December 13-19th, 2020

This week was filled with finals for Park, Tanner, & Aubrey.  Parker had a playoff game and Tanner had two basketball games.  (Sports before finals...right?  Ummmmm...)  Orders for my little business have slowed because if I ship, it may not arrive in time.  That's been kind of a relief, and I have been able to focus on gifts for the family and handing out neighbor/friend gifts and the last of the Relief Society gifts.

Sunday snuggle time w/ my little babies....well, not so little anymore.  

Sunday night was at the Birds.  Masking it up is not the funnest thing, but it's nice to be all together.

Adam, Lincoln, Ang (AKA Grandma), and me

I was proud of Parker.  He left our gathering and headed to Braddock and Hudson's room to join in the missionary preparation course.  This is week two for him.  I can't remember if I said this in an earlier blog, but he also was accepted to BYUI!  He is hoping for BYU Provo but won't find out until the end of February.

The girls visiting.  Gram, Brit, me and Ang

Jake and Charity

Grandpa stopped by on Monday or Tuesday morning this week.  Tanner was happy to see him at the 10:00 am hour rather than the usual 7:00 am seminary hour.  The boys took their test early so they had two days off.  Park stumbled out of his bedroom on the way to football.  Grandpa tried to tease him some, but Parker was tired and grumpy.  Sorry Grandpa!

I've had random orders for ornaments, brushes, bags and t-shirts this week.  Bri has been working on wood projects in the garage.  He has also made dinner several nights which is so awesome.  I am not a fan of making dinner.  I always have to stop whatever I am doing in the middle of the afternoon and start thinking of dinner.  Ugh.  

Homeschooling perk!! Bri is helping her with some math problems.  Aub has decided to go back to Nimitz this next semester.  I will miss having her home so much.  She is ready to be with friends again and be in sports as well.  We have been scrambling to find uniforms, finishing Liahona and getting registered with ECISD.

Brian made this cool sign.  I wanted to show in the listing the size.  Parker was  my model.  He was somewhat willing because he was hoping to hang out w/ friends all afternoon/evening.  It did sell.  Woot woot!  But it actually was from Brian's listing w/ different pictures....

The football team was leaving around 9 am on Friday morning for a playoff game in Abilene.  The fans had a send off.  We made signs and lined the parking lot as they left.  They had a police escort...sirens and everything....kind of cool.  We realized Tanner was leaving at the same time for his game in Wall.  We flipped the sign over and wrote Tanner's name and number.  We figured he might be mortified and that made it even better.  He seemed fine though.

We were able to go to Parker's game.  We pretty much knew South Lake Carroll was going to kill us.  They are a great team.  It was still so fun to cheer on our boys.  The fans were involved and cheering the whole game.  Parker played well.  He tipped the ball as they were throwing into the end zone on one play.  One of his teammates was able to intercept it.  He was celebrating like crazy...which was pretty adorable.  (He would kill me if he knew I used adorable in connection with his big, manly, football play.  However,  it was so fun for me to see him celebrating like a crazy boy.)

I ran into my best friend from my Nimitz Junior High school days: Kriste O'dell.  I cannot believe she recognized me but am so glad she did.  I remember having deep discussions on faith with each other.  (...deep for 7th graders anyway.)  She was raised in the Church of Christ.  I remember jumping on her trampoline and playing french horn in the band together.  She was a fun friend.

The band does an amazing job, and I'm so glad they were able to come and keep the stands rocking.

Come Follow Me family scripture study late Friday night after Parker's playoff game and Tanner's b-ball game.  I am so grateful we study the scriptures together as a family each night.

We had a small Christmas gathering at the Winfrey's and I loved every minute of it.  We had food, friends, games...it just felt so normal.  Natalia, Mike, Sieva, their foreign exchange student David, Brian and I have all had Covid.  Hopefully it won't come back to haunt the others in the group.  I hate that thoughts like that even cross my mind.  Ugh.  We had a white elephant gift exchange which was a hoot.  About half of the gifts were silly or weird and the other half were serious.  The variety made for a fun game exchange.  

Back row: Sieva, Natalia Winfrey, Britney Bird, Monica & Justin Jackman, Adam Bird, Brian, Dan Saxton, Mike Winfrey  Front row: David, Chris Vore, Morgan & Susan Hill, me (Erin Gwilliam), Angelique Vore, Emily & Kate Martin

Adam modeling his hairy belly zipper pouch.

Emily singing a jingle for her task in the game.

We also played a little game Natalia had.  Several people in the group had to perform random tasks she would assign.  I had to recite my favorite scripture.  Susan had to go out front and yell "cockle doodle doo."  Overall, it was just great to hang out w/ friends and family for an evening.