This year instead of buying ornaments for my kids I made them each one! I found a picture of these on the internet and LOVED them! I sent a picture of them to my friends and asked if we could make them! They jumped right on board and we did a craft night to make them! It was so fun! We all brought our supplies and met at Jennie's house and she helped us make them! I also made one for each of my sisters, sisters in law and both sets of parents. I thought it would be a nice gift as well! they were surprisingly easy to make too! I might have to do more projects like this in the future! It was fun!
This year for Will's released time seminary class he volunteered to be a part of the special needs seminary class as a "buddy". That means he is required to go to the special needs class at his high school, meet up with his student, walk them to and from seminary, and return them to class. It is a big responsibility and he was eager to do it. He LOVES this class and genuinely loves these kids. A few weeks before Christmas break the seminary teacher notified them that they were going to do a nativity play and record it into a video that they would show the other seminary classes the last day before break. Will was VERY excited about it! When he came home and told me about it I asked him to PLEASE ask the teacher to give us a copy of the video so we could see it too! Thankfully it was posted to YouTube so we could see it. It is truly SO precious! These kids are just sweet and the video is darling! I am so glad that Will took this opportunity to be a part of this class. I know he is learning a lot from being there, and not just about the scriptures!
Here's the link to the video! Will is a wise man and he is buddy to the boy playing Joseph.
Will is still working at Swig in Draper and loving it! This was a special night because it was a party for Lauren (far right) who was the manager for their store and was leaving for another job. But Will is one of only a few original people from the Draper location that is STILL there! In fact most of the others are already shift leads! I asked him if he would want to be a shift lead and he wasn't so sure he wanted the amount of hours required for the job! Haha! But he will continue working in his usual capacity and maybe pick up an extra shift or two here and there! In fact, now that they have Swig in the Vivnt arena, he can work there too on occasion and make more hourly! He's already done it once and I am sure he'll do it again! Anyway, just had to get in a shot of the Swig family! :)
On Tuesday night the week Chan was in New Orleans we decided to go and see the lights at Draper Park. The "tree of life" is a favorite in the area and we thought with all the snow we got it would look even more spectacular! And it DID! It's unreal how many lights are on that ONE tree!
The only bad thing is it was also very slick out! With the low temps it made the walks a bit icy, so we didn't do much walking around. Just got close enough for a few pictures and then headed back to the truck!
These two are such hams! But at least I got ONE good photo! Haha!
When we got back into the truck we did a Facetime call with Chan to show him the pretty lights and say goodnight! It was fun! Then we went down to USwirl and got some super yummy yogurt! It was a bit funny that we chose frozen yogurt over hot chocolate given how cold it was! Haha! Oh well! We had fun anyway!! :)
The next week in December found Chan traveling to New Orleans for work. On the Sunday before he was supposed to leave it began snowing and snowing and.....
Monday morning came and we woke up EARLY to check the roads and they were NOT good. So we hurried into Chan's truck to get him to the airport. We literally drove 20 miles an hour on the freeways! It took me 2 hours to get there and back! It usually only takes me about 45 min total!
I don't remember us EVER getting this much snow since we've lived in Sandy! It was awesome! Once I got home from the airport I attempted to get Brianne to school but couldn't because of so many other cars blocking the road due to accidents and slide offs. So I just brought her back home with me and we tackled the shoveling/snow blowing together! Will ended up coming home early too since not many kids had showed up to school! It was a crazy day of LOTS of snow! It was sure beautiful too!
With snow in such depth outside my dogs are not loving going outside in it! So we always shovel them a "path" and also shovel off the lower deck so they have somewhere to go.
But even still they needed a little help to stay warm!
So I got them sweaters! They actually LOVE wearing clothes! When I took them out of the bag they got so excited and began running all around and panting! It was cute!
When I finally got them to settle down I snapped a couple pictures! Don't they look adorable! And the crazy thing is we have had even MORE snow! Thankfully it did melt a bit in between, but we have easily gotten another 8 inches here at our house. It's been an amazing year of snow here in the valley! We're loving it!
On December 12th it was the day for her voice teacher (Angie Lee) Christmas Concert. She has been going to lessons with Angie since October and she is amazing! Brianne has already learned so much from her! She has several students so she broke up the concert into 3 sessions so that it wouldn't be too long- which I thought was really nice!
Brianne was the first one to sing, which she wasn't thrilled about, but she stepped up there and did a fabulous job! She sang "What Child is This" and had piano and guitar accompiant. I loved it!
One of the things Angie has her working on is stage performance and holding the mic is a big part of that. I thought she did a great job of that too! I told her the only thing missing was a smile! she tends to forget that! Haha! Angie said it's another thing she has them work on! Haha!
Angie and the other voice & guitar teacher also sang a song and it was great! I really enjoyed hearing her perform. she is very talented!
The last song was silent night performed by their entire group. It sounded very pretty! This is a talented bunch of kids! I am so grateful that we found Angie's studio! I know that Brianne is only going to continue to improve and have more opportunities thanks to her influence! Can't wait to see what comes next!
On December 11th Brianne had the amazing opportunity to perform the National Anthem at the NBA Utah Jazz game! We were unable to attend the actual audition day for this but I sent in her performance at the Bee's game as an email audition video and we heard back from them a few weeks later inviting her to perform! She was seriously STUNNED that they asked her, but VERY excited! So in the weeks coming up to it we found her a nice dress and shoes so she would look good and feel good!
The day of the performance I let her stay home from school. I wanted to take her to my friend, who is our hairdresser, during the day to get her hair done up cute! And she also had a final rehearsal with her voice teacher at 3pm for her Christmas concert. So I just figured it made more sense for her to stay home! Anyway, we went and grabbed lunch before going to her hair appointment. That took a while and by the time we got home Will came home from school shortly after. That gave her enough time to get dressed before we had to go to her voice teachers rehearsal.
She ran through her Christmas song once and we jumped into the car to head to Vivnt Arena! She had to be there for a sound check at 4pm and get our tickets for the game. It also gave Chan time to meet us there from work which was just down the road. She was getting so nervous but her sound check went perfectly and I think that helped ease her a bit. After the sound check we walked over to the Gateway Mall and had some dinner at the California Pizza Kitchen. The game didn't start until 7 so we had plenty of time :)
When we got back from there it was just a lot of waiting! She had to report down at the court at 6:45 and the time was ticking very slowly! She was getting more and more nervous! Will thankfully made her laugh a bit by submitting his "tweet" that got put up on the big screen! We all got a kick out of it! He was pretty proud of her!
Finally 6:45 came and she started down the stairs to the court all by herself! I can only imagine what was going through her head! I was just as nervous as SHE was! She was met by the Jazz employee and escorted out to her spot on the court. When she got the "nod" she started singing!
I was almost holding my breath listening to her, but I was also taking it all in! It was unbelievable! She did such an incredible job for a 14 year old girl! She looked beautiful, was poised, and sounded perfect!
I actually held it together and didn't cry until the end of the song when the crowd started to hoot and holler and then I lost it! I was so proud of her I just burst into tears! I cry when anyone sings the National Anthem so to hear HER sing it and do it so well, I just couldn't hold my emotions in!
And afterward I cried some more because as soon as she finished Will ran down the stairs to meet her and threw his arms around her! More tears..... How could you NOT be proud of THAT! This was truly one of those nights that just gets etched into your heart forever!
After her performance we went out and bought some Swig drinks in the concession area and we ran into Bear! So I HAD to get a picture! You can almost see the relief that it was over in her face! We went back in and enjoyed the game until the 4th quarter and then we took off. We were playing the Oklahoma City Thunder and it was a very good game, pretty close actually, but we had another big day tomorrow so we wanted to get back home. We ended up losing by only a few points.
After talking to Brianne she said the craziest part of the night was that right before she began to sing that Kevin Durrant was looking right at her and made eye contact! She said that was intense and she couldn't wait to tell Carter all about it because he is his favorite player! haha! Overall this was truly such a special night and we couldn't be prouder of Brianne! :)
