Another year is wrapping up, and at this point even saying I can't believe it sounds so redundant. I honestly feel like the years are picking up speed and I'll be left behind if I'm not careful! At the end of last year we did a challenge through PBS and got some free tickets to go to different museums around the Salt Lake area. Of course, I totally forgot about them and so I had to fit a bunch of them in this month haha. December is usually busy with all of the Christmas stuff, so this made it even moreso.
Another thing that made this month busier is that Rusty and I both accepted big callings. On the same Sunday he was sustained as the Stake Young Men's President and I was sustained as the Ward Young Women's President. We have been keeping very busy with these callings and are trying our best to do everything we can with these while still doing our first responsibilities at home.
We went to the Tracy Aviary with the Barrusses, and it was better than I had expected. I was really impressed with all of the things they had for the kids to do and the animals in the exhibits. I'm glad that we get to go back again next year with the PBS pass!
One day we went to the Natural History Museum and then over to Red Butte Garden right next door. Henry is in a phase where is he really excited about crystals, and Della always loves anything sparkly, so that was a major highlight of the trip. I loved going through the Egypt collection and Amelia loved the water area. This museum is pretty cool to visit every once in a while!
We had never been to Red Butte Garden before, but it is definitely somewhere I would like to come back and spend a whole day in the warm weather. It was a little chilly on this December day, but it did help us beef up our hours a little bit for the 1,000 hour project. The kids loved watching birds and squirrels, throwing rocks in the pond, reading books and playing games.
We went and cut down a Christmas tree, one of my favorite traditions! We went with Jess and Aaron and it was really fun- really warm too. It was unusually warm this December, so there was hardly any snow on the ground at all. Dragging our tree did a little bit of damage to it haha. Jessica cut hers down first and said, "What do we say when we cut down a tree?" and everyone said, "TIIIIMBER!" except for Henry who yelled, "TIMBURGER!" hahahaha. While we waited for Aaron and Rusty to go get the cars and move them over to us Della, Henry and Jess played like they were ninjas cutting through the ice and then doing some cool ninja moves.
After the Christmas tree we tried to go to the Krist Kind Market in SLC but the traffic was just insane! We decided to just go to eat at Red Robin and go home haha.
We decorated the tree with our chip dip and Rudolph, and it was a great time like always. The kids are getting old enough that they really look forward to these traditions now, which makes me so happy. While I was walking down the stairs to bring the older kids their chips and dip I slipped and fell down the second flight while holding Lia. She was pretty scared and I was really sore and hurt which put a bit of a damper on the evening.
Now that we have bit more space in our home I have really enjoyed being able to host parties. We have done one pie and game night, and then this month we did an Ugly Christmas Sweater party! It was really fun. I made a fancy cake and did charcuterie boards, we played fun minute to win it games and got to wear either an elf hat or elf ears when you won the game. It was really fun and I would do this every year!
Every Christmas I have friends that get Christmas pictures done and I always think that would be so fun. This year the photographer that took Amelia's newborn photos emailed me and said she had some spots left open and I convinced Rusty to let us take them. Pretty soon our kids will be too old for these to be cute haha. I don't love how the family ones turned out, but I LOVE the ones of my babies.
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I made a mouse friend in the yard. I was inside cooking and the older kids were outside playing and Henry comes running in yelling, "EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY!" He then tells me that Bailey caught a mouse so I go running out in my pajamas and Rusty's over sized tennis shoes and find that the mouse is, in fact, still alive. I put Bailey in the kennel and try to give the mouse some space to breathe. The kids' friends were over playing and the oldest one mentions that it is probably hungry, so I go inside but we're all out of bread so I bring out some bran flakes and crush them up and spread them around the mouse. The good news is Henry came in and told me that the mouse ran away, the bad news is it got lost somewhere by our back door when Rusty went to get it to take it to the park. We were worried for a while that it got in the house, but we never saw that little guy again.
We finally went to Luminaria this year, which I feel is kind of a rite of passage here in Utah County. And let me say: IT WAS STUNNING. I loved it so much, the kids had so much fun, and I want to go every year. It had beautiful lights, fun activities, and it ended in a garden of statues of the Savior which really helped focus everything back on why we even have this season. It was beautiful. The kids and I have been going through these new ornaments that are all about the Savior every night and so it was great to be able to see those statues because most of them had an ornament about it. Afterwards we went and got dinner at Mo' Bettahs.
We went and saw Santa! Rusty's old work, Red Sign, was doing an event where you could go meet Santa and take pictures. The kids were so excited and it worked out well because they hadn't written their letters yet!
Gingerbread houses were a hit this year again! It is fun to watch the kids get older and take more ownership of their own creations. They each had very specific visions of what they wanted their houses to look like. Della's was mostly just a huge avalanche of candy and Henry's was structured just how he wanted it. Lia liked eating the candy and frosting haha.
Rusty and I went on a date for his company's Christmas party! Woo hoo! We actually got gifts to take home and everything; we've never had a company Christmas party like that. It was fun; we went to a restaurant in Ogden and then played a game. I got to meet the people that Rusty has been talking about for months which was really nice. And we had a nice night out!
Charlie came back to visit, as he does every December, and it is always exciting to see what he does! He got into plenty of mischief this year sneaking cookies, messing up gingerbread houses, toilet papering our house, and playing in glitter.
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We played in the snow a lot this month! Towards the end of the month we got quite a bit of snow, more than normal, and we loved making snowmen and having snowball fights. Our best snowman was named Snowy, was 6 years old, and a boy.
The kids got matching pajamas from Granddad and Grandma Joan! I loved them! We turned some Christmas music on and had a little dance party. Amelia loves "All I Want for Christmas is You" and freaks out every time it starts.
Our last thing on our list to get done before the end of the year was the Discovery Children's Museum downtown. This was another one that surprised me with how good it was! I had read that it was really small so people didn't really like it, but it was bigger than I thought it would be and so much less crowded than the one at Thanksgiving Point! The kids weren't ready to leave but we had to go to see the giant gingerbread house and then go to the Grinch Party. We will definitely come back here again!
We stopped at the Grand America Hotel to see a huge gingerbread house! It was 10 feet tall and used 2,000 eggs to make it. While we were there we ran into Lyla! After that we got Rusty and then drove to Mendon to see my parents' house for the first time (not for Rusty) and to do a Grinch party.
The Grinch party was really fun, although really rushed. We got there much later than we hoped because of the traffic so we didn't even have time to play the pin the heart on the grinch game or some of our other activities. But we ate Grinchy food and watched the movie and it was so fun!
The next day we went to the American West Heritage Center in Wellsville. It was surprisingly impressive and wonderful! We went on a beautiful sleigh ride with huge horses with sleigh bells on them and it was so picturesque. The sleigh took us to a teeny tiny little "town" where we got hot chocolate and looked at the beautiful mountain views. After that we went sledding. Henry got so excited and went over a jump a bunch of times, and finally it came back to kick him in the butt. He fell and hurt his back pretty bad. Della and I were going down together and sprayed snow all over us so she was crying, until we went over to a smaller hill.
Sunday before we went home we went exploring and sledding around my parents' land. It is so cool! We saw deer tracks, deer poop and pee, deer hair and a spot where the deer slept. The kids were so excited about it!
One night we went and walked around the lights at the Orem City Center and then went to see some really cool lights in Highland. Three houses all combined and made the coolest light display to music. It was amazing! Truly amazing.
Right before Christmas break Henry got sick. There was a snow day, which was lucky because he got to stay home anyways, but then he stayed home Thursday and Friday too. I was so sad because on Friday he was supposed to sing in his Christmas concert. It's January as I write this, and I am still sad about it. Then Della got some stomach bug, so we hung low and then the day before Christmas Eve I got sick too. So we did the Christmas Eve Party just us at home so nobody else got sick. We had a really fun time even being sick. Lia and I spent time napping and hanging low, then the kids and I played some games, we ate some food, and then we did our talent show. Afterwards we read the story in Luke and then read the Cajun Night Before Christmas. The kids set out cookies and milk for Santa and then settled in by the upstairs tree.
Henry said, "Let's enjoy!"
Christmas morning was fantastic and magical and I loved it. The kids are such a magical age for this and watching them come sprinting around the corner into the family room was so wonderful to me. We spent a great morning opening presents. Amelia was not interested in opening presents at the beginning, so we saved them for a little later and she had a great time. She loved her shape sorter from Santa and her piano mat from Grandma Phyllis. Henry got a dinosaur egg smasher from Santa, a giant hot wheels track, and some pokemon cards in a binder. Della got a Minnie Mouse phone from Santa, a Minnie Mouse grocery store, and a laptop she loves.
Once everyone was feeling better we went to the Children's Museum! It was so busy that I felt claustrophobic, but it was really fun for the kids. We even ran into Justin, Rusty's friend, and hung out with him and his girlfriend and her kid for most of the time.
New Year's Eve we went to my parents' house and had a party with Jess and Aaron and Angie and her whole family. It has been so long since I had seen her kids! Lyla and Della were off playing most of the time, and same with Henry and Milo. They all had so much fun! The adults played some games, ate food, and hung out. We actually did stay up until midnight, which is pretty great for us haha! Hello 2022!
Henry's Highlights:
- He is still obsessed with monkey bars and calls them "monks". He will say, "Mom can we stay at school so I can do the monks" HA
- He had a little pee accident and he said, "It just came out! My body didn't even get a notification!"
- He and Della talk about making robots all the time
- HE IS OBSESSED WITH POKEMON. He will talk about it all day every day. Watch the shows, read the books, look at his cards, draw his own cards, make up his own kinds, play battles, all of it. It is exhausting.
Adeline's Adventures:
- She started doing this thing where she just plugs her ears if she doesn't like what you're saying. If she is getting in trouble, if she's bored with what you're saying, etc. It's so annoying.
- One time, months and months ago, she was so mad about cleaning so I said, "I bet you wish we had fairies that could just clean everything huh?" Randomly she has started talking about cleaning fairies again haha
- She has dark humor and imagination. She was pretending to be my mom and she said, "I just came to life." and it made me think of Frosty, so I said, "I made you like Frosty!" and she said, "No. A prisoner made me." Then she continued to say that she died in a war and was blown up by a bomb.
- Another time we were playing with some animals and she was a tiger and I was a deer. She said the deer was dead, so I said no I'll fix him and got another animal to bring him medicine. She said, "That is dead medicine; it killed him." I said, "Are you sure?!" and she slowly grabbed the deer and put it in front of her tiger and said, "Now we can eat" all low and creepy.
- Another time Henry, Della and I were talking about what it would be like if I had 100 kids. Henry said that would be too many, and Della said, "Yeah you'd have to kill them." WHAT. TELL ME WHAT.
Amelia's Updates:
- She has started blowing kisses, and on Dec 13 she did it to me when she was going to bed without being prompted at all! I didn't do it first or anything, I just said goodnight and she did it. It was so sweet
- She loves dancing to music, and right now her jam is "All I Want for Christmas is You".
- She loves to play pat-a-cake
- Lia gets into everything! I found her sucking on a Popsicle wrapper that was in my trash can in my bathroom
- She is walking really well and getting around so good! She is so proud of herself.
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