Lots of Pictures of the Porge

Today is officially Christmas! It doesn't feel like it since both our family and Bubs' family has already celebrated Christmas. Usually we still do stockings on Christmas Day, but we passed on that this year. We still had a fantastic day. Stockton and Jorja were up late last night with Ange and Amelia. They convinced Millie that Santa was a spider and that is how he can see everyone all of the time. According to Stockton Millie kept saying that was 'creepy' but Jorja kept making it more and more convincing. She drew pictures of Spider Santa and posted them on her Instagram stories asking which Santa was better. Millie didn't like the small one because it looked too scary. When Millie asked how Jorja was so good at drawing him Jorja told her it was because she had seen Spider Santa. Stockton and Jorja were loving this interaction with Amelia. Ange thought it was hilarious too. Anyway, it wasn't until this morning, after I had voted on Jorja's story that I saw the spider drawings were ON HER LEG! You couldn't tell from her post. That made me laugh and laugh and wonder how she became so weird.

Jorja's Spider Santa leg

Jorja asked if we could take some pictures together outside today. She wanted to be able to post some pictures of the two of us on my birthday. After we took a few pictures of us together, we took some of just Jorja. They turned out really good. Bubs and Ange were helping us when we were at the top of the hill. Everyone was cracking me up. It was so funny. Here are a TON of pictures. Lots of them look the same. I only posted 1/10th of the pictures I think. Also, I couldn't find the Stockton photobombing pictures. I will have to look for those and post them tomorrow.

Jorja

Someone would say, "Let's have Jorja carry wood!...Let's give her an ax!...Let's give her a sled!" It was soooooo dang funny!

Jorja carrying wood

 She's presenting it to us

 Ange staging the wood while Jorja chops off her head!

 Hahahaha! They kept giving her weird tools! We actually use this a lot on the snow up here.

I wish, wish, wish I had videoed Jorja when they gave her the sled to take a picture with. She was pretending it was a her date to a dance and she was getting awkward pictures together. I was laughing so hard I was crying. Here she is purposely standing as awkward as she can with her sled date. Holy cow if you could hear how she was talking to the sled you would be dying right now too. I am so thankful my kids got their personality from their dad!

 Jorja

 Bubs throwing snow at her

 Jorja teasing me about her loopy case...she loves it, even if she won't admit it.

 Bubs, Jorja, Ange

 Stephanie & Jorja

One of us has gotten really old.

 Jorja and Stephanie ~ I love this girl more than she will ever understand.

We played another of the kids escape room games. It was pretty fun and we liked it better than the first one. We played a lot of games today. Stockton is so good at Rewordable. I am not. I don't like word games very much. I like strategy games more. Still, today was a great day. How could it not be? We were at the cabin. So sad to think this is the last Christmas with all of my children. I wonder what our family will be like when Stockton is with us again for Christmas 2022.

Jorja & Preston

 Mike, Preston, Maysen, Jorja, Stockton

 Christmas 2018: Preston, Maysen, Mike, Stockton

Stephanie, Jorja

 Preston is at that silly picture stage.....wait, it looks like Mike is still in that stage too.

Temple with Maysen

Mike and I have now been married 23 years! What better way to celebrate than to go through the temple with Maysen for the first time. It was the best day. The weather was perfect. Maysen was so sweet. I just loved it so much. Mike and I took Maysen for breakfast at the Waffle Iron before heading to the temple for our afternoon session. I was Maysen's escort. I have never been in the Logan Temple before. It definitely was built a long time ago. It was cool. The locker rooms were huge too! I was separated from Maysen in the locker room and waited for her in the instruction room. The assistant to the matron talked to us for awhile. She was really nice and kind. Maysen's temple escort was super nice. She took us down a different hallway to the endowment room. "Only brides and people going through the temple for the first time get to come down here." It was really cool to be in the celestial room with Maysen. My dad, Mike, Bubs, Ange, Matt and Sam were also there. Maysen's temple escort asked us if we would want to get our picture taken in our white clothes. I had never thought about that. We had to change into church shoes and were supposed to meet her in front of the bridal door. She wanted to take us out that door because 'the flowers were just beautiful.' Well, two other temple workers did not like her idea at all. Finally one of the said, "Might I suggest that you go back and change into your regular clothes. This is highly unusual what you are asking to do." By this time I was really excited about the idea. I love Maysen's temple dress and I wanted a picture of her in it. I said sounding disappointed, "Really, we can't do it?" The other lady said, "Well, I can't stop you . . ." She started to say something else but I interrupted with 'Great!' We were told we needed to go out the front door. No worries there. We did make sure everyone had their recommend so they could get back in the temple. It did make us laugh and I love the pictures. The temple escort whispered to me as she was walking us out, "I don't know why you wouldn't want to take your pictures in your temple clothes, I thought it was a great idea." Haha. She was great.

Maysen

Maysen's wearing a necklace Jorja gave her before she left for college.

 Mike, Maysen, Stephanie

 Dad, Mike, Ange, Maysen, Bubs, Stephanie, Matt, Sam

Sam had asked someone to take our picture. After we got the picture in front of the flowers the girl asked if we wanted one with the temple in the background. Hahahaha! I would have been so annoyed if I had forgotten to do that! We are kind of in shadows, but still!

Sam, Matt, Dad, Mike, Maysen,Stephanie, Ange, Bubs

Once all the group pictures were done I asked my dad to take some pictures Mike and I with Maysen. That way the lady Sam got didn't have to stay. Matt and Sam had to take off to get back home. Logan is a ways away. After my dad took some pictures I asked Ange if she could take some. When my dad asked why I wanted more when he just took some. Mike said, "She's hoping Ange won't have her finger over the lens." Haha! Here is my dad's picture.

Maysen, Stephanie, Mike

Ange got some great pictures. She kept going back in the shadows. She said she always things pictures taken with the camera in the shadows turns out better. I never knew that. She also was crouched super low on the ground to get the top of the temple in. She was great.

Maysen, Stephanie, Mike

 My dad, Maysen, Stephanie, Mike

 Stephanie, Maysen, Mike

 Maysen

My dad had brought up Jorja and Preston when he came. He dropped them off with Stockton before heading to the temple. We all drove to Stockton's apartment, except Matt and Sam who had already left. Stockton had taken the kids to lunch at the Marketplace. They spent most of the rest of the time playing Super Mario I think. Stockton showed everyone around his room. Bubs and Ange had to take off and get back to their kids. They were being watched at President Back's house by his daughter who is one of Ange's good friends. My dad went with my family to Olive Garden before he headed home. We stopped by Maysen's apartment so Mike could look at her tablet that had stopped working. Luckily the plug had just been knocked loose and she hadn't noticed. We like fixes like that. We were glad we were able to get into Maysen's parking lot. She lives across the street from the football field. There was a game today, and the road gets shut down. They had just started opening it up when we arrived. We were able to drive Stockton back to his apartment before we made the long drive home. Utah State had a giant win, so that was good. I drove home and made it just in time to watch the BYU game. Too bad they lost. Oh well. The rest of the day was perfect.

Macbeth's Last Day

There were a ton of deer running across our front lawn today. I think Dash on his skateboard coming down the street freaked them out. I wasn't fast enough to get really cool pictures.

We got to Macbeth early. I wanted to get great seats. Turns out that for some reason the entire front row was reserved. Our seats were not great at all, despite arriving an hour early. Oh well. I called Ange and asked if she wanted my dad's ticket. She wanted to go with Bubs. We were able to get them a standby ticket. That was so nice of them to come! I was glad I told the boys what the story was. It is pretty hard to follow along without knowing. I think Preston would have had a really hard time sitting through it if we didn't have that conversation. He was great today. Stockton hung out with Gavin and some other diving friends for most of the day. They went hiking and then played games at Gavin's house. I told him to meet us at the school at 6:45. He did. I was waiting for him with his ticket. He barely looked at me as he grabbed the ticket because he saw Acea waiting for a standby ticket. Acea is his good friend from last year. He was the math sterling scholar last year. He is up at Utah State right now. Stockton loved seeing him!

Acea, Stockton, Nate (Macduff)

 And Mike trying to photobomb

 Mike, Jorja, Stephanie

 Jorja & Drew ~ Jorja was SO EXCITED Drew came!

 Ange, Jorja, Bubs

Mike, Preston and I headed home. Stockton stayed to talk with his friends and wait for Jorja. Jorja convinced them to go get ice-cream. Stockton, Acea, Nate and Jorja went to McDonalds. They had an ice-cream cone that lasted two minutes, then sat and talked for an hour. I asked Jorja if she felt like a third wheel. She said, "Only when they talked nerd." Hahaha! Stockton, Acea and Nate are the biggest nerds in the best way. Both Stockton and Jorja had a fantastic day.