Goodbye 2023, Hello 2024

As it is for most people, the end of the year was pretty busy for us.

With me taking graphic design classes through BYU Pathways (which I definitely recommend!) it made things a little bit hectic. Not to mention, me getting used to life with 5 kids now. All that being said, the end of the year holidays and updates are all getting one group post. Haha!

Let's start with Halloween.

This year, we had to have our costumes ready for the Le Starge family reunion which meant a lot of rushing through it to get it done almost 3 weeks before Halloween! John and Sam dressed up as a body guard and the president, David got an inflatable costume this year and was a person being carried by an alien, Aaron was a UFO (he came up with this on his own and was so excited), and Brooke was Jasmine (in her pink dress from the live action movie, of course!). Zack changed costumes a few times but was usually either a monkey or a lion. My plan was to dress up as Dahlia from Aladdin and be Brooke's handmaid, but my costume was the last one on the list to make and I ran out of time. I ended up just being another body guard with John, sort of...

With the ward trunk-or-treat, school parties, trick or treating at grandma's work and around our neighborhood, the kids got tons of candy on Halloween and it lasted until Christmas! Haha!

Next, we have Thanksgiving.

With my parents moving to Georgia this summer, it will be a lot harder and more expensive to visit them now. We also haven't been down to see my brother in a few years, so we ditched the cold and drove to my brother's house in Arizona! We brought my sister, Tami with us and my sister, Julia flew in so more than half the family was there. It was fun to visit my brother and his family and enjoy some sunshine. Our visit was full of yummy food, board games, and trips to the park. Sounds a little slow, but that's how it goes with young kids.

Sadly, this was the only picture I took other than one photo of Tami and Austin pretending to be T-Rex's. Haha!

To Finish off the year, Christmas.

We spent Christmas at home in Utah this year and although we didn't have enough snow for sledding, we did have time to make a homemade gingerbread house. On Christmas Eve, we went to church and then joined with John's extended family for their annual Christmas Eve caroling at two nursing homes. This year I played a violin duet with my sister in law Jocelyn which was fun! Christmas morning was just like most. Santa came and then we opened presents. Our kids gave us an unintentional gift by sleeping in until 7:30 this year which was great since I'm still waking up at night with Sam. Christmas evening we went up to John's parent's house for dinner and games. Honestly, the best gift I was given this year was something John made for me. I asked him to put some snaps on hand towels for me because I was tired of them getting pulled off the oven handle by the kids multiple times a day. It worked and now the only problem is remembering to switch them out every few days or so! No more wondering where the hand towel is ten minutes after replacing it!

As a side note, below are some picture I had to take and edit for my last semester of online classes...

And last of all to ring in 2024, New Year's!

For New Year's Eve this year, we had the usual party with John's family and some of their family friends. To be honest, I don't really like New Year's. My family doesn't really do anything fun when we have it with them, and when we have it with John's family it just ends up being me babysitting the kids for hours on end at the church building while occasionally making small talk with people I don't really know very well. Occasionally someone will offer to watch the kids so I can play a game for 15 minutes but my younger kids always come looking for me anyway. Being in an unfamiliar place, they don't usually feel comfortable being alone. This was the first year I actually took the kids back to John's parents' house on my own around 11 and put them to bed. Aaron and Brooke were still awake enough to say "Happy New Year's" at midnight before falling right to sleep. Oh well, it's just one of those holidays you have to put up with, I guess.

And that is my very late update on the end of 2023! We'll see what the New Year brings! Happy 2024!