John flew home safely on December 17th! Richard picked him up from the airport on his way back from Waterloo and drove him straight to our ward Christmas party. The next day Jeremy, Sarah, and Ben went to see Spiderman No Way Home in the theater while John hung out with Dad, Sam, and I. On Sunday the 19th we performed a quartet in church with Richard on sax, Alina on clarinet, Jeremy on cello, and Sarah on flute.
On December 20, Sam and Ben had a piano recital at Rieman Music in Urbandale. They did an incredible job!
On the evening of December 22, Ben broke his right hand after hitting the concrete floor in the basement as part of a game with Sam. President Morales had give our stake a goal to have everyone index 500 names (except the Primary which had a goal of 100) and our whole family did it! Except John who was at college but even he did some indexing :) Richard had promised everyone a fantastic dinner if we reached our goal, so we all went to eat Hibachi in Ames. Yum!
On Christmas Eve morning we took our family to see Encanto, courtesy of Grandma and Papa Tolbert!
For years we have had the tradition of having the missionaries over on Christmas Eve for dinner, acting out the nativity, and sharing a stocking with gifts for the missionaries, sibling gifts, and a Christmas Eve present. This year our missionaries were Elder Kelly and Elder Mikesel. I tried making some new wise men costumes which you will see below. This year Sarah drew/painted a meaningful picture for everyone and Sam made origami for all his siblings. Before bed we read 'The Night Before Christmas" by Jan Brett. What a wonderful day leading up to Christmas!
