December

We packed in as many fun little Christmas activities into our few free moments in December. When went and visited this jolly old man one night. Davis and Lila told me they were pretty sure he was the real one, not a "Santa's helper". 

Lila lost her first tooth! She was delighted and also so proud that she was younger than any of her brothers at their first tooth loss!

We had a magical night at Christmas village in Ogden. Will, Kate and the cousins met us there and we were definitely the LOUDEST group, but thankfully it's all outdoors and fairly excitement-friendly atmosphere. We stopped by the giving machines, enjoyed the lights and all the fun little houses. This place is so fun and we had the best night there!

Davis wrapped up his season of Jr Jazz! Ben was his coach this year and Davis did awesome! He tracked how many baskets he made this year and ended the season at 29! Competitive little guy that he is, he was mad he didn't get 30.

We had an evening of gingerbread house making. Davis ate all the candy off his in the following days- including eating a full piece of the roof (maybe with hot glue still attached?). The other kids left their alone until I threw them away after Christmas.

Rudolf for dinner night was a hit! One of the few meals I make that NO ONE complains about.

We had the White Family Christmas party and had so many cousins there! And then I forced them all into this photo. I love these guys! 

Heidi and Nana and Papa hosted a fun cousin sleepover night so we took our free night and went to dinner at our favorite fancy place in SLC. It was maybe the most delicious meal of our lives and after a really busy month it was so needed and appreciated. 

Christmas Eve was its usual mixture of fun and chaos and noise and so much happy family times! I hardly took any pictures, but snagged just a few of the kids with their cousins.  The sweetest moment of the night was when my parents gave their kids their gifts. They got each kiddo something small to open and then began telling them that their main gift was a generous donation to their college funds. My dad started to say, "but your real gift is..." and then took the tiniest pause in which Davis so sincerely said "Your love". 

The Sunday before Christmas Davis and Lila sang sweet songs with the primary. A week before that Chase and his friend Jonas had the musical number for sacrament meeting and played a beautiful medley of Away in a Manger and Amazing Grace. 

Our Christmas morning was sweet and simple. Chase and Hudson were thrilled that Santa surprised them with airpods. Davis got a lego set and Lila got the robot cat she's always wanted. There was so much sweetness, love and gratitude in the air! We had a very relaxed rest of the day playing with new toys, watching football and the weather was so mild the boys even threw around a ball outside while Ben and I went on a walk! We had Ben's parents over for Christmas dinner that evening. 

Ended up in instacare the day after Christmas with this little gal with Influenza A. Poor thing was so sick! She recovered pretty quickly, but not before passing it along to me, Ben and Chase. 

We loved having Aunt Heidi around for about 10 days! We hung out with her every day and Lila still cried when she left to go back to Boston. 

After wishing for earrings for years, she decided she was finally brave enough to do it. She felt that if she was brave enough to lose a tooth, she could definitely handle ear piercing. We got a great recommendation of where to go and it was the cutest, easiest experience! She is so proud of her pierced ears!

We babysat Scottie for a day and all the kids were obsessed. Lila hardly left her alone all day. She wanted to hold her and help with every single baby thing all day. 

And if our lives weren't crazy enough, we decided to gut and completely remodel the downstairs bathroom. Because the previous owners tiled the walls and every single part of the bathroom was funky and weird and gross, it was a complete gut. We had to pull down the dry wall to the studs and rip up the floor to the cement! The big boys helped a lot with the project and hopefully they'll appreciate the finished product that much more!

November

 November started off with some good news- Ben got a new job! He was offered a position at Western Governors University and would be starting December 1st! His new job started the day our severance insurance benefit was to run out- perfect timing! It was a crazy six months getting to this point and so much stress and uncertainty and many interviews and we were all so happy and thankful that this offer came through!

We went and saw Wicked: For Good with the whole gang! I loved every second of the movie...Lila was confused a lot of the time. She kept asking where the REAL wicked witch was, and even though I kept saying THAT'S HER she kept questioning where the ACTUAL WICKED witch was. 

Our commitment to thankful leaves was a little sparse this year, but we got a decent amount on our thankful tree and called it good. 

On the 67th day of school, Lila got to have 6-7 day! What a weird year it's been!

Davis's own idea of a balanced breakfast- jam and cheese on toast! Unbeknownst to him, his beloved Unky Nate used to do that same thing!

After Davis got invited to his 3rd birthday party at get-air in just a few weeks resulted in a major meltdown from Lila, I told him she could come and I'd pay for her to jump. But one of the kids couldn't come to the party so Lila got to take their spot. Both of those younger kids had a fantastic time. 

Ben and I snuck away for a late celebration of his 40th birthday back in February. We went to San Diego for a few days and it was amazing! We stayed in a beautiful hotel right in the gaslamp district, ate at so many delicious restaurants, walked on the beach, explored a bit of Coronado, went to Old Town, and spent some time just relaxing. This trip came just two days after the job offer came which was wonderful timing. 

The only part that was a little stressful was that Chase got pneumonia while we were gone! He was so so sick! Nana took good care of him and he did okay, but I was a little stressed and sad to be away from him. It took a good 3-4 weeks before he was really back to himself. 

Davis had to "dress a turkey" for school- he came up with and executed this whole idea on his own! I love it! It's held together with scotch tape, he couldn't find a glue stick. 

We hosted the Hugos and some of their friends at our house for Thanksgiving this year. We made the entire meal for 18 people including Ben smoked a turkey (which turned out delicious). Since we needed a lot of pies, and I love pie, I had each kid choose a flavor and then the day before Thanksgiving I had a little one on one baking session with each kiddo while they made their pie! Lila chose lemon sour cream. Davis did chocolate, Hudson did apple, and Chase did key lime. I was so impressed with them! Lila did about 80% of the work herself, with my coaching. Chase did has all by himself with just a few questions. I helped Hudson a little more because we were running low on time, but he still did a lot of it! Davis got bored halfway through making the chocolate custard and told me to call him when things got more exciting. They all turned out delicious and it was a fun memory with my cute kids. 

We got a little bit of snow one Sunday morning and Davis and Lila were outside by like 8 am to play in it! It's a good thing they enjoyed it because that was all the snow we'd see for well over a month!

The day after Thanksgiving we did our annual kick off to Christmas party. I love how much the kids all love this tradition! We turn on Christmas tunes while we decorate the tree. I love hearing the kids squeal and reminisce as they pull out their ornaments. They are all still excited to get Christmas jammies and then snuggle up to watch a Christmas movie together. This is a very favorite night for all of us!