Christmas 2018

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. I felt more relaxed than I do about things typically, so that's always nice. :) Some things just didn't get done, and that's ok. Christmas Eve day was mostly spent at the Garner's house. Uncle Tanner was making his missionary call at noon, so we gathered there to talk to him and have our family meal around lunch time, instead of later in the evening. I love getting to see far away faces and hear their far away voice, but I admit, chatting over computers with everyone else around is a little awkward for me. So I just laid low. :) Then we ate a delicious meal, opened gifts, and really enjoyed our time together.


We made it home later than expected, so instead of making cookies for Santa, we just threw some neighbor treats on a plate with notes, got in our pj's, checked where Santa was on the Santa tracker, and got to bed. One of my favorite traditions growing up was all of us siblings sleeping in the same room on Christmas Eve. It's fun to watch that tradition live on through my kids. They usually do a pretty good job at getting right to bed on Christmas Eve because they want Santa to be able to come, but I caught them sneaking out quite a few times this year. *ahem, Gwen.


Christmas morning was magical. Richie built us a fire and we worked on our traditional Christmas breakfast of German pancakes, bacon, oj, and grapefruit of course. We finally let the kids through the curtain to the living room and tried our best to savor the gift opening that morning. Richie really surprised me this year with a beautiful new leather purse and wallet, and other goodies he snuck into my stocking, which I believe is a first. My other favorite memory may be showing Richie the poem that Gwen wrote me for part of my Christmas present, and watching him immediately tear up. Other top moments would be watching Richie teach Miles the basics of long boarding and watching the kid's reactions when they opened their sibling gifts.


Later that morning, Grandma and Grandpa Garner, and uncle Jacob came over to take part in the chaos and helped keep the kids entertained while Richie and I ran around trying to get things packed and ready to go to St. George.


I am now realizing that I took a measly amount of pictures while we were down in SG, but it was wonderful, as always, to spend time with the Crosby side. Highlights include: seeing the new Mary Poppins with everyone, getting to Celebrate Ilah and John getting married at Ilah's shower, playing games and eating snacks with everyone on Christmas Day,taking our kids to walk around the temple grounds, getting Gwen's ear's pierced as a part of her Christmas gift, the kids sleeping over at the Lamb's, and taking our kids on a tour of a water reclamation facility in Hurricane. (side note, this is something we've wanted to educate our kids about for some time, but they don't allow young kids on tours typically. Long story short, through a connection here in Riverton, we were hooked up with a private tour and it was so cool!! Way cooler than we were expecting. The kids probably thought it was fun just to ride in the back of the truck, but Richie and I geeked out the entire time.)



We were tired by the end of our trip. That's the status quo with little kids and traveling right? But we were tired in all the best ways. Merry Christmas 2018!

1st half of December

The girls performed at Riverton Holly Days. It's a fun community event that I am usually glad we're pushed into. Otherwise, I wouldn't make an effort to attend such things. We got their early, so we were some of the first kids to see Santa, which was a plus! We're not very good at waiting in lines. The girls did a great job performing!


First big snow of the season! I'm always so torn when it snows. It's beautiful and the kids have such a blast in it. But it means hauling out all the snow gear, making sure we have fitting pieces for everyone, consoling the little ones when they inevitably pull their gloves off and their fingers get wet and cold, dealing with the snow tracked in and all the gear strewn about the house after they come in. It's wonderful and exhausting.


Richie enjoying a quiet moment on Sunday with all of his kids cozied up on the couch with a fire nearby, watching one of his childhood favorites, "Little Lord Fauntleroy".


Cori Connors concert!!! We look forward to it every.single.year, and it never lets us down. We always have a bit of a cry, and leave feeling uplifted and full
of the Christmas Sprit.



*Studying Russia and their famous Russian Ballet with Aunt Makenna at homeschool group
*Miles making a bucket out of tin foil. We love the book about being bucket fillers, and the CD of songs with it. We were on a big bucket fillers cd kick, and he came out of quiet time with this one day. *Gwen and Miles showing off their reports on their North American countries of choice. * Trying to keep Benson busy during school with contact paper and tinsel. it was highly entertaining, and one of the biggest messes I've ever cleaned up. True story. Don't know if I have it in me to do it again!


I really have to restrain myself when it comes to taking pictures of my kids sleeping. :) They are so beautiful and peaceful.



Aunt Makenna has been performing in "Savior of the World". We took the two oldest to see it at the conference center. It was really fun to be with just the 2 older ones. We are starting to be able to joke with them etc. Makenna did a great job and we thoroughly enjoyed the performance.


Make your own pizza night is always a success. :) It took longer and we ate dinner later, but I think it was worth it.


Too hard to resist putting these on and snapping pictures at the Walmart checkout.



Our Idaho friends, the Fogles, were in town for a family event and they stayed with us over the weekend! Between our 2 families, there is now 10 (soon to be 11) kids under the age of 10. WOW! So there was some craziness involved, obviously, but I'll take it if that means I get to stay up late and chat with my friend Lauren. It was so good to see them. We made a quick visit to Gardener Village to hunt for the elves on display. :)

2nd half of November

Decorating for Christmas! I'm a stickler when it comes to not celebrating Christmas before Thanksgiving. But the kids held me to it, and the day after Thanksgiving, we whipped all the Christmas stuff out. My favorite thing in this picture is Lindy as a blur, running around because she was so excited.


Grandpa Garner reading to Benson. Almost every Sunday night, we are at the Garner's for dinner. Benson loves playing with "Bahn-kah" and loves reading books with anyone he can convince to read to him.


This year, we had to get our traditional Christmas pjs and keepsake books early because the girls needed Christmas pj's for their dance performances. We normally don't do it so early. They were totally surprised. The oldest 3 got an "all about me" book of them to fill in. I had the same one when I was about 6, and the kids have gotten a kick out of reading it, so I thought they'd like to fill one in for themselves.


One of the girl's dance performances was at the Festival of Trees. It's a good excuse to get us out there, because otherwise I probably wouldn't put forth the effort. But it's always a good time. Both Gwen and Lindy did a great job performing. Gwen just lights that stage up! She is so expressive up there! I was nervous for Lindy, since this would be her first time really performing. But she did such a great job! She remembered all the moves and seemed to really enjoy herself. Miles really helped me out wrangling Benson. It was right during his nap time and I forgot the stroller! Can't believe I didn't snap a picture of Miles in front of his favorite tree! He was disappointed there wasn't a BYU tree, only BYU playhouses. Gwen and Lindy loved the Ballerina tree made of tutus.


We got cheap tickets through Canyon Grove to go see "Christmas Around the World" at BYU. (Miles refused to begin the picture with the 3 dancers, but I promise he was there!) Gwen almost didn't make it, thanks to a throw-up episode that night. I don't understand why my kids do that sometimes. Every once in a while, they'll throw up once, so I'll cancel all my plans etc, and they're just fine the rest of the day! I was glad I could take the 3 oldest though. It was spectacular!! Gwen's favorite country was India, and Miles and Lindy liked the Ukrainian dancers.


We got the kids nightlights to go on their walls, in the hopes that they could do their nighttime reading in their beds, as opposed to hauling all the books out into the hallway where the light is on. I think it's worked pretty well so far. Gwen put up a strand of Christmas lights in their room, and when I peeked in the other night, they just looked so cozy!


All hail the rat killing champion! We realized we had a rat hiding out in the woodpile and poison didn't work, so before Richie re-stocked the wood, he dug the rat out. Between his shovel and Ginger, we got rid of it. Yuck!!!

Mom's 70th birthday

Every once in a while, life smiles on you and gives you a nearly perfect day. My mom turned 70 this November, and to commemorate it, all five of her kids surprised her for an all-day party. Jenn and Adrienne "lured" her down from Cove Fort and her missionary duties, saying that they wanted to do a session at the temple with her. Which they did. But when they returned to the house, Russ, Ben and I were there too; complete with 70 balloons each with a favorite memory of Mom tied to it from family and friends.

Then we watched a video montage Jenn put together with all of our families singing, "I am a Child of God", before heading off to the "Escape Room"- a new experience for most of us. It's nice to shake things up a bit! Then we went out to eat for dinner, all the while singing along in the car to all of our old road trip favorites. "Rubber ball", "Tower of Strength", "100 pounds of clay" etc. After dinner we went back home to have some delicious cake and ice cream and open presents. Even though Ben and I had the drive back north ahead of us, it was hard to have the night end. So we watched some home movies together downstairs before heading home.

It was pretty much perfect. I didn't even mind the drive down and back in such a short amount of time because I got all this great one-one-one time with my brother, which never happens. It was so fun to talk all the way there and back. It may seem odd that my Dad wasn't there, or that our spouses weren't there, but they sacrificed to watch kids etc so that the original 5 and Mom could have this time together. I will cherish this day for a long, long time. I feel so lucky to have grown up alongside the siblings I have, and under the watchful care of my parents-some of my best friends.