December

On the first Monday night in December our family tradition is to have a Jerusalem supper to remember the Savior as we bring in the Christmas season. This year we had to do it on a Tuesday night since Jenna travels to Layton for Ballroom on Mondays.  The boys get so excited to have grape juice and usually drink so much they make themselves sick.  In the picture you can see Jamo pouring himself another glass. 😜

 

This year we finally got a new Christmas tree. Adam and I bought a Christmas tree the year we got married in 2000, and had been using it ever since.  For the last 10 years or so it was leaning so much that we had to find ways to prop it up to keep it upright. Yeah, it was time to retire it.

Korinne's first time driving a car in the church parking lot. 😁

Britton and his companion Elder Snow from Arizona. Elder Snow served in the Philippines before being reassigned to Iowa because of COVID. Britton was transferred from Marshalltown to Dubuque, Iowa and started getting a taste of what it means to spend winter in the Midwest. Can you say brrrrr? Needless to say he stocked up on hats and sweaters and was often wearing them in our weekly video chats.

In the middle of the month Jameson tested for his orange belt in Taekwando.  He was able to easily break a board at the end of the testing. Great job Jamo!

Master Evans signing his board.

Because of COVID Adam's company didn't have a Christmas party, but they did pay for our family to have dinner together at the Beehive Grill, a great local restaurant in town.

The kids had a lot of fun ordering anything they wanted including drinks, appetizers and, of course, dessert to go. AJ was hilarious. Forget the kids menu he wanted real food and ordered the $18 salmon dinner. He also kept asking the server for more appetizers and drink refills every time she came to the table. Of all of our kids he is the most adventurous eater as a 5 year old. In fact, I would even go so far as to call him a foodie.  He really appreciates grown up foods and flavors and is the only one in the family that likes spicy foods.

Delicious!

As per tradition Grandma P had the boys over before Christmas to make Christmas cookies.  

For the first time in 200 years a "Christmas Star" appeared on December 21st for a few hours in the early evening. Saturn and Jupiter were so close together that they looked like one big star.

You can see it right in the center of the picture if you look closely. 

Before we knew it Christmas Eve was upon us.  We settled in for our traditional Reuben sandwiches.

AJ loves Reuben sandwiches so I think Jameson is the only one of the kids that doesn't like them yet.  Britton reported to us that since his companion also really likes them they were able to buy the ingredients and have them on Christmas Eve in Iowa.

Christmas Eve presents. Surprise! It's pajamas! 😜😜

All lined up on Christmas morning.

Each child posed with their favorite present.

Jenna and her airpods.

Korinne showing a plane ticket to Texas to visit her cousin Abigail.

Jameson was excited about the family gift- a Nintendo Switch.

AJ loved his remote controlled car.

The boys playing Just Dance.

Lego time!

Adam is always in charge of Christmas dinner where we eagerly await the unveiling of his famous "Christmas Jello" which is different every year.  Oh yeah, and he also made his delicious rolls from scratch. 😀

Ta-Da! Individual portions of Christmas Jello, which is only fitting during a global pandemic. 

The next morning Korinne and I flew to Texas to visit Aunt Tiffany, Uncle Shawn and Abigail. 

Korinne and Abigail

We spent 2 days at Six Flags in Dallas and had a fabulous time before returning home on the 30th.

And just like that 2020 ended.  It was definitely a year that no one saw coming and was completely different than anyone could have imagined, but we got through it and are looking forward to brighter days.  COVID vaccines were finally been approved by the FDA in December so hopefully each month will bring us closer to the end of COVID-19 craziness!

November

November was the month the world COVID-19 pandemic finally hit home. 

November sunsets.

Jenna was able to sing with Rhapsody for the first time without a mask at their fall concert at the beginning of November.  Parents had to get tickets and sit in assigned seating that was socially distanced, but they let the kids sing without a mask as long as they switched positions after every song so they weren't next to he same students the entire time.

Korinne also participated in choir during the first trimester.

The next night parents put on a Sadie Hawkins dance since the high school wasn't going to let the students have a dance because of COVID-19.  Jenna decided not to participate or ask anyone to the dance and it ended up being a very wise decision.  The day after the dance Jenna developed a sore throat and body aches which are very typical COVID symptoms.  She felt better by the next day but she went in to be tested on Monday morning because she carpools to ballroom in Layton with her friend Kelli who is considered high risk because of some condition she has. Jenna felt like she really needed to know if it was COVID or not to protect Kelli.  She felt fine and the rest of us felt fine so we were a little surprised when her results were positive.  The state of Utah had a huge surge of cases that week and the Governor had already asked for everything to be shut down again for 2 weeks so I told Jenna that if anyone in our family was going to get it that this was the perfect time! 😜😜 We didn't have to worry about any outside activities and she wasn't going to have any ballroom classes that week anyway. We kept the rest of the kids home from school and quarantined just like we had in the spring. We all felt perfectly fine but we knew the drill.  While we didn't test anyone else in the family, there is a good change that at least some of us had it without having any symptoms because we didn't take any precautions and lived with Jenna just like normal.  We weren't alone in our COVID quarantine because pretty much all of our neighbors had COVID during the month of November. A few of them felt really sick, however, so we were grateful that our COVID experience was a lot less painful. Jenna was fine to return to school 5 days after her first symptoms appeared, but she wasn't back very long before the entire school moved online for 2 weeks because they had too many COVID cases to remain open. Fortunately the elementary school remained open so the boys were able to return without any problems.

Korinne enjoys Interior Design so for her birthday she wanted to have a room makeover. Her room was previously Britton's, but she moved in pretty much the day after he left for his mission.  We then moved Jameson into her old room so that all of the kids could have their own room.  

She informed us that white walls were a must and would really open up the space. 😁

Fortunately, we were out of quarantine when her birthday arrived so Jenna, Korinne and I all went our for manicures to celebrate.

Happy 15th Birthday Korinne!

Yup, that's a learners permit. We were glad that someone had given us the heads up a few months earlier that you need to make an appt at the DMV because of COVID and they were 2 months out.  We were able to make an appt for right after her birthday.  

We decided not to travel for Thanksgiving because of the surge in COVID cases statewide. They were asking (begging) everyone to just stay home and not gather in large groups so my parents didn't go to Blackfoot either.  We had a quiet Thanksgiving at home with Grandma and Grandpa P and while it wasn't a normal Thanksgiving, the food was still delicious!

We joked that in the family Thanksgiving "divorce" we still had custody of Adam's famous dinner rolls and that was all that mattered. Ha!

Jameson started basketball in November with Adam as the coach. 

 I was glad that they still allowed the kids to play sports even with all of the pandemic madness.

October

 Jameson was busy during October playing both flag football and soccer. Sometimes he had 2 games in one night but we were still able to make it work.

Of the 2 sports I think Jameson liked football a little bit more.

AJ with his soccer team the Fire Dragons.

It was Jenna's last Cross Country season and she ended on a high note.  She ran her personal best time at the last home meet and felt really good about her final race at Region held at the AMHC.  She had a lot of great experiences running Cross Country all 4 years of High School.

Even with COVID-19 restrictions we were still able to have October fun.  The boys loved the corn maze on the annual Board of Realtor event at AWHC.

Korinne and the boys enjoyed the fall weather while hiking in the canyon with friends.

They opened the theaters again with restrictions so the girls and I were able to take advantage of our season tickets at Hale Center Theater. Mary Poppins was fun and magical.  

Another crazy hair day is in the books.

On Oct 21st I turned 44 and celebrated by going on a bike ride in the morning with my friend Abby.  As luck would have it I got a migraine at the end of the ride so I spent the rest of my birthday in bed. Bummer. I guess it's a good thing I hadn't made any big plans for the day.

Jenna and Korinne always come up with coordinating Halloween costumes because they are festive like that. This year it was the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts. Very clever.

The boys decided they wanted inflated dinosaur costumes.  They *almost* made it through Halloween night with the costumes fully inflated, but when the batteries ran out they swung by the house for a quick costume change before heading out for a few more pieces of candy.

AJ was adamant that we NOT take him trick or treating.  He was big enough to go with his friends, thank you very much. What can I say, he's the youngest, we are tired, I trusted Jameson to keep an eye on him, and we know the neighbors well so I let my 5 year old go trick or treating without us. #momof theyear  Yeah, I stopped saying, "I'll never do that when I'm a Mom" a loooooooooong time ago. ha ha

Too.much.candy.

Britton has really been enjoying his time with his trainer Elder Johnson from Draper.  Elder Johnson served in Ecuador for a year before being reassigned to the Iowa City Mission after COVID hit so they were able to speak and teach in Spanish in Marshalltown, Iowa. Having a missionary out today is a lot different than it used to be in that you get to talk to them on the phone every week.  During October since the missionaries were somewhat limited in what they could do as far as person to person contacting and teaching the missionaries were even allowed to call home twice a week.  It has been so fun to get to talk with him often and share his mission experiences. The Iowa City mission is a big melting pot of missionaries. Many of them were originally called to serve in foreign missions but have been reassigned because of the pandemic.  The mission has swelled from 90 missionaries to over 250 missionaries.  My hat goes off to his Mission President who is dealing with a logistical nightmare on a daily basis but still manages to make it all work!!