#LightTheWorld

I have a ton of catch up, so I'm throwing a lot in this one little post. You can skim, if you'd like.

Friday, Nov 30

I had two of my beloved friends, Marci and Lindsey, over for a girls afternoon of tea (herbal, of course), scones, clotted cream (made by yours truly), lemon curd, and raspberry preserves. We watched Mamma Mia 2, since neither of them had seen it. These two cute sisters grew up next to neighbors from England, so they love a good proper English tea (I called mine an American English tea haha). It was a lovely mid-day reprieve and was SO. FUN. 

Our dear friends, the Leaks, were leaving the next morning for the MTC to begin their 18 month mission to the Philippines. We had unfortunately missed their farewell because we were dropping kids at the airport, and I wanted to send them off knowing we loved them and would miss them. I gathered a couple of my favorite families together (the Weeds and the Stewarts, who were feeding the missionaries that evening, so invited them along, which was perfect), and we sang God Be With You 'Til We Meet Again, followed by "Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah for Israel!"
It was sweet. #LightTheWorld

 Afterwards, we hurried back to Castle Rock to attend a fun live nativity our friends, The Caubles, were doing with the neighborhood kids. It, too, was sweet. #LightTheWorld

 Friday was a good day.

Saturday, Dec 1
Bill, Lex, Emmet and I went downtown for the Parade of Lights.

The last time we were at the Parade of Lights was to watch Britt perform with her dance school. It's a darn shame we haven't gone since. Thanks, Lex, for the suggestion!

Circa 2004

Circa 2004

Emmett got an adorable new hat for such a time as this. Actually, it's M that's adorable... he would make any ol' hat look cute!

Mar had something else going on that night, so Bill, Lex, M and I made the drive downtown. Once we arrived, I realized that I had left my coat at home (WHAT?? So typical of me lately). Luckily, I had brought a scarf, hat, and gloves, so I survived the chilly night.

It was a fun evening, and since we bowed out a tad early, it was an easy, low(ish)-traffic drive home.

Thursday, December 6
My sister J's Birthday. She would have been 42.
I thought about her a lot.
(Also probably why I loved the video we showed the last day of seminary... Hallelujah. More on that later in the post.)

Mauri had ThesCon, so was in downtown Denver Thursday thru Saturday.
What is ThesCon you ask? Short for the Colorado High School Thespian Convention. A fun three days of high school shows, acting/singing/dance/etc workshops, and evaluations of individual events. Mar loved it, of course. She also had the opportunity to answer some gospel questions from her 3 roommates and show them the video of The First Vision. #LightTheWorld

Lex, M and I went shopping that evening. M took a test ride sit of this little beauty. He wasn't quite sure what to think about it.

If this little Bubby doesn't #LightTheWorld, I don't know what does.

Friday, December 7

Bill and I attended this fun show in Parker

It was great to spend 90 minutes just laughing. The pre-show comedian was a hoot, too.

Saturday, December 8

Finally a couple of pictures of Mar... just chillin' with M and Jack.

Jack the dog, not Jack the boyfriend (who is no longer the boyfriend, btw).

That night Bill and I offered to take care of M overnight so Lex could catch up on some sleep.

We pretty much kept him in the basement and snoozed with him on the couch. We'll call it an official Gigi and Little Billy sleepover haha. #LightTheWorld

Tuesday, December 11

Seminary Assessment day.

Our Stake decided to do the assessment online for the first time. I thought it was the coolest thing - the students received their score immediately, and we, the teachers, could print out a fantastic report that showed what percentage of the class answered each question correctly. That gave us an opportunity to reemphasize the areas that more students struggled in as we reviewed the test the following day. A couple of the kids couldn't access the online test for one reason or another, so we had a few take a paper test. I love how the Church is using technology these days.

And I love these kids. #LightTheWorld

Friday, December 14
The last day of seminary for the semester.

We combined with the other sophomore class and made waffles for breakfast, then each teacher took a few minutes for a spiritual Christmas-centered thought. For our portion of the morning, we showed this video (even though it was technically created for Easter, it fit perfectly with our message)



and then we asked Mar if she would play and sing the Christmas version of the popular song Hallelujah.

I love that she is always so willing to share her talents. #LightTheWorld


That evening was our ward Christmas party, A Night in Bethlehem.
The decorations were darling, and each family was asked to bring a blanket and a basket for dinner. I thought this was a fabulous way to serve dinner to a ward.

The youth were in charge of the program, which included reading from the scriptures and singing hymns. It was perfect.

Mar held one of her YW leaders' new baby... and put her to sleep. We chuckled a tiny bit about the position of her hand, which her mama said she naturally does fairly frequently haha.

And, like every good ward Christmas party, Santa showed up after the closing prayer.

This is a great group of kids from our ward (except for Mar's friend Jake, aka The Grinch, who is in another ward, but asked Mar to pick him up from the school in the middle of our ward party because he didn't have a car. Um... yeah... a likely story).

 Ahhhhh... my baby sitting on Santa's lap again. So sweet.

Aaaannnddd my other baby sitting on Santa's lap. Suh-weet.

Sunday, December 16

The Syddall's 1st Neighbor Christmas Social.

It was a bit last minute, but something I had thought about for quite a while. We wanted to get to know some of our neighbors a little better, and thought this would be a fun way to do it.

Saturday morning I printed up some quick invites and Bill handed them out.

We made cookies and other yummy food,

and had 6 of the 15 families invited show up.

I'd call that a #LightTheWorld success.
Most of the adults stayed in our tiny kitchen even though the rest of the house was clean and ready.  I'll admit I may have been missing my beloved Parker home kitchen for a few moments. It was so fun to visit with and get to know some of our neighbors better.

We handed out our quick-n-trusty sparkling ciders as a take-home gift.
All I had to do was tweak the year (the last time we did these must have been 2014), print, then tape.

I also put together some homemade Christmas candy bags for our ministering families and other friends. Just try'na #LightTheWorld, that's all. I can't even begin to tell you about my candy-making disasters this year (I had at least 4 batches that went straight to the trash can = at least 4 lbs. of butter + sugar + chocolate + almonds + peanuts). Not only did I waste a boatload of time, I was literally throwing muh money in the garbage.

I make candy at Christmas because it reminds me of my grandma, my family, and my childhood. And because I love to eat it, which I could clearly do without.
I may just defer to the sparkling cider from here on out.

 My Christmas shopping and wrapping is done {sigh of relief}.

We are taking a trip to Wyoming for the Syddall Family Extravaganza. I'm so excited (the whole fam will be there), but still have a lot to do to be ready. I'm hoping to get a family picture, so will be sending New Year cards instead of Christmas cards this year... watch for them!