Before Christmas events and activities

 Here are some of the events happening around here this month:

We had a ward party. Andre and I because we are in the youth programs, were partially in charge of it. I didn't take any pictures except Alex playing the piano as part of the program. 

I try to have Christmas activities every day. But I also don't feel guilty if we skip a day or two. Sunday was the first presidency's Christmas message.

This day was eating a pomegranate.  That is Christmasy isn't it?

Tuesday was Young Men and Young women. This was my last activity as a leader. It was decorating cakes. It was awesome. 

Wednesday was decorating Gingerbread houses. We used my sister in laws idea to use a glue gun to put the graham crakers together. This made it a lot easier to make the size house that you want. 

 Tanner's school has a contest for raising money for a charity at Christmas time. The 3 grades compete. They all have a jar. Each coin put in the grade's jar is counted FOR your grade. Each bill put in your jar is counted against your grade. So you want to put lots of coins in your jar and lots of bills in the other grade's jars. Tanner spent a lot of time getting LOTS of coins so his grade would win. This is about 27 pounds of penny's around $50.

Alex had a concert!  They sounded so great! Alex is in the back so we could not really see him.

 But he had a speaking part so here he is.

 There he is- in the back.

 Guess what? Our missionary came home for Christmas. He got kidney stones and they sent him home.

 He got home on the day he was supposed to fly to Arizona. Since then, we have tried to do missionary things with him. We visited people in our ward (we, because he has to have a companion), we have studied Revelation. This picture is him teaching us from Revelation. He also had to go with me as I did my last minute Christmas shopping.

 We made scones one night. Scones... yumm. Those are Christmasy- right?

 We had tickets to see Suessical the Musical. It was awesome.

Bartlome Christmas party! 

This is Tanner playing his ukelele for Grandpa and Grandma Bartlome. 

Dinner...

Gifts

White elephant game. 

Keanan, Chase, Alex, and Jaxon had a game going on where keanan wanted a giant gummy bear and they hid it somewhere.This was the part where Keanan had exhausted my boys.

 We love to see the Grandparents!!

Christmas Craft

 Torturing a rubber duck. Is that a Christmas craft?

 We must all have the same amount of egg nog.

Going to see the "Tree of Life" lights in Draper. 

 On the way home we stopped by the candy displays in South Jordan city...

And stopped by some amazingly decorated houses. 

Somewhere in those weeks, we had other things without pictures. Tanner worked a lot. Alex had musical practice nearly every school day. Lots of wrapping gifts, making neighbor gifts and delivering them. Some nights we watched Christmas movies. We had a dinner at Texas Roadhouse for my work. Andre's work party is at work just for employees.We had a stake Christmas music fireside. Half the family performed in it. I got sick on the 14th and 15th. Chase got sick on the 19th. On the 22nd during church we had the choir perform. Andre, Jaxon, Alex, and I were all in the choir. We also had a linger longer after sacrament meeting.

Of course we went to a doctors appointment with Jaxon on the 19th. The kidney stone hurt him on December 14th and 15th. This was while he was in the MTC. On Monday the 16th he had a scan and the stone was there. They told him that he needed to go home to pass it. So I got him on the 17th. He has had NO pain since the 15th. After Jaxon's doctor appointment, we contacted our Stake president. The church does not send missionaries out the week of Christmas. So, he is here. It is great to spend time with him and funny that he has to follow mission rules while here. So, no Christmas movies that are not church made this week. We have had to do things differently. But that is fine and good. He just needs to get back on his mission. He loved the MTC, he will see that he will love his mission too.

And the golf course started cutting down our trees. I am undecided on how I feel about that.

And now, we are ready for Christmas!!