Farewell 2013

What a year! 2013 was easily the hardest year of my life- full of changes and challenges, but also full of great joy and amazing blessings. The greatest blessing 2013 brought us was this little angel-

 This blue-eyed beauty has brought more happiness and peace into our home than I could have imagined and I am so thankful every day that he is here! Also, can't forget this crazy little boy-

This kid makes us laugh every single day. Multiple times a day. And also makes me want to pull my hair out at some point every single day. But we will focus on the laughing.

Highlights of our year were:

• Attending Will and Katie's beautiful sealing in the Bountiful Temple on the coldest day of the year. We are all super thrilled to have Kate as part of our family.
• A crazy drive to the hospital during Utah's first ice storm in 30 years to deliver our sweet Hudson- and spend the next several weeks and months just swooning over that precious baby boy.
• Seeing Chase grow into his role as big brother and watch in awe as he picked up amazing vocabulary and learning something new every day.
• Amid disappointing and trying times feeling the loving embrace of friends and family and knowing that we are surrounded by truly amazing people.
• Ben getting a new job and finding great success there
• Teaching Chase to swim on his own and spending many beautiful hours playing and relaxing in the pool
• Moving into our current home that we love
• Enjoying reconnecting with our friends in Utah and making new friends too
• Experiencing "the best Halloween yet" thanks to so many fun fall activities and the excitement of our 2 year old
• Finally getting a second car after 5 years of marriage
• A beautiful Thanksgiving with the Smith family
• A visit with Ben's family right before Christmas and attending his cousins sealing to her family in the Salt Lake Temple
• A truly amazing Christmas season full of parties, concerts, family and lots of Christmas lights. And the most exciting Christmas morning with our kids.

Farewell 2013- all in all you were good to us!

Out of the Mouth of Chase- Christmas Edition

Will: Chase, what did you ask Santa for for Christmas?
Chase: A Tombine. (Combine)
Will: What does a combine do?
Chase: A tombine tuts torn. (A combine cuts corn)
(And on Sunday he chewed out our cute neighbor when she said a combine was a tractor- apparently-at least in Chase's mind- they are NOT the same thing.)

To Santa: Where are your elves? Where is your reindeer? Where is your sled? In my books you have elves and reindeer and a sled? Where are the toys?

Every time I ask him what we are celebrating he says, "Jesus".

Mommy! Daddy is playing on the ipad! And he's NOT EVEN WORKING! He's not working Mommy!
(Can you guess why Ben told Chase that he couldn't use the ipad this particular morning?)

Hudson- 11 Months

My sweet husband got me a nicer camera for Christmas-

but now I have to learn to use it. I'm slowly working on it.

So all the pictures in this post are obviously taken in the same 30 second window,

but I love the array of faces it captured.

11 months of Hudson-

this baby is [mostly] a dream come true!

Except for this last month he has slowly, painfully cut one tooth at a time.

The last one broke through on Christmas Eve.

Let me tell you- it's been no picnic for anyone involved.

We are up to 5 teeth in now. Heaven help us when the others make their debut!

Teething aside, he's still the happiest thing you've ever met.

He's so fast at climbing stairs these days,

but has not yet mastered the art of going down. 

He's cruising around everything,

but clearly has no intention of trying walking on his own right now.

As pictured above, and below,

he's signing "more" now!

And he said his first word this last month- HI!

The first time he said it was to our stake president walking the halls at church.

Coincidently Chase's first word was also 'hi'- I guess I have friendly kids!

He's a real pain to get dressed these days,

the kid wiggles and tries to crawl away the whole time.

In this last month he also graduated from an army crawl to full hands and knees crawling.

And he is FAST.

Got to keep up with big brother.

As tired as his middle of the night teething pain sessions are making me,

it's the only time he'll really cuddle with me.

So while part of me wishes I was in bed sleeping,

a bigger part of me loves sitting in his dark nursery rocking with 

his little head resting peacefully on my shoulder.

And I silently pray and thank Heavenly Father that we have this sweet,

amazing, smiley, smart, adorable little boy.

Sometimes Ben and I do fun things without the kids...

...not that often- but in December we sure did! And we liked it!

First night out- Target and Toys R US picking out Christmas presents for the boys.

Little ones are so fun to shop for.

Next night out-

Kurt Bestor Christmas concert at Abravenal Hall.

It was absolutely amazing!

It came after a really busy day- running errands and to the pediatrician,

cleaning the house getting ready for company, wrapping Christmas presents,

and a huge snow storm on top of that.

Then we sat at the concert and just let the beautiful music wash over us.

It was just what the doctor ordered.

(That's just an expression- 

the real doctor we saw that day ordered amoxicillin 2x a day for Hudson)

And our traditional cousins dinner at Cafe Trang in SLC

It is officially a tradition now since we've done it 2 years in a row.

Sadly a few of our cousins had already flown back home by the time we did it,

but it was still a blast with those that came!

So here's a picture of Kelly and me at the White family Christmas party last weekend-

she flew back to Chicago on Christmas day! Missed you Kell!

So it was Christmas....

I am sitting on my couch at 2:00 pm on Christmas Day typing up this post. All three of my boys are napping upstairs and I'm feeling so full of peace and joy today. This peace and joy comes from the reason for the season- my Savior Jesus Christ. I feel so incredibly blessed to have a testimony of Him and His life and mission on earth. And I feel so thankful that because of Him, I get to be with these beautiful boys of mine forever!

Christmas has been magical this year. I haven't been in any hurry for the 25th to come, not because we weren't ready (I had shopping pretty much done by the first week in December) but because there have just been too many fun things to do this season! Seeing the lights, shopping and wrapping gifts, little Christmas art projects, listening to Christmas music and Chase's constant requests to sing carols, acting out the Nativity with his little finger puppets, attending Christmas parties and watching the beautiful snow fall. 

We had Christmas Eve dinner up at my parents house. It was beautiful as always. We had a simple meal by candlelight- which confused Chase at first, but he ended up deciding it was fun. 

 I love spending time with family. Last weekend we had a big family party with the White side, which was amazing. On Monday night we all went out to an amazing dinner and to see ELF the musical in Salt Lake, which was a blast. Pretty much anything we do with these people is fun.

 After dinner we headed home to put our tired and grumpy Hudson to bed. Then everyone else came to our house and we had dessert and watched The Muppet Christmas Carol and played games. My favorite moment of the night was Heidi's comment of "I'm more deadweight in this game than I thought I would be..." and then she answered a super hard question correctly for the win for our team :)

Ben made these "Santa footprints" in the carpet-
(and later when asked about certain toys Chase would say,
"Santa brought them for me. I saw his footprints.")

 The boys piles-

and the much anticipated combine Chase asked Santa for.

 Christmas morning was so fun! We had to prod Chase along in the opening process. Once he saw the combine and the construction toys Santa brought, he didn't really care to open anything else! Of course, he did open other presents, and seemed really excited about them, but always went right back to playing with the combine and his little "big machines." Hudson, on the other hand, was particularly psyched to find sippy cups in his stocking- along with white onesies, baby food, and clothes. He did get that little bead/wire toy in the background which he really liked.

 Hudson's clear favorite though was this little rocking caterpillar he got from Papa and Nana. He stayed on this thing for the rest of the present opening (which Hudson didn't really get at all) and happily rocked away and chewed on the antenna. It was pretty darling!

My parents and Heidi had come down to to watch the boys open their stockings and had breakfast with us. After they left I got a little nap and the boys played away with their new toys. It was so fun to see the excitement Christmas brought to Chase!

Later on we went to my parents house for Christmas dinner. My mom made a beautiful meal, which we all enjoyed, even Chase although he burst into tears when I put the green beans on his plate. (Christmas excitement = poor napping and ridiculous tantrums). After dinner we settled down to play Trivial Pursuit as a family- but Chase and Kate had this little Mickey Mouse board game going on the side.

That night when we put the boys to bed Ben and I both had huge smiles on our faces- this was the best Christmas yet. Having little ones on Christmas- especially a little one as excited and truly thankful as Chase- was just the best. We are sure thankful for these amazing little boys!

Ray's Visit

Ben's dad Ray came out to visit last week! The reason he came was that this beautiful family was sealed in the Salt Lake temple! Ben and I were honored to attend his cousin, Krista's sealing to her husband Matt and 3 cute kids- Katelyn, Amberleigh, and Jameson. It was a beautiful day!

 Besides going to the sealing, we mostly just hung out at our house!

Jessi was there most of the time with her cute babies-

Wayne Michael is almost 2 and is just exactly in between Chase and Hudson in age,

and Cally is 4 months old.

Here are the 2013 babies:

 The boys and Papa Ray

 Wayne Michael was the perfect playmate for Chase-

he is as mellow and laid-back as Chase is high strung!

So Wayne followed Chase around and took orders from him,

and Chase wanted to spend every minute of the day playing with "Wayne Micho".

And there were remarkably few squabbles over toys!

 3 cute boys in the tub-

getting them all to smile and look at the camera is basically impossible.

This is the best we got!

The boys loved playing with their Virginia Papa and cousins-

It was a fun week!

Christmas Lights

My Chase has an intense love for Christmas lights. He makes sure our lights on our tree are plugged in every morning. If we go to my parents house and their lights aren't plugged in he remedies that too. And he just loves loves loves Christmas lights. On Saturday night we did a family outing to Christmas village in Ogden. It was magical! Chase was so enchanted by the little houses and pretty lights and we all loved watching his little face light up with excitement! And Hudson, as always, was just happy to be along for the ride. He was pretty happy that someone was holding him the whole time.

Afterwards we went out to dinner at an amazing Italian restaurant to celebrate Will's graduation from college (yay! Go Will!). Right when we sat at the table and I glanced at the children's menu, seeing that pizza was an option and concluding that is what we would order Chase. Chase piped right up with, "Yes, I want Oreo pizza!" (Last week the boys and I went out with my dad to visit my grandpa in the hospital and to dinner and Chase loved the Oreo pizza and has been talking about it ever since.) Chase had us all laughing with the way he fully grasped the concept of a waiter and whenever he came by Chase had little requests of him, like informing him that he was out of milk, or that he wanted bread pudding for dessert. Luckily the waiter was super nice and thought Chase was cute as well.

It was such a fun night with the family! The only thing missing was Ben (working) and Nate (came home from college the next day). It is such a blast to spend time together as a family during this magical time of year! Thanks Mom and Dad for an amazing night! And thanks Will for graduating to give us an excuse to all go out to dinner together! (As if we need a reason...)

Tis the Season

Just a random smattering of Christmas-y fun around our house last week:

I love this picture of Chase for so many reasons-

first of all that he loves that Santa shirt and wears it every time it's clean.

Usually with some sort of comment, "Thanks for washing it for me mom!"

Which makes me feel like a hero.

Secondly, the pile of baby spoons (or swooms as he calls them) next to him.

Chase loves those things. Ever since I bought them last summer he's been obsessed.

He pulls them out their drawer and carries them around the house all the time.

And sometimes I can't find a spoon when I need to feed the baby.

 I can't believe how big our baby is getting,

sometimes I have a mini panic attack when I think about him turning one in January.

I think all Hudson wants for Christmas is his two front teeth!

Those dang teeth have been hurting him for over a week now,

and we would all really like our sweet, calm, easy going Hudson back!

 Love these two in matching shirts. 

Also love that they can't both look at me and smile at the same time.

 My mom bought the cutest Christmas outfits for the boys,

and I have yet to really capture a good picture of them wearing them. 

But here's the best we got last Sunday:

 I held off on putting presents under the tree because I was afraid

that someone's little fingers wouldn't be able to stay off them.

Well, I was right. He plays with them all the time, but at least he isn't opening them!
He's just making roads for his cars.

 Hudson has fully discovered Lightning McQueen and his life will never be the same again.

 We took the boys to see Santa at Farmington Station last week.

We talked to Chase ahead of time about how the whole thing worked 

and had him think about what he wanted to ask for.

We walked into Santa's little workshop and Chase leaned over and with his eyebrows raised said,

"I want a combine."

Then we had him sit on Santa's lap and he continued with,

"I want a combine. Will and Matt have one. Where are your elves?

Where are your reindeer? Where is your sled? In my books you have elves and reindeer.

Where are they? Where are the toys?"

It was adorable.

Provo Friends Christmas Party

Last week we had our first Christmas party of the season-

we had our good friends from our Provo days over!

Let me just say that we had the best group of friends in Provo,

we still keep in touch with all of them and miss them all the time.

Only a few of us are left in Utah now

and we were so excited to have Chad, Alyse and Ryder Bennett

and Russell, Ashley, Brooklynn, Kynlee

 and new baby Ella Virgin over for a little Christmas party.

*Caldwells, Alders, and Goodyears- know that we missed you and the only thing that would have made this night better was if you were there too!*

The weather was crazy snowy that night- and freezing cold-

but everyone made the longish trek up to our house and we were so glad they did!

We had soup in bread bowls, salad, and then a hot chocolate bar and Christmas cookies for dessert.

I turned on The Polar Express for the kiddos- who were all dressed in their jammies-

and they had a blast watching it and generally running wild all over our house.

They entertained each other so well!

Chase and Ryder were both sporting sore noses at the end of the night-

both being victim of the other boy pushing a dump truck down the stairs

straight into the other one's face.

Ryder has taught Chase all about the "turn about is fair play" concept.

(Last time Ryder threw up on Chase after Chase stole toys from him)

 These kid group shots never turn out like you hope-

although the result is fairly entertaining.

This is the one where Chase is obviously all out rebelling against photos.

 And Chase and Ryder both seem perplexed at Ella's crying-

we put Hudson to bed several hours before these were taken,

so he's dreamily sleeping away in his bed upstairs.

 Chase was surprisingly very interested in Ella...

 Can I just say how much I love Alyse and Ashley?

Because I do.

 The boys were super psyched (NOT) about posing together.

I went to bed that night with a big smile on my face from our fun night.

I love that this holiday season gives us an excuse to see old friends.

We feel so fortunate to have such wonderful friends in our lives!