They have a shooting competition for Junior Jazz. Peter loves basketball so much, I wanted him to do well.

And he did! He placed second in his division, which means he gets to move on to regionals.

We went on a hike to the waterfall, and it was beautiful. Zero kids wanted to go, and all three enjoyed it.

We also went to our local, amazing art museum. For the rotating exhibit, they had a display of costumes from theatres nearby, and a rack to try on. Everyone tried on something, even Peter who had no interest in going.

This is from Peter’s scouts. He has a hard time with scouts, it’s on a Thursday which is Peter’s hump day. (Wednesday has the advantage of early out.) But his answers describe him quite well:

Another basketball season has ended. Here’s my collection of pictures of the kids thoroughly enjoying themselves.

My house looks like this all the time: He loves comfy things, and it’s worth the mess.

We went sledding on a huge hill in Mantua. 

We hung up a swing upstairs in our house. Six kids on it at the same time was not a good idea, so we took it down and built a new swing set outside. One of the posts is the tree. I always have weird ideas like that. 

We finished up our Junior Jazz season. The kids rarely won. But they had a good time anyway. Peter scored over 20 points in a couple of his games and is an all-star player. We normally talk about not being a ball-hog and passing and such, but his team….Well, one day, two other kids were waiting to dribble the ball down the court, and the kid throwing it in threw it over their heads to Peter, who was being nice and running down the court to let someone else take the ball. Stuff like that was common. Peter is good at basketball and the other kids know it and want him to take all the shots. 

For Christmas, Peter received a pair of Jazz tickets. We let him pick if he wanted Mom or Dad to go with him, and he picked Mom. (Dad went with him the last two times he went and the Jazz lost, so he thought I would be a better luck charm.)  

We had a lot of fun, and the Jazz won. It was a fun evening, although I must admit that I don’t love going to games. And the popcorn was terrible.

The game was done, and we packed up all our stuff and headed back to the car. When I got to the car, I realized I didn’t have my phone. It was late and I still had a drive in front of me, so I just decided to call the next day and see if someone turned it in. And they did. The phone was recovered.

We had to drive back down to Salt Lake to get it, and while we did we went over to Salt Lake City Library and quite enjoyed ourselves there. I love libraries, and the children also enjoyed playing on tablets, reading books, and going up and down (too much) on the elevators. Although the glass elevators made me motion sick after a few rides.

Otherwise, we have just been busy with school and normal life.

I’ve been enjoying this semester because we’ve been getting into design more and creating things like this:

It snowed a ton. So much snow. Lots of shoveling, and fort building and fun.

The pond froze over, but I kept the fountain going and it was awesome. It made an igloo of ice. 

We have gone to Mantua three times in the last couple weeks. It’s a fun place to go with the lake frozen over. The first time was for our New Year’s hike. Then I did a school project out there, where a couple of my classmates and I needed to make some land art.

School’s back in session for me, keeping everyone a bit more busy. I’m enjoying my classes this semester, but there is also a lot of work. But fun work, so I don’t mind.

Also, happy new year! We had a party at home. It was low key but still fun.

The lake near our home freezes over early in the season. It’s fun to take the children up there to see. We don’t actually ice fish, but we still enjoy walking around one the ice. It’s a fun and beautiful place to go walking as well.

Joe loves to build snow caves, and with the abundance of snow we got, it was pretty easy.

The kids had been asking to build gingerbread houses. We had a bunch of candy given to us for Christmas, so we made these one day. I used melted gummy bears to put the graham crackers together, which worked better than anything else I’ve tried.

My friend gave me some owl pellets to dissect. It was a rather interesting, but also gladly short-lived activity.

I love having all my boys home, but I must admit they are a little wild! They energize each other and they are so happy.

Two days of opening presents, enjoying family, and lots of sugar. And a lot of snow.

On that night in Bethlehem there was no room for him in the inn, and this was not the only time during the thirty-three years of his sojourn in mortality that there was no room for him. Herod sent soldiers to Bethlehem to slay the children. There was no room for Jesus in the domain of Herod, so his parents took him to Egypt. During his ministry, there were many who made no room for his teachings—no room for the gospel he taught. There was no room for his miracles, for his blessings, no room for the divine truths he spoke, no room for his love or faith. He said to them, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20).

Even in our day, although two thousand years have passed, there are many who say the same thing that was said on that night in Bethlehem. “There is no room, no room” (see Luke 2:7). We make room for the gifts, but sometimes no room is made for the giver. We have room for the commercialism of Christmas and even pleasure-seeking on the Sabbath day, but there are times when there is not room for worship. Our thoughts are filled with other things—there is no room.¹⁵

While it will be a beautiful sight to see the lights of Christmas … , it is more important to have human lives illuminated by an acceptance of him who is the light of the world [see Alma 38:9; D&C 10:70]. Truly we should hold him up as our guide and exemplar.

On the eve of his birrth, angels sang, “And on earth peace, good will toward men” (Luke 2:14). If men would follow his example, it would be a world of peace and love toward all men.¹⁶

What is our responsibility today as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? It is to see that our individual lives reflect in word and deed the gospel as taught by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. All that we do and say should be patterned after the example of the one sinless person to walk the earth, even the Lord Jesus Christ.¹⁷ –Howard W. Hunter

The peace of Christmas is “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding.” It is the peace that the Apostle Paul promised would “keep [our] hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” And Paul was right. That peace we seek is only through and because of Jesus Christ. –Henry B. Eyring