The Gwilliam Fam: All the December Things! (Well, a lot of them anyway.)

Not going to lie, December has gotten away from me. We had so many things I could and should blog about, but I think if I try to work too much backwards, I will never catch up. I'm just going to throw a lot of random pictures of a few of the things, document them and call it good. Happy December 2021.

The triplets arrived! Actually they arrived on November 24th, but this picture is from a day in December. We are loving getting updates and new pictures every few days on the Gwilliam family text. Welcome to the family Braxton, Addison and Caleb. (On January 1, 2022 Braxton was able to be released from the NICU and join his family at home.)

This was some other big news that happened in November, but we received these announcements in December. My brother Nathan married his long time girlfriend Beth. They were engaged, but even the parents didn't know they were tying the knot in Mexico. We are so happy for them. Here are a couple of pictures from their wedding.

Just a cute picture of my nephew Tyson all blinged out for Christmas!

Parker made this fun cardboard Christmas tree for their apartment. He said it took a couple of hours, and it's been pretty popular in the mission. He has been bummed that Christmas isn't much of a holiday in Ghana. (To be honest, they seem to celebrate the true meaning more. The commercialization of Christmas hasn't taken over.) No one sets up/decorates Christmas trees. There is no Christmas music playing. No lights. It's 100 degrees plus extremely humid. It was a different Christmas for him, but after the initial worry about some of the fluff he was missing out on, he seemed great. I'm proud of him. (and I love his tree!)

This makes me happy. Our friends and my parents' neighbors, Penny and Jimmy Jordan, put one light up on my parents roof every year. (This year they put two lights to match their red and green Christmas lights across the street.) Jimmy likes to tease my dad about being a grinch and not taking the time to put up lights. This tradition has been happening for YEARS. When Becky, now thirty something, was in Jr. High, her friends asked if the one light above the garage was some "sacred Mormon tradition." Those Jordans are faithful!

The Jordan's house

These lights especially brought me joy this year because my mom has had a sharp decline with her brain health (dementia). The family has been rallying around to love my mom and lend support to my dad. When I drove up to the house in the evenings and saw these two lights shining, it reminded me of others who love and support my parents as well.

I also took my mom out on some evening drives to see the lights. She was confused about why we were going in the car. She was scared about driving around when it was dark. She was nervous about leaving my dad alone in the garage. (Would he be safe? Was he okay alone?) However, once she settled down, we really enjoyed seeing the lights and listening to Christmas music together. Those couple of night drives with her were a special part of my holiday memories this year.

Tiny Addison with Grandma Gwilliam. She came home first and then Caleb I believe. By January 1, 2022, all three were home from the hospital.

Grandpa snuggling Addison.

My dad has taught seminary for the past several years. This December a few of the moms of seminary students sent out a text to the other moms of seminary students. We invited them to join in thanking Bro Vore for his many hours of service. So many thoughtful gifts were given and most of the students wrote the sweetest notes and letter. I loved one young lady who wrote something along the lines of, "I know deep down in my heart, I am grateful for seminary. Deep, deep down. Ha." Then she said something like, "even if I gained nothing else from your class, your example of hours of dedication, sacrifice, and preparation have shown me how important the gospel is to you, and I will always remember that."

Tanner's bathroom counter is filling up with Christmas gifts he has ordered for his girlfriend Erin. Crazy kid!

Hot chocolate bombs. Don't get me started. Really don't get Aubrey started. Our entire household was traumatized by her decision to sell these over the holidays. They are pretty time consuming to make, and she was very busy with seminary and school and then finals and basketball.

She definitely didn't have a lot of spare time, and she also regretted having to spend the free time she had making hot chocolate bombs. She complained and whined and stressed about getting her orders out for days and days. It was draining. (Brian was sweet and helped make extra molds several times to help her be less stressed.) I hope she never decides to sell these again. I don't think our mental health can handle her break downs!

We had the craziest, warmest weather October- December. Our trees finally started losing their leaves. I was sad Brinley, who was coming home on the 16th, would barely miss seeing our big, beautiful trees with their leaves.

Tanner is the second one on the left.

This picture is from Nov 27th (Tanner is #21)

Tanner looking handsome and strong. He wasn't getting playing time, which was frustrating. It didn't matter if the team was up by 30 pts, his coach would only play the same 6-7 boys. Ugh. Give me a break.

This is fun and crazy. Parker saw this man in Ghana wearing this Permian High School girl's soccer team shirt! He flagged him down and asked to take his picture. We know many of the girls on the back of the shirt, and Parker knows probably all of them. I guess Goodwill donations really work!

Our friend Kim Terry posted on her story and then the Permian Athletics office re-posted on their page. It was fun to read all of the comments and see everyone's amazement.