Merry Christmas and Happy 2026

So this year we decided to stay home for the holidays. Our first line of business was to decorate. We pulled out all our Christmas decore and had fun pulling out all our old Christmas crafts. Our favorite thing of all is decorating our Christmas tree while blasting Christmas carols. We love our tree full of handmade ornaments and souveneirs from some of our favorite memories.

Our kids all had school performances and concerts as well. Kai danced to Christmas music, while the other 3 boys danced to Brazillian music in a cultural demonstration. Maple bear always puts on a fun show, and it was fun to see them all perform. Grant even dressed up as a crab (although he wouldn't allow me to take a picture)!

Pace also performed in a piano recital. He played The Force Theme, from star wars. He did awesome. He put in a lot of practice and it sounded great.

Also this year all of our kids joined the children's choir for our church stake. It always makes me so proud to see my kids out sharing their smiles and music with others. As part of their performance they did a nativity scene. Jane was the star, Kai was a sheep, Louis and Grant were wisemen, and Pace was a shepherd. It was absolutely adorable and a great way to remember Christ this Christmas season.

This Christmans season I was also able to take Jane to our Friend Malu's ballet performance. Jane loved the dancing.

We also made lots of Christmas cookies. And even made frosted sugar cookies. We made a ton so that we could bring them to our ward party and they were a hit. Luckily Pace, Grant and Lou put in some extra time to help me do all the cookie decorating. It was fun to see their creativity.

On Christmas eve we spent the morning at the beach together...honestly Christmas beach days are always the best.

In the evening we had our traditional German Christmas feast. I made saurbraten and klose. And then we had our family nativity as we read the Christmas story out of the Bible.

Christmas we woke up to our stockings filled and enjoyed opening presents. This year we started a fun new tradition of a homade gift exchange. Some of the gifts included chore cupons, a capybara ornament, and a party mask.

The afternoon we spent at the pool enjoying Jane's new pool floaties and water guns and putting together lego sets.

New years eve we celebrated with our friends Henrique and Sheila and their kids. We had delicious food and fun conversations. At midnight all the kids jumped into the pool and we had a late night swim.

Other than the holidays we have had some other fun summer break activities. I got to go to the temple twice, once with Pace and some friends and another time as a date with Jake.

We've also played at the park several times, tried our friend's new pizzaria, went to some birthday parties and enjoyed the beach.

Jake and I also snuck in a fun date night at home.

Also I need to share this adorable picture of Jane and Pace trying to cheer up Kai. He did cheer up in the end, but this picture is true sibling love.

I'm sad our summer break is coming to an end, but we have one more trip to look forward to before school starts.