Ending 2022

 Right after Christmas we had an appointment to do family pictures- our gift to my mom and dad this year! And although we didn’t go with Will’s repeated request for head to toe denim, I think they turned out pretty good! 

The kids played with their new Christmas toys a lot! I snuck out one day to have lunch with my mom and Heidi and Reta, our old neighbor whom we all adore. We watched a bunch of movies. Lila got Hand Foot and Mouth disease- luckily pretty mild case but we still had to stay home for several days. We threw a little casual birthday party for Chase. Ben continued to heal and apparently we took almost no pictures!

On New Years Eve we did our traditional Chinese food (which I got from Costco and heated up at home which worked out just great!) and toasted with sparkling cider, thanks to our neighbors. We talked about our favorite memories of the year, and despite Davis’s initial response of “all the TV I got to watch!” The kids all agreed that their favorite memories of this year happened at Disneyland and Jackson Hole/Yellowstone. I had to agree, those were my favorites too!

As I reflected on the end of the year, I was full of so much gratitude. So much of the year was spent in such a feeling of peace and blessings for me. Everything was just going so well. Ben loved his job. We were all healthy. We got to travel. Covid was mostly over. Of course there were little bumps in the road, but overall, life was just so good. 

Then in October we found out Ben was going to be laid off from Stock X, which happened a few weeks later. Luckily, he found a new job, with a pretty big raise, and started a week before his severance ran out. It was so stressful, but also we felt so blessed to have things work out so wonderfully even though it was hard. I knew God was looking out for us. And during this time especially, our lovely friends and family who are the best support network, were there for us and gave us so much love and support. Life in 2022 was pretty grand! 

 

Lila Fashion Show

 It’s no secret that I have loved getting my girl all dolled up from the day she was born, so keeping with tradition I might as well post all my favorite outfits from the year. Let it be known, this was the year she started having opinions of her own!

The bunny dress! This was arguably Lila’s favorite outfit of the year. This picture was taken on Easter, maybe the third or fourth time she wore it. She wore it a LOT more throughout the summer and fall and that poor dress had many stains and looked so well loved by August. It was a birthday gift from Nana, a fact she repeated often, and she loved it so much!

There is so much to love about this outfit. This little pinafore was a birthday gift from Heidi and Lila loved it and looked so dang cute in it. The sparkle boots are still going strong and are Lila’s favorite footwear. And that little denim jacket was so dang cute and I’m still sad she’s outgrown it. 

Her Easter dress- I searched high and low for the cutest, sweetest little Easter dress and this one really fit the bill. I absolutely loved dressing her in it!

Back when she would wear shorts, before she demanded exclusively wearing dresses, I loved these little shorts. Her style this particular day was just too cute for me. 

“My romper!” She would call this. I think when she wore it she usually acted a little more “animal like”. But it was dang cute. It was a birthday gift from Heidi as well and lasted well into winter. 

This was the “back up” Easter dress I bought her, but then it was so cute I kept it instead of returning it. It was Lila’s preferred dress for church. I love her in purple!

Her Fourth of July romper was so darling and I never really got a good photo of it. Between this one and the chambray one below, I loved dressing her in these cute rompers during the summer! 

A friend was selling a bunch of her little girls clothing, so I went and scored a bunch of cute dresses for $3 each. This dress was by far her favorite and she wore it every single time it was clean. This was her first time trying it on and you can tell by her face that she loved it. I’m glad I got so many dresses there (5 I think?) because this was the start of the dresses only policy she developed and there were lots of cute ones!

I don’t have a lot of good photos of this cute dress from her birthday, but it was so darling and fun for summer. 

Sadly this is the best picture I got of her in this dress- I’ll get another one in the spring. My mom made this for me as a little girl and I’ve had it hanging in my closet. She had been begging me to let her wear it- and I finally let her one Sunday even though it was still a little big. She loved wearing it, but absolutely refused to be photographed. 

This chambray dress was just way too cute and so fun to dress up with all her different bows. I love that she loves a good chambray :)

I think we decided to call this one the princess fairy dress. My mom found this at target just before thanksgiving and had to get it because it just screamed Lila. It certainly does! And she wore it pretty much every time it was clean and always got a lot of compliments on it. 

Our Christmas

 Our Christmas celebrating took a sharp turn when Ben got his tonsils out on December 22nd. We decided just a few days beforehand, after he finally saw an ENT about his never ending sore throat, to just do it. We’d met our deductible and he had some days off work for the holiday. So even though it greatly complicated our holiday plans, in the long term it made sense to just go ahead and do it. We were warned that the recovery would be terribly painful and slow, and that was absolutely true. So Ben really missed every Christmas activity that weekend and instead was in bed and terrible pain!

But we forged ahead without him. It was a little more chaotic and stressful and exhausting for me, but I think the kids all had a wonderful Christmas, which is what really matters anyway! We had a lovely Christmas Eve celebration with the Smiths, complete with the talent show, games, charcuterie dinner, so many presents for the kids, a heart-warming Christmas story from Papa and lots of hugs. The kids all had a blast and it was possibly our most chaotic Christmas Eve to date. So much noise and excitement from this crew! 

Once we got home and I checked on Ben and got him dosed with more meds and stuff, I quickly got Lila down and asked the boys to set out milk and cookies for Santa. I came downstairs to find them setting out cookies, carrots for the reindeer, and they made Santa hot chocolate, complete with whipped cream! What sweet boys! I read them a few Christmas stories around our tree before tucking them into bed. They all sleep together in Davis’s room on Christmas Eve and they were all asleep in a matter of minutes! 

 

Ben came downstairs to finish setting up Christmas with me. Luckily we didn’t have much to do because he was mostly just sitting on a chair in great amounts of pain. But we did enjoy a few peaceful moments by our lit tree- my favorite place to be in December! 

The boys were up really early, but sweetly stayed in their room and waiting until 7:00 for me to wake up Lila to go downstairs. 

The present opening was cute and fun and so chaotic. Ben sat in a chair and tried to enjoy himself watching the kids open all their gifts, but this surgery was no joke and he was in so much pain! I felt like I was torn in a million directions (mom! Open this one! Can you help me put batteries in! Help me cut this plastic!) Once everything was open I made up some gravy for our traditional Christmas breakfast. Ben made the biscuits before his surgery and we froze them, so that part was easy. After a delicious Christmas breakfast we all got ready and headed to church. 

I loved attending church on Christmas morning. The spirit was so sweet. The kids got to sing the songs they’d worked on in Primary, including Davis’s favorite, “Prince of Peace”. During the closing hymn the choir and accompanying violin and piano were singing Silent Night and had the whole congregation join on the third verse. It was so beautiful and I felt so much peace, gratitude and the true Christmas spirit. Our morning had been chaotic (and the rest of the day would be crazy as well) but for those few minutes, it all stood still.

My dad was speaking in his ward, so I dropped the boys off at home and just took Lila for another round of church. She sat sweetly with Rosie while we got to listen to my dad deliver a beautiful Christmas message- also of peace. I’m glad we got to be there. 

Then we headed off to dinner with the Hugo’s. Ben still stayed home. The turkey took a really long time to cook (like 3 hours longer than they thought it would) and I ended up running Lila home to bed at 7:00 before dinner was even served. I got her down, got Ben all settled again and was back to pick up the kids around 8:00. Once they were home and settled I finally got to eat a little Christmas dinner around 9:00 pm. What a crazy Christmas! It’s not necessarily one I’d like to repeat- neither would Ben- but the kids had a magical day and I was thankful for all the good, even if it was one really crazy, exhausting, painful Christmas! 

December

 

We had a fun night in SLC to see our friends sing at the Assembly Hall on temple square. We enjoyed seeing the lights (that few that were up) and loved listening to the beautiful concert! 

Ben and I snuck out on a little breakfast date, leaving the little kids to be watched by the big kids. I loved how Hudson got her ready and even did her hair! His response was “It’s really hard to do her hair! She doesn’t hold still!”

Kate woke up really sick one morning while Will was out of town, so I went and grabbed the girls and they hung out here all day. The kids had so much fun with their cousins!

At one point, a few days before Christmas, we did gingerbread men so we’d have some cookies to leave out for Santa. Life was feeling really chaotic right then for me, but I found a brilliant strategy. After all the kids helped make and cut out the cookies, I sent them all downstairs to play. Then one by one they each got to come up a decorate a few. It was fun to have a few minutes with each kid and I loved seeing the care (or not) they put into decorating!

Aunt Heidi got here! We were all thrilled. She surprised the boys with a trip to see the new Black Panther movie. Heidi said the highlight for her was watching Davis watch the movie. He was so into it! He would do the Black Panther solute (hands crossed across your chest with fists) anytime they did it in the movie. And about halfway through he said, “Heid, I’m just going to take my pants off okay?” He had shorts under his pants and proceeded to argue with her that it was fine because they were inside. 

Our big present to our boys was tickets to see the Piano Guys! It was actually a week before Christmas, so we dropped the littles off with my parents to be babysat and let the boys open their gift. We took them out to dinner and then to the concert. It did not disappoint! The boys were smiling ear to ear the whole time (Ben and I were too!) The music was incredible. Their jokes and effects kept the boys completely engaged the whole time. And we left with both boys feeling even more committed to their piano studies! It was the highlight of the Christmas season for me!

We’ve settled into a great pattern of Rosie coming over every Friday morning and Lila goes there on Monday mornings. Both the girls look forward to it so much, and Kate and I agree that we get a lot done even when we have both girls at our house! They entertain each other so well!

Davis does this face whenever he gets good news, it’s adorable and a little over the top, which is just so Davis! 

Poor Chase- one day after school I got a call from an unknown number. I don’t usually answer those, but I did this day. It was Chase, calling from a nice strangers cell phone, completely in tears telling me he’d crashed his scooter. I raced to go pick him up and found him bleeding A LOT and his glasses smashed to pieces. He was hurting and a little rattled and on top of it all, couldn’t see! We raced home and after cleaning the wound and consulting our doctor friend via FaceTime, just  steri-stripped the wound together and Ben and Chase set off in search of glasses. Poor kid! Luckily, we found a place that could get us replacement glasses that same day so by nighttime he could see again. It was scary and traumatic for him and I felt so bad!