A Christmas Card

 

Random Christmas Stuff

 Edward's arts class held an art show and it was so awesome.  We went to see the art, and then did an escape room!  This was the boys first escape room. It was so fun.  They loved searching for clues all through out the escape room.  We solved it with about 15 minutes left.  Then we got REAL cookies for solving the "Great Christmas Cookie Caper".

We put up the Christmas tree and it looks amazing in our new home!!  The boys loved putting up all of our ornaments from the past years. 

I am singing with Opera Southwest this New Years Eve and have been  loving getting dressed up and singing again!  This is the dress I bought to wear for the evening. 

Nolen had been practicing hard for the Christmas sacrament meeting.  The day of, he felt really sick and ended up going to the ER because he had a terrible stomach ache.  He ended up just being dehydrated but he missed playing his cello for Christmas. 

For the past few months, I have been working on putting floating shelves up in my home.  I had purchased the rods to hang the shelves, then found the wood, then started working on hanging them up back in October.  Well the original wood I bought was too thin, so I had to find 4 inch thick wood.  Impossible during covid times!!  I called 20 places around the United States before I found a company here in New Mexico that would but the wood I wanted from a tree! It was awesome.  I picked up the wood and then realized it was in a rough state.  The boys and my dad spent hours sanding the wood and cutting it to size.  It has been a true labor of love!

Christmas Recital

 December has been extremely busy already! I have been trying to get all of my students ready for their recital  and it has been a real challenge this year.  I feel that pressure every single recital.  I have made each student a Christmas ornament every year at the recital.  This year is no different.  Nolen picked his up and broke it the next moment.  HA! 

My boys did great. Edward played a fun piano song that he has been working on for months and Nolen played both piano and cello.  

National Cross Country Meet

 This year, Nolen has worked extremely hard in cross country.  He has been putting in the work and complaining less and less about doing the hard work.  

We flew to Charlotte, North Carolina on Thursday and went to the Billie Graham Library where we rode a horse drawn carriage and ate ice cream  It was fun.

Friday, we slept in and headed to uptown Charlotte where we got pizza and popcorn.  The uptown area was cute but not a lot to see.  Then we headed over to the race site where we waited in line for an hour to get some merchandise and do the race walk through.  After the walk through, we went to dinner with a few of our friends from the team, then we went back to the hotel room we shared with Pamela and Andres Martinez and went to bed.  

Saturday, we woke up and had breakfast then went to the race.  We cheered on every single cougar racer before Nolen finally raced.  He had a great race and wished he could have gone a little faster.  He is excited to start running track this spring.  We flew home Saturday night after the race and we wiped out!  We spend all day Sunday in bed.

Thankful Thanksgiving

 We had a pretty low key Thanksgiving this year.  We woke up early and went to our annual turkey trot that we missed for two years.  We ran our hearts out.  Edward rode is bike around because the bike race was not an organized event.

After the race, we made some turkey and ate with my parents.  Nice easy day.

Orchestra with AYSP

 Yesterday, Nolen had his first orchestra concert with Albuquerque Youth Symphony Orchestra.  He plays with the fourth and fifth graders.  So far, he is loving it.  He said he hasn't made any friends yet, but he is working on it.

For the first time in my entire life, I have a television in my bedroom.  I'm 40! Our new house is just too echoey for us to watch TV in the living room.