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!