Christmas Part 2

I know I already posted about Christmas Eve, but I forgot these two pictures. Hudson was so happy to get his crane from Nana and Papa! It is still one of the most played with toys from Christmas. 

Nothing beats the excitement of kids on Christmas morning! Ben put the baby gate at the top of the stairs so they boys couldn't sneak down to see their presents, and because of the way our house is laid out, Santa was careful to put their stuff out view from the top of the stairs. Around 6:30 when Chase woke up he looked down and saw that the cookies and milk were gone and burst into our room FULL of excitement that Santa had come! Hudson had a little cold when we put him to bed that night, so we wanted to let him sleep. So we gave Chase the iPad and he happily went back to his room for an hour until Hudson woke up on his own. Hudson woke up as his usual grumpy self, which quickly turned into shivers of excitement and happiness when I told him Santa had come! The boys could barely contain themselves!

Both boys lit up when they saw their presents from Santa! A scooter for Chase and a balance bike for Hudson. They rode them around the living room a little before digging into their stockings. Overall the boys were very appreciative of all their gifts, although Chase did make a comment about the practical nature of the contents of his stocking (two shirts, bandaids, a new toothbrush, winter gloves, healthy snacks and chapstick- and one small car)- he was expecting a few more toys, but he was still happy with it's contents. Hudson's stocking was nearly identical, except he also got a water bottle.

The boys were excited to give their gifts to each other. Chase got Hudson a Thomas the Tank Engine lantern which he LOVES, and Hudson got Chase a new tiny Mack- from Cars- to replace the one we lost a few years ago. They got a few simple gifts from us, and then we FaceTimed with Ben's parents so they could open their gifts with them. The boys were especially excited about the construction toys and the construction playdough sets (that Chase had told me he wanted months ago).  It was so fun to watch the boys open their gifts and see the excitement in their eyes. I'm not exaggerating when I say the we almost never buy the kids anything fun outside of their birthdays or Christmas (although their Nana does) so I think they are especially excited and thankful at Christmas.

Ben made us a delicious breakfast of biscuits and gravy and then we spent the whole morning playing with new toys! It was nice to have a quiet, simple Christmas morning. Later in the day we met up at my parents house for a delicious dinner and playing games. The adults indulged Chase played his new games with him (CandyLand and a penguin game that's hard to explain but he really loved). Then after dinner we played Taboo, which resulted in fits of laughter from everyone.

And that was Christmas! And no one even got the flu- success!

Christmas Part I

The week of Christmas was a busy one! Ben had PTO still left at the end of the year so he was mostly off the whole week of Christmas (although work did hijack at least a few hours every day). One snowy night we met my parents up at Christmas Village in Ogden. The boys ran enthusiastically from one display to the next, usually yelling out "Come on guys! Let's run!" from Hudson. That place is so cute and magical, one of my very favorite Christmas activities! My parents treated us to pizza afterwards. It was super delicious, but pretty slow, leading to Hudson repeatedly yelling in the waitress' direction "Where's the FOOD" and then saying "Papa, waiting is hard!" 

 We have had so much gorgeous snow this year, which made Christmas time extra magical! We went sledding one day in my parent's backyard. My dad, Kate and Nora joined us and it was so cute and fun. Nora and Huds are more fair weather sledders, while Chase could go all day (in Hudson's defense, it is hard work to trek back up to the top of the hill over and over).

 Christmas Eve started with a gingerbread house making party. Both boys ate copious amounts of candy in the process and all the houses turned out so cute and fun!

We went home for naps (Hudson needed it) and then headed back up to my parents for more Christmas celebrating. Christmas Eve is also my mom's birthday so she opened her gifts (my favorite was when Chase handed her ours and said "Here Nana, it's a calendar") and played a bunch of fun Christmas themed games. We watched the video I put together of our year and took a family photo. Then we settled in for our candlelight dinner. We've done this every Christmas Eve for 24 years and it is by far my favorite family tradition. Even with two wild children, the glow of the tree and candlelight, surrounded by love and family, just radiates Christmas spirit like nothing else. I got a little misty eyed looking around at my family, filled with so much gratitude that we were all there together! 

After dinner we acted out the nativity with puppets- Chase at this point was super wild and less than reverent, but it was fun and festive. Then, since Will, Katie and Nora will be with Kate's family tomorrow we let the boys exchange gifts with Nora. They were super excited to give her the playdough they picked out (which she promptly sat on, someday she'll figure out what you actually do with it) and were super excited to receive The Incredibles from her (and then Chase recapped the show quickly for everyone. There is a mom who goes on a trip with her evil friend and there is a nice robot who is actually a mean robot. He hasn't seen it in at least a year so I think the details were a little fuzzy for him.) Then all the kids got gifts from Nana and Papa. My mom, as usual, really came through for the grandkids, and the boys were so excited to open each gift from her (clothes, puzzles, CandyLand) and then were SUPER excited for their main gifts- a big crane for Hudson and Chase's much anticipated backhoe loader! (It's possible that Santa already had his shopping done when the boys asked Santa for these toys- so Nana to the rescue!) They could have sat and played with their toys all night- but we needed to head home to bed so Santa could come!

Christmas Partying

December is so fun because it feels like a month long party! We kicked it off with our annual BYU friends party. Russell and Ashley hosted this year, so we made the trek down to Springville (an hour drive) and it was absolutely worth it! Ashley had her house beautifully decorated, the company was perfect, and the children were wild. They seriously ran around in a little pack, and besides a few toy-stealing mishaps, got along perfectly! We love this group of friends so much. We got to sit around the table just chatting for a long time while the kids played. We had a stressful week leading up to this party (more about that later) and talking and laughing with these dear friends was just what the doctor ordered! I only wish we all lived closer so we could get together more than a few times a year! It was a perfect night. 

 Once Heidi got into town we set aside a night for cookie decorating. Heidi is a decorator extraordinaire- so it was fun to see her beautiful cookies besides the ones that Chase so lovingly and carefully decorated :) Chase is of the  "more is more" mentality when it comes to frosting and sprinkles. Hudson decorated a few cookies, and immediately ate them all.

Chase had his preschool Christmas program, which was adorable. He was so excited that Heidi flew in late the night before and came to watch him, Papa was there too. He, of course, refused to wear a santa hat like the rest of the kids and interjected (loudly) personal comments after almost every song (and was the only kid to do so). So the whole audience got to hear what was going on in his head "I only had three days to practice because I had strep!" "Thanks for recording that dad!" "Mom, I'm thirsty I need water." "That was my favorite song." Oh man, that kid. I love that he's confident.

 This is our family on Christmas Sunday. I always love this Sunday of church, mostly because of all the beautiful music. Music brings the spirit of Christmas to me like nothing else, and hearing beautiful praises of the Savior keeps us focused on Him. Chase got up to sing with the primary kids. He wiggled his way to the very middle, hopped up on the little step in front of the microphone, and then proceeded to play with the microphone and wave excitedly to us through the whole song.

 We had our annual White Family Christmas party at my Aunt Karen's that same Sunday. Chase was so excited to go because Aunt Karen has really awesome toys and surprisingly the boys were very well behaved, ate their dinner, and then mostly disappeared into the basement to play away with a few of my cousin's kids. The food was divine and so was the company. I was especially excited anticipating my cousin Kelly being there- we are very close and I haven't seen her forever (they live in Chicago). The day before they were to fly out, her husband Tommy was hit by a car on his way to work while riding his bike. When we got the original phone call they still weren't sure if he'd be okay- knowing a brain injury was likely. I was teary and hit my knees praying that he'd be okay. Luckily, it became evident relatively quickly that besides a concussion and several skull fractures, no other major damage was done- his helmet saved his life. Of course we all missed seeing them this Christmas, but mostly we are all so thankful Tommy is still with us and will recover- our own little Christmas miracle this year!

We sang "The Holy City" as always around the piano. Chase really didn't like it and pretty quickly left the room with his hands over his ears. We're really not a musical family- but this song is a tradition and I love it! Someday Chase will understand.

 The next night was our Smith Family Christmas party at my parents house. We did Mexican food and it all turned out great! The boys apparently used up all their obedient point the night before, so they may have ended up in my parents bedroom with iPads at some point during the night. In this picture, I'm between the newly engaged Nate and Halie! We are so excited for their upcoming wedding next year!

Now I've got two excited little boys who can't wait for what the next few days have in store for us! We love this time of year!

Early Christmas Celebrating

One of my very favorite Christmas traditions right now is doing an act of service each day counting down to Christmas. I love the way it helps keep us focused on service and giving instead of just Santa and getting presents (which is fun too). This year especially, with so many things going on in the world, as well as the suffering going on around us (stuff we are aware of, and the reality that there's lots going on that we aren't aware of) has left me feeling a little heavy in heart that there is so much heart break in the world. This seems to me like a small way I can help- and try to teach my children the importance of service and reaching out to others too. I hope some of these simple service projects have touched someone's life this year- they have definitely touched mine. I had plans of making a really cute advent calendar, and then life got busy and I ended up just cutting out paper and taping it to the wall. Maybe next year I'll get a fun one made.

Just a few of the things we've done- making gingerbread men and taking them to the kid's primary teachers and we left some for the mailman, making pretzel treats for our pediatrician and the bishopric, made Christmas cards for their great-grandparents and the missionaries in our ward, had kids over to play, donated old toys to DI, donated food to the food bank, and held doors open for people. The kids love the baking activities best (I do too!) and I think they also loved painting Christmas cards. I love having a purposeful, planned out way to do a lot of the fun Christmas activities that we would do anyway.

We made it to temple square one cold Sunday night. The boys loved the Christmas lights, and they both loved watching the nativity. Is there anything more beautiful than temple square at Christmastime?

It snowed! We had all these plans for Monday the 14th- and all of them got ruined (some due to the snow, some due to other stuff) so we ended up just coming home and making a snowman. Even though it was frustrating to not get the stuff done we wanted, the snow is so beautiful and really puts us in the Christmas spirit!  My boys loved getting their shovels out and "helped" me shovel driveways. Chase is actually a little helpful now! Hudson kept taking snow from the sides and pouring it back on the driveway- so he evened the helpfulness out. 

And now there is less than two weeks until Christmas! I've got two very excited little elves! I thought the threat of Santa Claus was going to be golden this year and I'd have the most obedient children ever. Not the case. When I told Hudson that he wouldn't get presents if he didn't stop throwing a tantrum he yelled at me, "THEN I DON'T WANT PRESENTS!" And Chase has explained to me a few times that he knows he's been naughty before and Santa has always left him presents in the past. Also he says he has until two days before Christmas to make the nice list. I guess we will have to see if he gets coal or not!

It's Beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!!!!

Christmas celebrating is in full swing at the Hugo home! The Saturday after Thanksgiving Ben took the boys out to find our tree! Ben and I have differing opinions about the best Christmas tree (real vs fake) and for now, Ben is winning- so a real tree it is! I'll admit, our house does smell lovely, even though I'm sweeping up lots of pine needles. We got out the rest of our Christmas decorations and our house is looking quite festive!

The kids were chomping at the bit to decorate the tree, but we made them wait until that evening. They loved going through all the ornaments and were both so excited about the tree. They play with it all the time now (and have only broken like one ornament...in three days...). After dinner we did our tradition of letting them open one present- their Christmas jammies! Both boys were surprisingly thrilled with their jammies and immediately put them on. Then we cuddled up as a family to watch "The Polar Express" (which is honestly kind of a strange movie- but the kids love it). I love this little tradition, it just gets us all in the holiday spirit!

 Hudson definitely thought it was actually Christmas that night and told Chase as the movie ended "Come on Chase, let's go to bed so Santa will come!" It may be a long month for him.

Sunday we busted out their Christmas outfits for church! Hudson's is actually Chase's from two years ago, but Hudson has been longingly gazing at that train vest in his drawer for months now and was thrilled he finally got to wear it. Chase is really just wearing a new tie with his usual shirt and pants, but I still think he looks super festive!

 I'm a big fan of starting off all our Christmas activities early in the month, and thus enjoying the Christmas celebrating at a relaxed pace, instead of a mad rush the week before Christmas. Last year when the flu hit us right before Christmas I was so glad we didn't still have a long list of "Christmas to-dos". So we hit up Santa first thing! We love the Santa at Station Park. He has his own little house and there was absolutely no line, so the boys got to spend a little time chatting with the old man. Chase explained in great detail the toy he's hoping to get for Christmas (a motorized backhoe, with an interchangeable snow-plow blade and cement mixer addition- aka- not an actual toy that anyone makes- which I had Santa help explain to him, but that something similar might end up under the tree for him).

 Hudson was definitely more interested in the prospect of getting a candy cane, but did tell Santa he also wanted a backhoe- basically that he wants what Chase wants. It is so fun to have the boys at these ages during this time of year- their pure belief and excitement is contagious and I'm loving it!

Thanksgiving

I feel like in the past (when I was in school mostly) holidays would spring up on me so fast and all of a sudden they were over. Now that I'm a stay at home mom with two little guys we celebrate each holiday thoroughly- all month long. It just gives us something fun to do. Thanksgiving was no exception, we did thanksgiving crafts (several darling turkeys resulted), read Thanksgiving books, attended the storytime Thanksgiving day at the library, Chase had a Thanksgiving feast at preschool to which he was assigned to bring jello (aka- the food I never make and was super nervous about supplying), and had weekly Family Home Evening lessons on gratitude. It was awesome.

We started off our Thanksgiving celebrating by hitting up the free day at the zoo! We love those! We always get there right when it opens and see most of it before the crowds come. Heidi flew in to town and she and my mom came with us. Hudson loved it and exclaimed "You've gotta see this guys!" at every animal. Chase was more interested in the construction currently going on there (they are building a new play structure). 

 On Thanksgiving day we did our own thing at home. It was fun to make Thanksgiving dinner for the first year in our new home! Chaser was my little helper and helped me cook almost the entire dinner! It was a really relaxed day of cooking and family.

 Here are the boys by our thankful tree! We started this at the first of the month and every morning during breakfast each of us would come up with a few more leaves to add to the tree. Chase especially loved this and reminded me any time I forgot. He came up with great stuff to be thankful for too (like friends, grandparents, donuts, being invited to birthday parties, my brother, the mountains, beautiful sunrises, primary) and needed very little prodding from me to come up with stuff. That tree was packed full of things we are thankful for and it was great to remember how blessed we truly are!

 Here we are with our dinner. We made turkey and cranberry sauce, roasted green beans, Ruth's Chris sweet potato casserole, biscuits and corn pudding. Of course we had pumpkin pie for dessert. Everything turned out delicious! (I was relieved)

 On Friday we celebrated Thanksgiving with the Smith Family. Since Will and Kate were at Kate's parents house for actual Thanksgiving, we just moved the big family celebration back a day. We loved having two days in a row of Thanksgiving! I got up early to shop with my mom and sisters and then we all gathered at my parents house that evening for a delicious Thanksgiving meal. My grandparents joined us, as well as Nate's cute girlfriend Halie (Nate just moved to Chicago and couldn't make it back for the holiday- luckily we have cousins there so he was with family too!) My mom had a beautiful table set with fine china and crystal goblets, everything was fancy and gourmet! As always, we spent most of the night trying to keep our wild ones under control (and failed, as usual).

November

November was so fun, and it went by so fast! I started off the month with a fun girls night out with my friends from study abroad! Katie, Sara and I became fast friends on the plane ride to London back in 2007 and had a wonderful experience there together. We haven't seen a lot of each other over the past 8 years, but it was so fun to get together at Cheesecake Factory in Salt Lake and chat and laugh the night away! It was fun to reflect back on where life has taken us and all the amazing memories we shared (and that we all equally still shudder at the thought of the hostel we stayed in Dublin!)

 I watch Nora at some point most weeks and we all love it. She's a treat to have around and the boys adore them (and she adores Chase, and to a less extent Hudson). My mom stopped by one afternoon and was reading to the boys and ALL THREE kids insisted on sitting on her lap, even easy-going Nora wasn't content until she'd staked out some real estate on Nana's lap.

The boys are obviously super enamored with fire trucks, and we were lucky enough to get our own personal tour of the fire station courtesy of a "Jack's dad" (Jack is Chase's little friend from Primary and his dad is a firefighter). We went to the fire station open house last month, which the boys thought was great. But having the whole place to themselves, with free reign to play in and on any of the fire trucks and ambulance was pretty much the best thing ever! Hudson "drove" the ambulance for a good 20 minutes, and was a little appalled that no one would give him the keys and insisted he just pretend.  It was a pretty awesome day!

Chase got invited to a birthday party at the Aquarium! It was on a Saturday, and our ticket into the Aquarium for the birthday party covered Chase and one parent (me) for the whole day there! So we went 2 hours before the party started and enjoyed the whole aquarium, which Chase was super excited about. Then he loved the actual birthday party (which included cake and playing on this super awesome play structure with all his little buddies!). I take my kids to do fun activities all the time, but rarely with just one of them. It was so fun to have a whole day with just Chaser! By the time we drove all the way to the Aquarium, stayed for four hours, drove home and stopped at the grocery store, we were gone most of the day!

Since we didn't want Hudson to feel left out, Ben planned a special day with him. They went to the train museum in Ogden, which Hudson loved (although he still reminds me that he would also like to go to the "Karium") Hudson loves trains and Ben had a great time with him. I'm pretty sure their date also ended at the grocery store, just to pick up a pack of cookies for a special treat for Huds. It was such a fun Saturday for all of us!