  It didn't matter how much we kneaded it, it still had lumps that would clog the tips and then squirt out in the heap.  It was so annoying! 

It didn't take too long for Courtney to get frustrated and quit decorating.  I tried to finish mine but they didn't look very good.  Next year we are going to have to do it properly and make our own stuff. I saw a tutorial on how to make "sugar glue" to glue the house together.  I think we will try that next time and I'll make the frosting from scratch.

My house is on the left and Courtney's is on the right.

Temple Trip

I am a YW specialist in charge of the youth temple trips.  I had been helping the YW leaders by getting appointments for temple trips and so they decided to put me and another sister in charge of the trips.  It's fine for me because organizing things is something I enjoy. It is so hard to get appointments though.  We don't have a temple right now because St George Temple is being renovated.  So we get appointments either in Las Vegas or Cedar City.  With the Manti Temple also closed for renovations, the Cedar City Temple is really busy.  I get on the computer at 11:55 pm on the last night of the month and at 12:00 midnight, appointments open for the next available month.  It only takes 7 minutes for them to all be taken.  It's so crazy!

Our first trip was to the Las Vegas temple. Our appointment was for 16 youth.  We have to bring our own priesthood bearers to perform the baptism and the confirmations, so that can be tricky. After our ward Christmas party, we met up, loaded in vans, and drove to Las Vegas.

Courtney and I are 2nd and 3rd from the left, standing up.

This is a beautiful temple and the people were so kind and nice.  The baptismal coordinator talked to the youth.  They had to find the weirdest name and the oldest name.  Then he talked to them about how these names represent real people.  It was cool.  We had a priest who was doing baptisms for the first time.  He was nervous but did a great job.

Usually, they only let each youth be baptized for 5 names but, toward the end, we were so far ahead of schedule that they let us finish all the names we had brought. (There were names from a family in our ward who had the names for 3 years waiting for a youth trip to get the work done.) The youth at the end of the line were able to do 10 or 11 baptisms.  It was so cool and the kids had a great experience.

After we were done, we went to Raisen Cains to eat dinner.  It was wild and crazy but the kids loved it.

We have these trips planned each month.

Food Donations/Ward Party

Our Ward has the tradition of doing service for our Christmas party.  Usually, we go to the Utah Food Bank and help out but this year it was decided that we would help Tam's Treats.  Quite a few children in the District don't have food at home.  Tam's Treats takes donations of food kits that are given to those children so they have food for the weekends.  Packets of easily prepared food are given to the kids and then they make their own food.  Each packet has 2 breakfast items, 2 lunch items, 2 dinner items, and 2 snacks.  Bryan volunteered to oversee the donations so our house looked like a storehouse for a while. I was amazed at how many things we were able to collect from the members of our ward.  We had enough food to make 200 food packets which will help 100 kids have 2-weekend meals.  It was fun to watch the kids help make the packets at the party.

When we finished, Bryan put all the packets in the back of the truck so he could take them to donate.  It was amazing the generosity of our ward members.

Next year we are hoping to do twice as many food packets next Christmas!

Sweatshirts

Our library has a place called "Makers Space" where they have a Cricut, 3D printer, and a bunch of other things that you can use to be creative. We have made t-shirts before and Courtney wanted to do a couple of sweatshirts. I think they turned out really well.

YW Activity

The YW were wrapping presents for their YW activity.  Courtney felt good enough to go but she was a bit self-conscious about her puffy cheeks.  She really wasn't too swollen from her wisdom teeth but you could tell that something was different.  She said they had fun wrapping though and it was good for her to get out.

Wisdom Teeth Removal

Courtney's wisdom teeth were starting to get too close to her nerves for comfort.  We made an appointment and had her wisdom teeth out.  We went to the same doctor who took Ethan's out years before.  Courtney had done her research.  She wanted to see if she could avoid swelling.  We went to Harmons and bought her a bunch of pineapple juice.  Apparently, there is a chemical in the pineapple juice that helps with inflammation.  But in order to get the benefits, you have to drink a lot of it.  Courtney found out that she doesn't like pineapple juice.  She decided to take the swelling over having to drink the stuff.

Courtney's appointment was at 11 am so she had to fast all morning long, which isn't her strong suit.  But she did it!  They called her back and I got to go back with her for a while.  They explained what they would do and then excused me to go and wait for her.  

The anesthesiologist had a hard time finding Courtney's little veins.  She isn't sure if she passed out or if he finally got the vein and she went out quickly, but she remembers them laying her back, putting oxygen on it, and then she felt lightheaded.  She can't remember falling asleep but she was mad to wake up because she was having a good dream.

If you are wondering, no, she wasn't goofy when she woke up.  But as you can see from the photo below, her personality was a bit enhanced.  Her inhibitions were gone and so things she would usually just think, she said out loud.  She got really excited about the vanilla flavored chapstick they gave her (she really liked vanilla) and she was so proud to explain to me what all the numbers meant on the oxygen/blood pressure monitor meant.  It was fun.  They won't let you take videos in the office because they have found that teenagers get more exuberant when they see someone taking a video.  They found that the teenagers hurt themselves while trying to act crazy for the video. So I just got a picture of her.

She did a great job and didn't have too much pain the first day. The pain medication as great for her.

Courtney's hobby

When Courtney gets bored, she grabs paper and her markers to make art.  She looks up saying online and then makes them her own with a twist.  She is amazing and I keep telling her that she needs to figure out how to make money off them.  I try to take pictures of her stuff so I can remember it.

I love her handwriting!

Live Nativity

We decided to get tickets and go to the Live Nativity at Tuacahn.  There were a lot of people there, which was great to see.  In years past, it hasn't been very well attended when we have gone so it was nice to see so many people.  They have changed it a bit since we were in it the last time, but the message is always the same. It was cold so we took hot chocolate, blankets, and wore coats. I was so glad we took the time to go up and watch it.

Insulation

We are finishing the basement and the insulation is done!  We are slowly getting things done.  The electrical and plumbing have been roughed in.  We now have the insulation done so now I need to figure out the drywall.

We had insulation put on the top 2 feet of each wall and then between rooms for soundproofing.  We had soundproofing insulation put in the ceiling to mute the sounds of people walking around.  It looks crazy but it's supposed to keep the basement cold in the summer and warmer in the winter.  

This is the living room.  The bathroom is on the left (Courtney's right).

This is Courtney's room.  The closet used to be the closet for the 3rd bedroom but Courtney's room was a foot smaller (or something like that) than Ethan's so we moved her closet to make it a bit bigger.

Courtney's closet is on the left and the right part is where her closet used to be.  This makes her room about 4 square feet larger than Ethan's and gives her a nook for her bed.

This is Ethan's room.

This is another angle of the living room.  The bathroom is on the left.

It is starting to take shape.