Simple gifts

 This week seemed like a small gift of calmness before the craziness of December storms in.  

We got to see Lilly play Rosie one more time in Mama Mia on Monday night. And Camron. I forgot to mention him before. He plays Bill, Lilly’s opposite and the guy she has the face seizure with. Beth has THE BIGGEST crush on him. She has claimed him as her boyfriend for a couple years now. We are still singing the songs and have them pretty imbedded in our heads right now. 

It was my birthday Tuesday. Which was a mostly ordinary day; school and work for everyone but it ended with Larry and Janene watching the younger kids so Glen and I could go “out on the town.” That looked like us eating at Saffron Circle, a yummy Indian restaurant we hadn’t been to before and going to Costco to get Thanksgiving dinner needs before the crazy day before shoppers hit. 

Wednesday everyone had off school and work. We cleaned the house. Lucy and some cousins slept over and helped Grandma Egbert make lots of rolls. She offered to make rolls for all the people on Evelyn’s hospice team. I think all of them took her up on that offer.  They also did rolls for Jed’s  Joe’s  and Marian’s dinners and worked on the gingerbread creation for Festival of Trees. 

Thursday was Thanksgiving. I started working on dinner food and Glen and the kids went shooting with some of my family. Lilly and Lucy did really well. When they got home everyone helped with the rest of dinner preparations. It was really nice to have everyone helping. 

Larry and Janene came over for dinner and then Janae, Colton and Topher came over later for dessert. It was small, quiet and nice. 

Later that night after everyone had gone home Lilly suggested we go see Encato, so we did. It was so good. We came home and looked up the music and talked about it for at least an hour some of us longer before going to bed. It really was so good and beautiful. You could totally tell Lin Manuel Miranda had a part in it. He has a distinctive sound and the movie was done like a play so everything was visually pleasing. 

Friday we rested and cleaned up more from Thanksgiving. Since Thanksgiving was over Ruth could not wait any longer to decorate for Christmas. With some help from Lucy and me Beth and Ruth took care of most of the decorating. It was nice to not have to worry about and have done. We also figured out Christmas cards and got those ordered. Because it was a long weekend it was the perfect time for a cousin sleepover. Glen was a trooper and had most of the younger cousins at our house. The older cousins stayed at Grandma and Grandpa Egbert’s to help with festival gingerbread and decorating. 

Saturday looked like me being with Evelyn in the morning. I stay Friday nights with her usually. Glen and the sleepover kids worked on fencing and stump removal projects. Progress was made on the gingerbread creation  and lots of fun cousin time was had.

Sunday we had a good lesson in Relief Society on Brad Wilcox’s talk from General conference. Glen had his first week in his new calling as Deacons quorum advisor. He is really sad to leave primary. I think it will be great since Daryl will join the quorum in January. We got to celebrate Ellie’s 5th birthday and finish up the gingerbread creation at family dinner with the Egbert side. We enjoyed the last hours of our long weekend and abundance of family time.

TaLyn, Lucy, Clara and Lilly working on the gingerbread creation. 

Singing to Ellie in our best Egbert birthday song voices.

Thanksgiving menu delegations. We also didn’t make that many pies. 

“Santa’s hide out “ almost finished. 

Proud dad moment. How did that girl get so grown up?