Gingerbread Party and the BEST Present

I got the coolest message from my brother Mike. He said, "I asked Larkin to learn and sing a song for you to add to your Christmas present. She only recorded a minute of it so I'll send you a sneak peek. Hope you like it." It was AMAZING! He is having Larkin play the guitar and sing Visiting Hours! I cried and cried when he sent it. It was soooo cool. I absolutely love it and can't wait until he sends me the entire thing! What a nice, thoughtful, awesome gift! Larkin plays and sings beautifully too. I love it!

We had the Smith family gingerbread party today. It was so much fun. It's a lot of work, but I love getting together. Tage never fails to tell me this is her favorite thing of the year. Haha. Lisa and Nathan flew in yesterday, so they were able to be here too. What a great day.

Stephanie~ making frosting. Yes, I used ALL those bags of powdered sugar

We actually had a spot for the food this year. Shannon usually brings pizza and Sherry usually brings salad.

Stephanie again

Stockton invited Alyssa. They were here first and got a head start.

Alyssa & Stockton

Candy

Preston wanted a chocolate house

Matt, Xander, Connor, Erica's head, Miah, Dallin, Tage

Leo, Jacob, Nova's head, Alyssa, Stockton, Preston

Xander, Connor, Miah's elbow, Melissa's head, bit of Tage's face, Derek

Leo, Jacob, Nova's head, Brandon, Maysen's head, Alyssa, Stockton, Preston

Jorja & Michael

Jacob (sleepy Connor, Xander, Brandon)

Jacob & Brandon (Xander & Miah behind)

We hung out in the movie room after decorating. Mike made lots of cotton candy. We had fun throwing in different hard candies. Holy cow jolly ranchers are crazy strong!

Connor

Matt, Miah, Connor

The newlyweds ~ Dallin & Tage

And now... the houses...

Preston's chocolate house

Jorja

Stockton ~ heat miser/cold miser house

Alyssa

Stockton & Alyssa

Maysen

Mike

Tage & Dallin

Miah

Xander & Connor

Sherry & Matt

Brandon (and Steve)

Jacob

Shannon

Michael

Michael made a home in a trailer park

Lisa ~ she was planning on making Snoopy's house, but I didn't get any licorice, or red for the roof.

Melissa & Taylor

Aimee flies here in a few days, but we will be at the cabin. I sent home two houses, frosting and candy for them. Hope they have fun! Too bad we don't get to see baby Jonathan. I missed getting pictures of some houses. Erica, Nova, Leo..... anyway, today was a great day. Alyssa is sleeping in Stockton's room and Stockton is sleeping with Jorja and Preston in Jorja's room. We played Jackbox until it was time to sleep. I'm exhausted, but it was such a great day. Although we did find out one sad thing. The little kid bumper cars at Lagoon burned down. That use to be my favorite ride. Hope they build it back.

Lobby Closed

Well....Stockton's gingerbread house had a good run. 2 1/2 years. We think the moths have been eating it so it has to go. We have to get rid of Mike's gingerbread duck house and Maysen and Preston's gingerbread boat. They were fun, but now they are done.

Bye bye diving house

Preston got his first covid vaccination today. He didn't seem to be bothered by it at all. He wanted Little Caesars pizza. Usually Mike orders it on the app, but he is at the cabin. I decided to just go and order it in person. Big mistake. The lobby was closed! I ended up ordering it on line and waiting in the parking lot. The round trip was over an hour. Ugh. Mike was even home before I got there. Preston said the pizza tasted great, so at least that was good!

Stockton sent me this picture. He was too tired to try this shirt on when we were looking through the clothes he got with Cori, but he said he would send me a picture when he wore it. Glad he remembered!

Stockton

Stockton & Jorja ~ love seeing them together!

Secret Code

Jorja had a rough day. She was so tired this morning. It probably doesn't have anything to do with staying up super late to talk to Stockton. She checked in during Chinese. I didn't call the office because I thought they told me not to if she checked in during 1st or 5th. I was wrong. Luckily the office called me and we were able to get it straightened out. Jorja felt awful all day though. This mono is sure annoying. I was taking Maysen and Stockton out to lunch, so we checked Jorja out of school and had her come too. We went to OHOP. Maysen's favorite. Jorja came home to sleep after lunch and Stockton took her to school in time for chemistry. She has missed seminary so many times. It's hard because she is behind in all of her classes, when she is struggling, that is the best class to miss. My dad would not be proud of me. Anyway, Jorja texted me during chemistry and said that she was one of the only people that understood what was going on and she has been gone for a week! She even helped other people. That made her feel good. Jorja doesn't realize how smart she is. It's hard for her sandwiched between Stockton and Preston. Those two are crazy smart, so it makes Jorja feel inadequate. She says Maysen has her writing, but there is nothing she excels at. If only she realized how smart she was across the board. Right now it is hard though when she is so behind. I hope she can pull up her grades. This quarter has been rough.

Maysen and I went to the temple today. We got there at 12:30 and hoped to do a 1:00 session. Nope. It was booked. The earliest we could get in was 2:00. We decided to do initiatories instead. Maysen hasn't done those before. That worked out perfectly. This is also the reason why Stockton took Jorja to school. I'm glad she was able to go back in time for chemistry. Jorja stayed after school today to make posters for MORP next week. Jorja is the chair for that dance and it is stressing her out. The theme for MORP is Jerseys. I think it will be a lot of fun. Carson, Joe, Marshall and Traven stayed after to work on the posters. Look how adorable they turned out!

Jorja

Jorja had a date today with Collin. He works with her at Chick-Fil-A. She was pretty excited to go on a non-dance date. She likes Collin a lot as a friend. I am so glad she isn't interested in him as a boyfriend though. He would not be good for her. I think if she liked him he would be too controlling. He uses guilt a lot in my opinion. He is really nice to her though. Madison helped him plan the date. First they went ice skating....except it was closed. So, they ended up going to Zupas and then to a movie. They saw whatever was playing, which turned out to be Homes and Watson. Jorja said it was the worst movie she has ever seen. She knew it would be bad going in though, because we had talked about it at home. Anyway, Jorja has been on two non dance dates. They were identical dates in reverse. One was movie and Zupas, the other was Zupas and a movie. Same movie theater, same Zupas. Jorja texted me at 9:40 and said, "We're at a movie, is it okay if I come home after it finishes or do you want me home by 10:30?" I told Stockton that I thought Jorja wanted me to say she needed to come home. I told her that I wanted her to get some sleep because she is working nine hours tomorrow. I guessed right. Jorja wanted to come home. I didn't realize that this would have been the second movie they would be seeing. Jorja and I have now come up with a secret code that she can use when she wants to come home. Jorja does not like to use periods at the end of sentences when she texts. She says it makes the sentence too aggressive. So, if she is out with friends and she uses a period, I know that is the signal that she needs to come home. I will text her a message with two periods.. Like that. That way she is knowing I'm asking her if she meant to use the code. If she writes back and uses a period again, I know she wants to come home. Anyway, that is our plan. It would have been helpful today.

I did have every intention of having Jorja go to sleep when she got home....except the kids all wanted to play a game. (It did make me happy that Jorja came home from a date and wanted to spend time with her family. I love how much my family loves being together.) We played another escape room game. Maysen is going back to school tomorrow, so this was our last chance. This game was HARD! And so much fun. The puzzles were crazy, but pretty awesome. I fell asleep for the last bit though. I did wake up about five minutes before the puzzle was solved. I am not a night person.

Mike, Preston, Maysen, Stockton, Jorja

 I finally got a family gingerbread picture!

Maysen, Preston, Mike, Stockton, Jorja

I didn't decorate one this year. I was burnt out just making them. I can't believe Christmas break is over. I'm going to miss having all of my family together. These few weeks went way too fast. I have loved every second of it though.

Stockton's Dive House

I have been doing gingerbread practically non stop for a few weeks. I am so tired of gingerbread. I love it, but the parties this year were too close together. It worked out though. If I had any parties at the beginning of December that would have been awful. My hands were full dealing with Mono Jorja. So, it worked out, but it was very tiring.

Mike's family came over for gingerbread houses tonight. Shannon brought a lot of pizza, Sherry brought veggies. Jorja had to work until 8:30. Weston was gone by the time she got back, so that was disappointing.

Derek, Weston, Steve, Audrey, Nova's head

 Stockton, Preston, Xander, Miah

 Nova

 Shannon

 Weston

 Weston sent Jorja a video trolling her with his 'R-Town' house

 Sherry, Derek, Steve

 Audrey

 Jacob

 Derek

 Maysen

 Nova

 Jorja's back!

 Melissa & Nova

 Leo

 Nova, Derek, Leo, Melissa

 Xander

 We saved this chocolate walrus for him for a long time!

 Miah

 Sherry

 Sherry, Miah, Xander

 I loved Miah's pond in her backyard

 Sherry, Miah, Xander ~ had to get a picture of those Christmas sweaters!

 Miah & Jorja

Most of my pictures will be of Stockton's house. He made a diving house and it was awesome. Gavin came over after diving and brought his sister Zoe. Jorja and I ran down to Hailey's house to drop off her a gingerbread house. I left my camera with Stockton to get pictures of Gavin and Zoe with their houses. That is why their pictures are obnoxious. Pretty sure I would have gotten a non-smoldering picture if I was there.

Stockton, Gavin, Zoe

 Zoe

 Gavin

 Gavin & Zoe

Now to Stockton's house. He won't be here for the next two years, so I am going to post a million pictures of the house this year. He is so funny. I'm going to miss him.

Stockton's dive house

 3 meter, 5 meter, 1 meter

 Gavin at the top, Ren at the bottom

 Stockton made all of his diving friends

 Dani in her missionary clothes climbing the ladder is my favorite. Noel is on the roof, Courtney is on the 3.

 Stockton is pushing Gavin off of 5. Jackson climbing up to 1.

 Connor and Gage are in the showers.

 Dani

 Stockton

 Gillian's head, Ren bellyflopping

 Stockton. I love him.

 He even has the red U.

 Best house ever.

Maysen made a Dungeon and Dragon map. She named her world Staa. We were going to use this poster for the Christmas party. Jorja was writing 'Starry Night' and accidentally wrote 'Staa'. Whoops. Seriously that mono brain is awful! Anyway, Maysen's board looks pretty cool.

 Maysen

Jorja dancing with her dad. Love.