It's truly the most wonderful time of the year! We started off the season with our traditional kick-off to Christmas party. All three boys loved decorating the tree this year. Even Davis was thrilled to help put ornaments on the tree. Then they got their new jammies and we cuddled up and watched "The Santa Clause". Such a sweet night with the sweetest boys!
This was after Rosie's blessing the first Sunday of the month. Davis had fallen asleep at the end of the meeting, Ben tried taking him home for a nap, I came home to find this. Davis awake, Ben asleep.
Just my silly boys before bedtime- I'm loving reading them Christmas books every single night, and then singing Christmas carols for their songs.
We started doing our daily acts of service- every year this just gets sweeter. The boys are even more into it this year, and I love the focus on service instead of presents. This particular activity was so sweet. We took cookies to our local code enforcement office. Chase wrote the sweetest note to go with them, thanking them for serving our community and letting know we were doing this in honor of Jill Robinson- aunt Halie's mom who was a code enforcement officer and was murdered on the job last year. As soon as I mentioned her name, this man's face fell- he knew exactly who I was talking about. We explained our connection to her and he could not have been sweeter to the boys- so thankful and touched that we thought of them. As we left, Chase said, "that service felt good."
Sometimes Chase helps Hudson with his reading homework and it's the sweetest thing ever. I love these cute brothers and their sweet relationship. Of course they fight- but the sweet moments far out number the hard ones.
Davis prefers to have Ben put him to bed- so that's usually what we do. He has started saying, "good night mom! I love you!" when I kiss him good night. He used to say "I love daddy" anytime I told him I loved him.
For a solid week I made myself salads for lunch every day and Davis sat next to me and ate like half the salad! Sometimes this kid only eats bread and pizza and then we have a whole week of lots of spinach!
We went and saw Santa! The boys were so excited! Davis couldn't wait to get up there to see him, then was pretty reserved sitting there on his lap. Chase asked for a snap circuit set, Hudson asked for the stark jet legos and Davis asked for chocolate. I think they'll all make the nice list (even though I've threatened a few times...)
We went with Ray and Diane to festival of trees- the boys were really into it this year. They loved this Harry Potter tree and the lego and hot wheels themed trees. Davis really just wanted to eat. Afterwards Ray treated us to dinner- and it reminded us why we don't usually take our kids to restaurants! They were actually pretty good, but it was crazy and intense keeping everyone behaving well, no drinks spilled and everyone fed!
For more light the world activities, we've tried to have other kids over to give their mamas a break. This day we had the Shaw's over to frost sugar cookies. It was super fun and not nearly as crazy as I thought it might be!
Hudson had his darling first grade program! He did so great and I was just gushing watching him be so cute up there! Here he is with his fan club- Davis did enjoy the program but really doesn't understand the concept of whispering and didn't appreciate when they turned out the audience lights "HEY! Turn on the LIGHTS!"
Megan and I hosted a huge gingerbread house party for a whole bunch of families (and sent the moms on their way to get a few things done and enjoy some kid free hours!). It was nuts and crazy but all the kids had so much fun and it went pretty smoothly! We had 24 kids there I think- all 8 and younger. And the boys decorated some darling gingerbread houses absolutely loaded with candy!
It's been an exhausting month- full of so much fun and lots of chaos and so many sweet memories with my boys!
