The Buttercup Neighborhood Game

 We played a lot of board games over the holidays--including Wingspan, Telestrations, Codenames, Coup, Nertz, Trash, Magic the Gathering, 10 Days in Europe, and Dixit.  We enjoyed the more laid-back time to play together and only had a few grumpy moments when the competition got a little fierce.  Haha!  

But there was another game we played over the holidays that I haven't mentioned yet.   It involved the whole neighborhood and some equally tense competitive moments, and also some very silly moments.  

It was all about this cute little Christmas inflatable named Buttercup. 

Basically Buttercup was purchased by the H family in our neighborhood and was introduced as a sort of reverse hot potato.  But instead of trying to get rid of it, the goal was to steal it from a neighbor's porch and see how long you could keep it inflated on your own porch. 

 

   In order to be an official participant in the game, you had to join the Buttercup GroupMe and follow along with the updates and rules.  That GroupMe was one of the funniest things I'd been a part of in a long time and it was quite humorous to see the silly {and competitive} side of our neighbors.  

We didn't even try to attempt any heists until Adam arrived home, but once he was home, the game was on!    He had a few unsuccessful steal attempts where he was caught before escaping, but I thought it was quite funny that the first time we actually managed to steal her was just after attending the temple together...

We took a little drive around the neighborhood on the way home and Adam snagged her in his church clothes.  Haha.  

We were quite proud of our conquest and guarded her pretty fiercely until we went to bed. 

  Guarding it meant playing games while sitting on our stairs just inside the door, then opening the door and yelling "we caught you!" to the would-be thieves.  

We caught a few and met a new neighbor in the process.  Much to our surprise, Buttercup actually stayed put overnight and was stolen while on our morning walk the next day.    Once we'd experienced the "thrill" of capturing and guarding her for ourselves, we didn't try too hard for a few days.  But then Kristina's family came to town and all that changed.   The second the boys heard about the Buttercup game, they were excitedly all in!  

Honestly it was a fun excuse to get out on neighborhood walks with the boys...

and the boys were far more diligent Buttercup guardians than we had been.   They literally sat outside waiting to yell at anyone who dared attempt a heist.   At one point in the final couple days of the game, the games keeper had  to change the rules to only allow an hour of "puppy guarding", because there were a whole lot of eager young boys out of school and willing to even sleep outside for the cause.  

It was a sad moment when Buttercup got stolen on New Year's Eve night and the boys'  final attempts in the last hours of the game (New Year's morning) proved unsuccessful, despite their coordinated efforts with fellow-would-be thieves to outsmart the conquering family.  

All in all, it turned out to be a fun distraction over the holidays and I 10/10 would recommend, as long as you get everyone on board with understanding the rules and the idea that it's all in good fun!   

This Christmas

 Happy New Year, friends!   It's been a whirlwind of a few weeks.  Heck, it's been a whirlwind of a few months and I am hopeful that I can start getting back to some sense of  normalcy soon...whatever that looks like.  Haha!   I will divide up blogging about our holiday break with a post about Christmas and another post about New Years, hopefully with a couple bonus ones thrown in too.    

I don't feel like I took as many pics as I normally do, but here are a few that show a glimpse of what our G family Christmas  looked like this year!    

One day during finals, my friend and fellow BYU ward leader, Christy and I bought a bunch of snacks from Trader Joes and set up at a table in the Wilkinson Center.  Then we sent a note out on our ward GroupMe and invited everyone to come get some fun brain food... 

We got about 40 members who came and filled up baggies with fun snacks (several of whom had never been into a Trader Joes before)...

It was a super fun way to connect with the members and wish them the best as they took their finals and headed home for the holidays...

I was delighted to receive these adorable pictures from Cami after Santa visited their preschool.  Oliver was very nervous and a high-five was the closest his comfort level would allow him to get, but Lucie was giddy about the visit!  

A day or two  after we had the Trader Joes final "party", Emma arrived home!  It was pure joy to have her home again, along with Adam, but sadly she spent the first few days she was here with low energy, no appetite, and some respiratory symptoms.  She'd had a fever previously and we're pretty sure she may have had the flu, which is going around right now.   After not being able to eat for several days, we took her to the doctor, where she was prescribed an anti-nausea medication.  Thankfully just a couple doses of that took the edge off and she slowly regained her appetite and energy over the next few days...but not before passing along the bug to Spencer as well, who has gone through pretty much the exact same set of miserable symptoms.  Thankfully, so far, Glen, Adam, and I have remained healthy (currently knocking on wood)! 

After Emma felt better, the fun really started with some craft projects (her own), way too much treat baking and eating, and  a ton  of board game playing... including 10 Days in Europe, Magic the Gathering (for the boys), Wingspan, a new game called "Coup", Nertz,  and....

Telestrations!   Here's one round in particular that made us laugh...   

I thought Glen's interpretation of "triplex" was hilarious.  

It was supposed to be three houses in a row (a TRIplex instead of a DUplex), but he read it as "triple-x", which is why he started drawing XXXL clothing! 

I was obviously very confused by Glen's drawing, but I guessed somewhat well considering what I had to work with.  Hahaha.  Adam drew the #7 picture.  

So..."Transplant" to "the blueberry girl from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"

It was fun to play a game that even my Mom even attempted to play with us, since she does not enjoy playing games normally.  

This was us on Christmas Sunday.  BYU is a bit of a ghost town during Christmas break, so our ward was combined with three other wards.  Even with four wards combined we only had about 50 people there and with only one hour of church and no other meetings, we decided to jump on over to our home ward for their Christmas program.  It was the first time in about 8 months that we'd attended our home ward and it was a beautiful day to be there.   The music was amazing and it was great to see our neighbors and friends.  

 On Christmas Eve night, we went to a place called Nacho Daddy, which {surprise!} was a nacho place.  It wasn't fancy food by any stretch, but they were open and had availability, so that's where we went.   

I thought mine were quite tasty....

Afterward, we went to Temple Square and walked around for a bit.   The weather has been (not anymore) unseasonably warm and it was kind of wild walking around in just light jackets/sweatshirts and no hats on Christmas Eve night!  

It was a nice way to spend the evening before heading home for our traditional Christmas Eve devotional.  

I took zero pics of our devotional and will post the Christmas pajama photos in a separate post, but here's a sweet picture of Denali from that night...

And one of Emma and Adam from another day...

Christmas Day was pretty low-key.  We ate a good breakfast, mostly prepared by Ems, opened presents, and just chilled together.  I sent a Christmas text individually to all of our members and sent this photo of the Bishopric out on our ward GroupMe on Christmas morning...  (it's us, the S's, Brandon, and the G's)

Here's our Christmas Day charcuterie board {something that has become a tradition the last several years}...

made by Adam and Emma...

We got to talk to Ellie on Christmas Day, which pretty much marked the one year mark of her mission (technically it was December 23rd when she started, but close enough)!  She seemed super happy!  

It was a good Christmas, though we definitely missed having Ellie and Cam and her fam here.  I love being a missionary Mom and have been really trying to embrace this missionary season our family has been in for several years, but I won't lie, I'm happy to have our final missionary "blackout year" behind us now.   Only five and a half more months until we can all be under the same roof again!  

I hope you all have had a wonderful Christmas too!   Thank you for following along here.   

💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗 

2025 Christmas Card and Newsletter

It seems that every year I receive fewer and fewer Christmas cards.   While I totally get that Christmastime is an exceedingly busy time of  many commitments;  I consider Christmas card sending and receiving as one of my favorite parts of the season and you should worry if the day ever comes that I don't send them.    I enjoy thinking about aspects of my upcoming Christmas cards in snippets all through the year.   I consider all sorts of questions, like what picture(s) might I use, what tidbits might I include, how to structure the newsletter, who  I should purge  from my list after I haven't heard from them in a few years, how I can make it more interesting, etc.    In all fairness, I don't usually DO anything about my Christmas cards until late November, but I usually already have a good idea of what I will do by that time.   

This was another entire year with one of our family members on a mission, which meant no whole family photos to include.   Other missionary years included 2017, 2021, 2023, and now 2025.  I've approached this in different ways before, like the year we just put in a part-family photo and included photos of the missionary on the back, and the one time we commisioned an artist on Etsy to create this artistic version, but I knew early on that we would just do a collage this year.  I found this template on Canva and from there it was just a matter of finding the right photo for each person. I changed up the design a bit too and had it printed at a local print shop.      

Here's a little about each photo and why we chose it.   
The photo of Glen and I was taken at the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland. I think the background is lovely and it's a cute photo of us.  
The photo of Spence and Kiwi was taken by his request one day when he needed a photo for a work spotlight.  I knew instantly that I would include that one in the Christmas card.  
The photo of Cam and family was taken by a photographer friend of theirs near their apartment in Birmingham shortly before they moved.  I love how these turned out.   
Graduating from BYU was definitely one of Emma's big highlights of the year, so using a grad photo was a no-brainer for me.  
Adam had A LOT of mountain climbing selfies in the camera roll, but I like this one of him at the Provo City Center temple the best. 
There were other pics I liked better of Ellie, but I wanted one of her by herself that showed a little glimpse of the beautiful area she's serving in.  This one standing at Ventura Harbor (I think) fit the bill perfectly!  

The photo of me with Lucie and Oliver was taken in Rhode Island on Halloween.   It was one of my favorites that included them!  
I love this photo of Ellie and her companion, Hermana B, who is from Australia.  They get asked all the time if they are sisters.  
This photo of Glen and I was taken in the Dolomites.   
This *almost complete* family photo was taken this past summer when Cam came to town.   I was super sad that Glen and I didn't hop in the picture as well, otherwise that one may have ended up on the front of our card.  It's also missing Garrett and Ellie though, so it's all good.  
I like how this photo of Adam, Glen, and I at a BYU football game this past fall shows a glimpse of how much of our life is currently spent down in Provo!  

For the newsletter, I just ended up purchasing a template on Etsy, when I couldn't find anything I liked on Canva.   I included a quick rundown on each person and also had it printed at a local print shop.   

  I have been gradually whittling my list down over the years as I've been receiving fewer and fewer cards in return and this year I'm down below 200.   It makes me sad taking people off my list, but when I don't hear from them for a few years in a row, or if I know they've moved and make no effort to give me their new address, I usually take them off.  Good friends and relatives being the exceptions.  I leave them on regardless of whether they send anything or not.  

 I had so much fun making my own cards, that, once again, I volunteered to design and print some for my Mom as well.   The background in this photo with all of us siblings and Mom  in the Dolomites almost looks fake, it's so stunning, but I can attest that it's 100% real!   

So, in other words, my obsession is still going strong and you can find me excitedly running to the mailbox every single day to see what the haul is.   

What are your thoughts on Christmas cards?  I know many people choose not to send them and don't really get that excited about receiving them.    If you don't send them, why not?  I'd love to hear what you think!  

 Click here to see Christmas cards and newsletter from past years.   

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU AND YOURS!  

Another Thanksgiving in the Books!

I feel like I've been a little off my game with blogging lately and I'm here today to try to get caught up a bit by {finally} blogging about Thanksgiving.   What about the trip we took back in September, you ask?  Well, blogging about that, my friends, is going to have to wait for another day.  Maybe another year.  My bandwidth is not quite there for diving into trip photos yet.   

So, I'll start off the rundown on Thanksgiving with our Christmas decorations.      I've been feeling a lot more minimalistic this year and we didn't even put half of the ornaments on the tree this year.  I originally thought we might get a narrow tree for the dining room to display some of the other ornaments, but ultimately we left it more sparse.   Maybe we'll find a tree on clearance at the end of the season.    

I also tried to go a little lighter on decorating the display shelves.    It's probably still too much and it's definitely way too much brown on brown, but until I finally get around to painting these shelves, it is what it is.  It usually takes 5+ years of an item being on my home improvement to-do list before I even think about making it actually happen. Someday...perhaps!     

IN Virginia, we almost always hosted Thanksgiving at our house, but we haven't done it much since moving here to Utah, since my Mom was already filling that role when we arrived.  {Click here to see a glimpse of  past Thanksgivings}. It's been nice to just show up as a guest the past few years.   This year, however, my Mom and sister needed a break and we became the host house!   With all the hosting we've done with the YSAs the last few months, it didn't feel as stressful as it might have otherwise.   We had 2 of our 5 kids there {Spence and Adam}, my Mom, my sister, two aunts, one uncle, three cousins, the mother-in-law of my cousin, and four kids of my cousin.   We assumed we'd have some of our YSA ward members join the crew, but everyone we talked to already had plans, and the 1st counselor beat us to the punch with the two that didn't.    That was right about 20 people...just enough to keep things lively, but without it being that stressful.   

Glen  smoked the turkey, made mashed potatoes, and gravy.  Adam and I made the pies, which turned out dog ugly, but tasted pretty good anyway!    I need to keep working on my gluten free pie crusts!   

The rest of the Thanksgiving dinner was made by everyone else, which is an awesome way to do things. We played one round of Codenames and then I gave everyone a postcard challenge.   Everyone picked a random word and I went through my postcard stash after they left and sent them a postcard with that word on it.  No one stumped me, though a few people got close (all with food words).   

 In the end I actually found postcards with a pretzel....

pasta...

 and another with a taco on it...  

The words they gave me (besides taco, pasta, and pretzel) were iridescent, watermelon, tiger, purple, lake, candy, beach, pig, octopus, and heat.  And none of the rest of them were that hard.  

 Haha!   Yes, I'm aware that I'm quite a nerd when it comes to postcards.    Feel free to leave a comment and challenge me with your own word.  😆

Now, back to more Thanksgiving shenanigans. 

The boys also played a lot of Magic the Gathering...

And I was quite enraptured with the pics from Thanksgiving out East!   I really missed having any of our girls home and I am somewhat obsessed with Oliver and Lucie right now.  I really really need to see them again soon.   Isn't that flannel on Oliver the cutest?!   

 Adam gave a talk the Sunday after Thanksgiving, so I skipped out on part of 2nd hour and went to watch.   He spoke about becoming new creatures through Christ and did a great job! 

Last but not least, we did a peppermint ice cream taste test over Thanksgiving week.   

Last year, we did Tillamook vs. Umpqua and declared Umpqua the winner.   

This year we put BYU Creamery and Farr's peppermint up against Umpqua....

And Umpqua won the day again!  

 It's got a great creamy texture and by far the best peppermint flavor.    We'll look for more brands to test next year and see if any can unseat Umpqua!   

 

All in all, it was a great long weekend with my boys and it was nice not to have much on our schedule.  I've got a lot to be thankful for and you, my dear blog readers, are on that list!  Thanks for tuning in and have a beautiful holiday season filled with  peace and lots of love.