December 2019

We prepared ourselves for a busy December and this year we tried to minimize as much as we could and focus on the really important things.  There were some bumps (literally and figuratively) but we had a wonderful month with lots of memories.

To start, Coco contracted Hand, Foot, Mouth Disease.  Poor thing.  And then she passed it on to me, which was fun.  

Coco has become quite the copy-cat.  She loves repeating the things we are saying and I had to catch this moment of Tess teaching her the alphabet...

 We tried (and mostly failed) to keep up with the advent calendar.  When we were successful it was mostly due to Addie stepping in and offering to take over.

Our annual trip to Christmas Village for Grandma Wayment's birthday was a hit.  The kids always love seeing all the lights and mostly just love being together. 

Afterwards we went for Grandma's favorite dessert...ice cream!

Love these girls in their Christmas shirts...

Dad always bringing the fun...

When I was growing up, my mom always made chocolate fluffs.  I decided to pass along this tradition to these ladies...

And of course we decorated sugar cookies...

 We had a Christmas party with our Sandy friends...

Santa came to visit...

We were able to watch all 3 girls at their school Christmas Sing...

And help out with their school Christmas Parties...

The Payne Family Party never disappoints. We love spending time with this large group of people.

This time of year always means a hospital visit or two.  Croup takes us down every time...

Gingerbread house making (or eating)...

And just like that it was Christmas Eve...

We started by opening our Christmas jammies.  It was fun to see how excited the girls get even when its just jammies...

We stopped for a visit with Great Grandma Johnson.  We love visiting with her. Always kind and always smiling.  Ready for a hug and a kiss anytime. We love to hear her stories and are always grateful for the time we have with her.

 And then on to the Wayment Family Party where we are always spoiled, have lots of fun, and create lots of great memories...

And after a full day, we made sure Santa had cookies and milk waiting as we headed off to bed...

Christmas Morning was so fun. We love watching the girls open presents and be so thrilled with what they got.  

  Christmas Dinner with the Paynes. You really couldn't ask for a better group of people to spend Christmas dinner with.  From poppers and crowns to lamb and good company. We enjoy all the time we get with this group...

We even got to talk to Carson who is on his mission in Chile...

 The day after Christmas we decided to head down to St. George.  After I found out about the Fibromyalgia and POTS, Devin and I really started discussing how much work and stress our current home (and yard) was.  We really started discussing moving and the idea of moving to St. George.  Its something we have talked about since we first got married and have been more seriously talking about throughout the last year.  When we went down in October we started checking out areas and neighborhoods.  Throughout the following month we started looking at specific homes in the areas we liked and planned the trip in November to look at houses.  There was one in particular that we were super excited about but by the time we got down there it was already under contract.  We were really disappointed and not interested in any of the other homes we saw.  Our agent told us to go back to our hotel and look for any other homes that we might want to see.  A house popped up that I had never seen before and it was in an area we loved and fit all of our other wants.  We asked to see it and immediately fell in love.  After discussing it for awhile, talking to Devin's work about working remotely(which we were surprised that they would allow him to work remotely) and discussing it with the girls we put in an offer on the house.  The home is a new build and the basement and backyard had not been finished yet.  We were able to work out a deal with the owners to have the basement and backyard finished and that we could close on the home in May.  (The hope was to let the girls finish school before moving.)  Everything just seemed to fall into place.  We prayed a lot to know if this was right for our family and things just kept working out.  So we wanted the girls to see the home again and take them around St. George to get them excited about it.  

Even in December the girls wanted to be in the pool. Luckily it was heated!

 We stayed in a hotel and its pretty hard sharing a room with a toddler.  Needless to say, I didn't sleep much.

The next day we took them to check out the fun stuff that they have in St. George like the Children's Museum...

And Zeppes!

It was a fun trip and a good way to ease the girls into the idea of moving.  Of course we all feel sad about the idea of moving farther from family and friends but we are really excited about the new adventures that St. George holds for our family.