Merry Christmas!

 

Yesterday morning (Christmas Eve), we woke up, got ready and went to church.  We had a lovely hour-long service full of beautiful Christmas music.  It was a great way to start the day. 

 Then we came home and Ella grabbed a football and went out in the yard and started throwing the ball.  I snapped this picture because it epitomizes Ella to a T.   She's rough and tumble sporty tom-boy girlie girl.  She wears the frilly dress and the pink jacket and has the bow in her long hair and plays football.  She's all of that wrapped into one.  And I absolutely love it.  It just cracks me up.  She's her own person for sure!

And then, thanks to my parents, we enjoyed our annual tradition of deep dish Chicago-style pizza for dinner!  We also played games (Sequence) and watched a Christmas movie (While You Were Sleeping).

Then we went out to see all the Christmas lights and stopped by our very favorite tree to take pictures. 

Then we came home and spread reindeer food in our yard. 

And finished our advent calendar puzzle. 

And put on our matching Christmas PJ's

And tucked the kids into bed. They always have a sleepover together on Christmas Eve.

Good Morning!  Merry Christmas!  Lining up youngest to oldest...

First... we open the stockings!

Then we take turns opening gifts!

And we sang Happy Birthday to this sweet little guy who came to us in a stocking on Christmas morning exactly 7 years ago today!

Lacey got some new luggage for her African adventure to Mozambique this summer!

And a huge highlight for me and Riley is that Dave surprised us with matching shirsts signed by our very favorite soccer player!!! 😲

We love BYU women's soccer at our house.  We watch every single game and cheer them on hard.  They had an amazing team this year and made it all the way to the semifinals.  They only lost one game all season and were ranked between #1-#6 in the nation all season long. They were so fun to watch!  And Brecken Mozingo is their star player and one of the top offensive players in the NCAA.  She's amazing. Anyway, turns out, Dave found out that my niece Reagan has some connections..... Her roommate is Brecken's best friend.  What luck!  So Dave had Reagan buy two shirts, had Brecken sign them and take a picture of herself with the signed shirts and sent them to us!  How totally awesome is that?!!!

Ella sporting her new Maryland United beanie.  Although her favorite gift was a red remote-controlled Tesla.

Then Dave's family came over.  We ate a yummy meal, opened some gifts and played Left, right, center.

 

From left to right Back Row:  Aunt Anne, Cousin Jordan, Cousin Lexi, Tanner, Dave, Riley, Grandpa, Tyler and his girlfriend Lydia.

Middle row: Nana, Becky, Kerry, Aunt Heidi

Front Row: Lacey, Jacque, Ella

Thank you, Maricarmen for these beautiful hand-sewn scented sachets. "Ashmore gifts" have become part of our Christmas tradition and they are so meaningful because they are always handmade.

The Christmas season has now come and gone.  So grateful to have spent this wonderful time of year with Dave and the kids and grateful for the memories we've made together.  And grateful for the miraculous birth of our Savior.  Merry Christmas 🎄

Leading Up to Christmas....

 

In the past week, leading up to Christmas, we have been busy celebrating in all kinds of ways!

Riley had a holiday party with her lacrosse team.

Kind of awesome when one of your lacrosse coaches also happens to be a professional baker!  As in, she owns her own bakery and there are lines out the door for her creations.  Soooo yummy! 😛

The whole crew showing off the personalized gifts they got from their coaches.

And then, in keeping with tradition, we came home to make and decorate our homemade Christmas cookies. 

The following day, Ella (far right) was invited to a Christmas party with a bunch of the 5th grade girls in our neighborhoods to walk around and see the lights, eat pizza, drink hot cocoa and do a Secret Santa gift exchange.

On Friday, I hosted a breakfast and gift exchange for all of my (10) seminary students.  I have now officially taught 2.5 years of seminary.  I have taught the 2nd half of Doctrine and Covenants and the entire Bible - Old Testament and New Testament.  I have such a great group of kids.  I've really enjoyed getting to know them and spending my mornings with them.  It's hard.  It's so, so, so incredibly hard.  But it's worth it.  They're worth it. 

And then on Saturday (Christmas Eve Eve), Riley had a party with her 5 besties. 

And Tanner got together with all of his best buddies (this group has been together since Kindergarten).

And the Strom family all got together to see our traditional Christmas movie.  We saw Wonka.

We took up two full rows in the theatre!

Moulin Rouge

Lucky Seats strikes again!  I've been entering "Lucky Seats" for various shows and have "won" twice in the last couple of weeks.  I put "won" in quotes, because it doesn't make the tickets free, but it does make them deeply discounted.  So intead of paying $80-$100 for a ticket, you can go for ~$30-$35 a ticket.  So I "won" two tickets to Cirque du Soleil's 'Twas the Night a couple weeks ago and took Lacey and then "won" two tickets to see Moulin Rouge on Friday night and took Dave.  It wasn't "Christmasy" like so many of the other shows being performed right now, but it was very well done and very entertaining and Christian (played by Christian Douglas) was amazing!!

This is What Christmas Means to Me

I had been back from DC (for the field trip with Riley) for no more than 45 minutes, when I got back in the car and headed to DC.... again.  It occurred to me that I was probably the only person in the world who was doing that.  BUT, I did it because we wanted to see Youngjin (my cousin's daughter-in-law) perform at the DC temple.  Riley had a chorus concert, so she and Dave stayed back to do that while I took Lacey, Tanner and Ella to the temple.

Lifesize nativity.

Johnny (my cousin John's son) and his wife (Youngjin pictured here) and their two adorable kids are the only family that live out East on my side of the family.  I have no parents, no siblings, no nieces, no nephews, no cousins, no Aunts, no Uncles.  But I have my cousin's son and his family in Virginia (about an hour and a half away) so we try to see them whenever we can!  The DC temple is gorgeous at Christmas time.  The grounds are beautiful to walk around and the Visitors Center offers free concerts every night.  Youngjin is in a choir that performed on Thursday night, so we were excited to go and see her.  They did an amazing job and it was so nice to listen to a dozen or so Christmas songs.  It was such a beautiful, festive way to end such a sobering day.

Holding baby Heidi.

Walking through the creche exhibit from around the world is always a highlight.  With everything going on in the world right now between Israel and Palestine and having just been at the Holocaust Memorial a few hours prior, this really struck me..... see the Israel and Palestine nativities right next to each other.  A symbol of peach between these two nations that seems so unreachable right now.  

My kids are so in love with Ollie and Heidi.

Also... every time I see a replica of this beautiful Christus, I am reminded of how awesome it is that we as a family were able to travel to Copenhagen and see the original.

This holiday season.... He is the Gift. 

Merry Christmas 🎄

In the mean time, Riley rocked it in her holiday concert.  Dave took tons of pics and video for me.  I had so much fun watching it as Riley had so much charisma and facial expressions and stage presence. I loved it! 

Way to go, Riley 👏🎵

Holocaust Memorial in DC

 

Riley is studying WWII in her 7th grade Social Studies class.  So they went on a Field Trip this past week to DC to visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.  This museum was dedicated in 1993 as a living memorial to the Holocaust.  And Riley asked me to chaperone, so I took the day off work and accompanied my girl to DC for this somber and educational experience. 

Here she is in front of the Washington Memorial right before we entered the museum.

"Work sets you free".... the infamous sign at the entrance of Auschwitz and other concentration camps.

It was a heavy experience and topic, especially at this time of year and most especially with everything going on in the world since the Hamas attacks on Israel two months ago.  But I was grateful to spend the day with my girl and talk about some of those deeper, heavier topics that we are faced with.

A view of the Capitol as we left the city.  I sometimes ponder how lucky I am to live so close to the Nation's capitol.  A place that people from all over the world come to visit, to see, to experience.  And I also ponder on all that it represents.  Democracy.  Freedom.  And how those things are so fragile and always hanging in the balance.  God bless America 💙

Free Throw Champion!

 

A couple weeks ago, Ella came home with a paper from school stating she had won a Free Throw contest and was eligible to advance to the next round.  Apparently there is a nation-wide "Hoop Shoot" contest sponsored by the Elks.  It starts at the school level and 2 girls and 2 boys from each age group get to advance to the next level to compete against each other.  And Ella was in the top two at her school, so she was able to advance.  So, this past week, all of those "top two" free throwers from all of the schools around competed against each other.  They attempted to make 10 free throws, then had a little break and came back to shoot 15 more.  Then the top ONE person won a brand new basketball, was presented with a certificate AND gets to advance to the next level in Towson, MD next month.  

And Ella won!!  So exciting!

Here she is, all smiles, with her gym teacher Mr. Utz who came out to support her. 

Way to go, Ella! 🏀

There were three age groups and here are the winners (one boy and one girl) from each age group.

Group picture of Free throw champions 😀🏀🏆

So glad we have this little caboose.  She keeps life fun and exciting and I love her so much!!

Gators are back for a Championship Win!

 

Riley has been on this team for several years, but aside from practices and scrimmages over the past month or so, they haven't played together since the Spring (they typically take Summer and Fall off).  But Basketball season is now officially underway and they had their first tournament of the season this weekend.  They made it to the Championship game and won!  Way to go Gators!  They also had their first game of the season as well (independent of the tournament) and won that too, so they're off to a great start!

Riley and her good buddy Elizabeth.  They play basketball and lacrosse together and have become good buddies on and off the field/court.

Way to go, Riley!

As if four basketball games this weekend wasn't enough, Riley also had a soccer tournament - it was a LOT to juggle.  Sadly, Soccer didn't go as well as basketball and they didn't make it to the Championship game.  Here they are after their third and final game ending with a tie of 1-1.  We stopped for a quick picture as this was the last game with Ally (next to Riley) as she has decided to transfer to another club team.  When you play as many sports as we do and they are high intensity year-round teams that you travel with, you become bonded with them and they become part of your extended "sports family", so Ally will definitely be missed!