The Dunlap Daily Dish: Christmas 2022: All Attorney's Party, BYU Game, and Double Grandparent Fun!

Blogger is bugging me a little - sometimes it posts the pictures in chronological order and other times it posts them in reverse chronological order. I don't feel like moving these ones, so we will start at the end of Christmas and move back in time to the beginning of Christmas season!

DOUBLE GRANDPARENT FUN!

We are doubly blessed with two sets of amazing grandparents. I love that we live so close to my parents and can see them often, and additionally, Seb's parents have sacrificed almost every year to be with us for Christmas. This year, we decided to have a very low-key and laid back Christmas! We turned our upstairs into "Christmas Town" with enough seating for everyone to watch movies, play games, snack on batches of muddy buddies and white chocolate popcorn. We bought baklava and boxes of chocolates. The girls and I worked on diamond sun catchers. We went to the zoo once and looked at lights. We put up luminarios. We enacted the Christmas story. We went to church on Christmas morning and sang hymns, We had my parents over for dinner on Christmas day. It was a lovely Christmas!

One of our favorite memories from Christmas was something we did spontaneously. We were heading to The Cheesecake Factory for dinner after spending the early afternoon at the zoo (the polar bear was absolutely hilarious!) I realized we'd be close to my grandma's house, so we decided to go caroling there. Luckily, Vernon's caretaker was there, so she heard the doorbell and let us in. Normally, it's very hard to get in. We gave Vernon and my grandma hugs and then surrounded Vernon. We sang him Away in a Manger, Jingle Bells, Silent Night, and We Wish You a Merry Christmas. Vernon hugged his little bear and was overcome with emotion. It touched all of our hearts!

(10/25) Opening up gifts to and from my parents after dinner!

Mega table! We had Seb's delicious smoked tri-tip, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, and cheddar biscuits.

Sofia was so excited about her Gabby's doll house!

Giga Chad Face (cute top from Seb!)

My little Pikachus!

Ready to open stockings!

(12/24) The zoo is completely empty on Christmas Eve!

This is grandma's favorite place!

Our sweet family is growing up so quickly!

(12/22) We made FOUR batches of Muddy Buddies for Christmas town!

Counting down the days until Christmas!

BUSY BYU WEEKEND!

We bought tickets to a BYU game and Josh and Calvin decided to join us for the weekend. It was SO fun having them! We took them roller skating, to our ward Christmas party, of course to the game, and then we celebrated Christmas with them at my mom's Hobbs family Christmas party. My kids were so excited to have Calvin over - you wouldn't believe how loud they got with all the chitter chatter and excitement! In between all the outings, they played lots of Super Smash Brothers! I was impressed how Calvin kept at it with the roller skates, even though it was very hard. The football game was freezing, but we ran into lots of friends from church! And the kids had fun cheering and eating stadium food (chicken strips, nachos, pretzels, and soda!). My mom's Christmas party was very fun - she invited their houseguest Kurt Sorenson, Sean Green, and Patti Wasetta in addition to our family, the Stoddards, and Jacob's family. It was a full house!

(12/17) We ran into Darryl and his son Aaron at the game!

Beautiful Hannah ... a future cougar?

Hannah walked all the way to the field to get a little closer to the action!

Cheering her little heart out!

Cecelia's mother brought her draft horse and sleigh to the ward Christmas party!

We got to ride with "Mary and Joseph"

A fun start to our day!

(12/16) We attended lots of end-of-the-year concerts and performances. These are Sofia's preschool teachers Ms. Courtney, Ms. Holley, and Ms. Collins.

Sofia's best buddy

Singing Away in a Manger, O Little Town of Bethlehem, and Joy to the World

(12/14) Beau's very first cello concert! He's been practicing hard all semester!

(12/10) Sofia and Hannah's first time roller skating - they did great!

(12/10) Early morning with my sweet girls!

(12/5) Just a very small portion of the luminarios Beau's orchestra sold

ALL ATTORNEY'S CHRISTMAS PARTY

I was very stressed when Sebastian told me we'd be hosting his firm's all attorney's Christmas party this winter. It's usually a sit-down dinner and very fancy! I was in the middle of school and not in the right mind frame to even think about it! Seb was running his thoughts past me, which included perhaps renting a big tent and warmers to do it in the backyard or removing all of our living room furniture to set up tables downstairs! I didn't like the sound of any of it! We decided to split up the dinner party and have some people eat upstairs and some downstairs. With that idea decided on, I got to work transforming our upstairs play room into a more grown-up hang out area. I gathered an entire room full of stuff to sell at a garage sale (which we ended up making $500 at!) and then rearranged all of the furniture! It ended up looking so nice! It turned out being really fun picking out all the table decorations and my mom hooked us up with a friend who loaned us a bunch of beautiful chafing dishes. I hired a friend to make sugar cookies, and using those, ones my mom made (my favorite kiss cookies!), and some from Trader Joe's, I made some really cute cookie trays! We put mint and cucumbers in the water. We found darling little santa hat chair covers. We bought little hot cocoa packets as gifts for all the guests. We purchased a variety of dishes from local Indian restaurant called Naan and Dosa. It was delicious! It really was so much fun and the party turned out to be a big success!