December

We kicked off the Christmas season as soon as we got home from Florida with our annual kick off party. I love this night so much! We listen to Christmas music while we decorate the tree. The kids love putting on all their special ornaments. They are still ecstatic to open their new Christmas jammies and then we curled up together and watched "Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas"- which was a huge hit with Davis.

We visited Santa early in the month (got to get those orders in!). Hudson and Chase asked for nerf guns. Davis happily sat right on Santa's lap and was super excited about it- even though I'm pretty sure he didn't know what was going on?! Hudson told Santa that Davis would like a new carseat for Christmas.

 I love how my house looks and feels decorated for Christmas! It's just magical. We keep the lights going on the tree and banister all day (and evening) long and I love the pretty glow it gives off. It just makes everything feel peaceful. We also have Christmas music playing most of the day.

 We've been doing our daily service activities and I love it. It brings such a great focus of love, service, and Christ to our month! One activity in particular was crazy and awesome at the same time! I got this idea that I wanted to do a gingerbread house party with a whole bunch of neighborhood kids. I wanted the kids to have fun making them, but also wanted their moms to get a break. Luckily, my friend Megan is always down when I come up with stuff like this, so she easily agreed to help me. We sent out a text to 6 of our neighbors (some of our closest friends, and a few that we don't know quite as well but thought they could really use the break) and invited their kids (ALL their kids, babies included) to come make gingerbread houses on Wednesday afternoon for 2 hours. We told them we wanted to give them a break and it would be a fun afternoon with their kids. Within minutes, all 6 responded with so much love and gratitude.

 We had 23 kids over (my three and Megan's three included in that)- ages 5 months to 12 years old! It actually wasn't as nuts as I thought it would be. Everyone brought some candy to share to help decorate. Megan and I glue-gunned the houses together the night before. We had two groups (the younger kids went first, and then older kids, since we could only fit about 9 kids at a time around my table). The babies all played in the family room- we had 6 baby boys, all 2 and under and they were all great!

 At some point Davis got into a bag of M&Ms- so this happened :)

 Mostly it was so awesome! My boys had so much fun and loved doing a gingerbread house and having all their little buddies over. I was happy we were able to give all these tired, hard working mamas a little break. And really an hour after everyone left I had my house totally clean and put together. I think we'll make it a tradition!

 Ben was out of town 3 weeks in a row, which made for a more intense month for me. The boys were honestly really good though. One day, during the hustle of the morning, I walked by Chase's room to see him reading sweetly to Davis! Such a sweet little moment.

We got a little snow and Davis was so excited to use the tiny shovel to help his brothers! Ben was of course out of town this day and the boys did the whole driveway and sidewalks for me!

We spent a crazy night at Christmas village. Davis was nuts, but we still had fun. Nana and Papa came with us. I love this magical little gem at Christmas time!

December was full of Christmas parties, which mostly went unphotographed. We did take a picture of all the Bennett, Hugo and Virgin kids are our annual BYU friends Christmas party. This night is always the best and this year was no exception. The kids all played beautifully, great conversation for the adults and just a lot of Christmas cheer. I can't believe we have ten kids between us (soon to be 11!)

Chase's Christmas piano recital was a real highlight for us! Chase has taken to the piano so well. He gets up at 6:30 every morning on his own and goes downstairs to practice for 30 minutes. He doesn't complain about it and he works really hard. His teacher, Jodi Newbold, who is my good friend, has told me many times how fun it has been to teach Chase because he really gets it and is so motivated. He played "The First Noel" and "Jingle Bells" and he played both perfectly! He learned about 12 different Christmas carols and I loved listening to him practice all month long!

The stuff photographed and documented here is probably only half of the stuff we did during December.  It was a BUSY month. A lot of the time I felt exhausted. There were so many nights while Ben was out of town that I put the kids to bed after reading Christmas books to them and I felt the most peaceful contentment. I'd sit by the light of the Christmas tree and breath in the sweetness of the season. And there were also a few nights that I was in tears with frustration and exhaustion. 

One silver lining to Ben going out of town at this particular time of year was that all my friends and neighbors were also trying to serve in the spirit of Christmas and "light the world". So I had sweet friends invite us to dinner at their homes, bring us dinner, offer to watch kids, drop off little Christmas gifts, I even got a beautiful poinsettia delivered from an out of state friend. I definitely felt loved and supported. I'm surrounded by angels for sure.