A winning weekend

This was such a great weekend.

 I got some expert help in decorating the Christmas trees and the house for the holidays.  The kids have loved getting it all out and playing with the Christmas things that they had forgotten about.

 We did some serious gingerbread house decorating.

 Haley was loving the process.  And no one ate too much candy and got sick this year.  A win!

Caleb had his Christmas choir concerts this weekend at the Cathedral of the Madeline.  He did fabulous and loved the experience. All the practice and nagging him to practice payed off.  All of the driving and going from one thing to the other payed off.  He was ready and did great.

Not pictured: soccer games.  Peter had a game on Friday, so while Rob and William went to Caleb's concert, Haley and I went to Peter's game.  He did great.  His whole team is fabulous and they won.  Peter played keeper for half the game and made some great saves, as he put it, "when I have confidence in myself I do pretty good."

Caleb came home late Friday night and got up early Saturday morning because he had a soccer game to be at.  His team did incredible!  And Caleb, OH MY GOSH, talk about bringing home the win! The score was 8-3, Caleb took 30 shots on goal and saved 20.  His defense was there for him when he needed it, some shots were hard and wide, and he made some amazing dives and saves.  It was awesome!  

One other really great experience we had this weekend was a special stake conference for our area.  Elder David Bednar of the 12 Apostles came to our stake this weekend and we had the privilege of listening to him and his wife speak on Sunday.  It was powerful and spiritual.  Usually when I listen to Elder Bednar at conference he is really serious.  But at our stake conference he seemed more personable, more humorous.  It was great.  His wife spoke about church attendance with her young family and she shared some funny experiences, but emphasized on never giving up.  About never coming up with an excuse of why we do not go to church or are not active.  Elder Bednar spoke about how with the church's growth the chances of another apostle coming to our stake again is nearly impossible, so listen up because what he had to say was super important!  He spoke about church ordinances, about how everything we do in the gospel is centered around feeling the Holy Ghost.  And how there is nothing more important in this life than the Gospel of Jesus Christ and what it teaches and leads us to.  It was really neat to be there with my little family and feel that spirit and love.  A winning weekend for sure.