December: Christmas Eve aka 'hope you like store bought cookies'

December 24th fell on a Sunday this year so the children were persuaded dress accordingly. Have I mentioned that I miss the days when I was completely in charge of what they wore each week to church? I think with Carma that went out the window around the time she started nursery ;). 

Also, Chuck thinks I'm a yahoo for always posting sixteen versions of a picture instead of just the one  that turned out the best. But here's my thing: deleting pictures of my kids makes me sad haha and also, the 'outtakes' are such amazing insights into their little characters. Clyde's pasted on, never changing smile... Will's ability to look every stinking direction except the way of the camera, Jack's silent rebellion of stepping away from his designated spot, and Carma glancing up at various brothers, thrilled as punch to be included with them in anything!

The winner: 

Aaaaand a quick family shot!

Carma and I did double duty by heading over to Grandma Pam's church as well to support her in the ward choir. Carma loved seeing Sheila and her sweet mama.

Carma also loved the quick pitstop at Grandma's house on the way home to collect some gifts!

We spent the afternoon doing last minute prep as the kiddos each wrapped their presents to each other:

Christmas Eve officially commenced with dinner, the arrival of Grandma Pam, and using the Little People nativity to act out the story of Jesus Christ's birth as Chuck read it aloud from the scriptures.

Then we moved into the piano room... aka Carma's room... for a fun Christmas sing-a-long as Clyde and Will played for us! First year we've done this and it's definitely a keeper.

Few more pictures of the evening, including the cookies and milk and carrots for Santa and his crew. Pretty sweet Christmas Eve!

Ohhhh Will was in charge of leaving Santa a note. 

Died laughing at his clear disgust for our paltry offering of store bought cookies. I have it on good authority both Santa and Mrs. Claus will eat pretty much any cookie handed them, so I think we're fine ;).

December Activities

Carma and Jack were thrilled to find a dusting of snow out front one morning and promptly spent a solid hour or two out and about frolicking in it:

Clyde was thrilled that the mild weather in December meant that he and Chuck could get some time in over at the bike park. I was thrilled that Chuck took pictures, everyone came home in one piece, and that my middle-schooler is fiiiinally discovering the magic of midday naps!

I got ambitious and took the kids to the library for their Christmas festivities day. Carma (and her Rapunzel hair!) was in awe of the whole thing, but especially the cute girl elf and the live music:

Carma and Jack made some cute ornaments as part of the craft projects. I told them to get all the glittering out of their systems because I love sparkles... but not enough to actually bring glitter into my home ;).

We waited in line a while to meet with Santa and Mrs. Claus, but clearly the wait was worth capturing this Kodak moment:

insta caption: 

Let's play 'A Penny for Their Thoughts', the popular party game where I guess what the hale my kids were thinking in this classic Santa and Mrs. Claus photo op at the library last week.

Jack: "You sit on a throne of lies."

Carma: "I don't think this camera angle is capturing all eleven bows and flowers I insisted mom adorn my French braid with this morning..."

Clyde: "You got this man. The quicker you smile, the quicker mom delivers on the promise of screen time."

Will: "I can't believe my eyes are open AND I'm looking in mom's general direction AND I'm even smiling. This is going to look amazing on the blog." 👦🏼🤶🏼👧🏻(+🌺🎀🌼🌸)🎅🏼👨🏻‍💻💁🏼‍♂️

I sneaked out for some extra girls night group time in December, which brightened my month considerably. Against some pretty decently stacked odds Kara, Paulina, Emily and I hit up the Meridian Temple and it was lovely and the laughs as we approached were worth the whole expedition "Well, you know, we figured this was closer... and cleaner... than a gas station!" 

Here's my slightly more spiritual caption from Instagram: So blessed ☺️to have been able to attend the unveiling of the Nativity scene at the Meridian Temple today with these three ❤️.... aka they happened to be setting it up as we were leaving 😉but I'll take tender mercies and chances to laugh however they come 🙌🏼😎 because both are evidence to me of a Father in Heaven who loves us AND has a sense of humor (hence my existence 😂). Be extra kind out there in the world today everyone - it's impossible to say what someone else might be going through or the positive impact your kindness or smile can have 😘.

The next Monday was regular girls' night. Melinda, Emily, and Paulina all came bearing gifts and Kara, Nycole, and yours truly all tripped all over ourselves promising EPIC presents for girls retreat in the spring hahaha.

A few of us congregated for a girls night group afternoon outing in Emily's hospital room! Nycole brought an amazing pastry thing from Trader Joe's that we all got caught up eating and forgot to take a picture until after she left ;). 

Aaaand a few days later, a sweet new girlie joined our group! I have no words for Kaitlyn's perfection and adorableness, just alllll the heart eye emojis 😍😍😍

The kiddos were thrilled to kick off Christmas break with an adventure with Grandpa Braden! First up was a trip to the movie theater...

followed by dinner at our fave, BK. Ahhhh my dad is such a cute grandpa!!

The kids played a super fun winter-y game - you roll a die to try to steal the winter gloves, then you try to get as far as you can opening up a doodle board... but in the meantime, everyone else is rolling the die to steal the gloves and chance to open it. Clyde ended up as our winner, he got the gloves AND hat on AND opened the toy AND wrote "I love my family" before anyone could steal. Super cute game; the kids were so into it:

 And of course the hat got passed around for some awesome modeling ;).

I got some extra time with my daddy when I crashed his visit with Cody a couple days before Christmas! We don't get a picture every visit, but the Christmas tree was nice and festive so we grabbed one.

 I had posted Cody's address earlier on instagram and fb with this caption: As foretold... by me... my #LightTheWorld follow through has been hit and miss and not always on the right days and all that, but today's prompt is "I was in prison and yes visited me" and I already had plans to visit my favorite brother-in-prison this afternoon! #lucky #nailedit 🤗 I realize this one isn't as easily checked off by some people, but if there is someone you love who's incarcerated, I highly recommend reaching out to them. I don't believe that it will reinforce their poor choices or reward them for being there, I think it will show love and compassion. 

I was pretty grateful to find out later that a few people had reached out to Cody and sent Christmas cards and letters. Cody was so, so thrilled.  

Probably going to send these pictures to Supercuts to see if they want to use them for a marketing campaign 🤔💇🏼‍♂️🙇🏼👀💰🙌🏼. I guess I should be grateful he doesn't have much of a poker face? The funny thing is that Will wanted a haircut, he just wanted Chuck to do a buzz cut like normal and I forced him to get a "real" haircut at the haircut store. My favorite of his many protests were "But if I get a haircut like Clyde then people won't be able to tell us apart even more!" and "Maybe I would try a different haircut if mine goes out of style. But it's still in style!" 😂😂😂 

 Suuuuch a cute finished product though! Ohhh man I love this kid.

Of course we sneaked in lots of time at Grandma Pam's house throughout the month. Queden made a quick trip up early in the month so that Eden could co-host an AMAZING baby shower for her sister Aubrey and Carma was thrilled to play with the dollhouse with Leila:

Carma and Jack may have talked Grandma into a teddy bear picnic at one point... I'm not entirely sure it was that hard ;). 

Jack's Christmas wish was fulfilled early in the month with a lunch date with Dad to Jade Garden! Jack loves that place and doesn't understand why we aren't there EVERY Monday when kids eat free. He's tried to sell the other boys on it by raving about the jello, but as of yet to no avail haha.

 So obviously D.I. trips aren't exclusive to December, but here are a couple from this month anyways. Two D.I. truths: Carma will ride every skateboard she finds and Will will play every piano he finds.

One cookie Wednesday was a donut Wednesday and it was lovely:

 Dan the Man embarked on a brave adventure in December so as a show of support I wore my Reese's shirt and sent him this picture. I thought about mailing him some Reese's but then I realized a) they would melt once they hit Texas and b) if I'm going to go all the way to the store to buy Reese's, there's no way I'm giving them away. I generally eat at least three before I leave the parking lot. SO this picture had to suffice ;). Let the record show I'm a great friend hahaha.

December: PARTY time

People who host parties in December are crazy. I can barely like keep up on laundry in December, and even that's iffy. BUT I love people who host parties in December because sometimes they invite me and I can go and have fun without having to host one! 

Lindsay and Aaryn hosted a couples ugly sweater party... I failed on both accounts. Chuck had to work so I showed up late... alone... and with an afghan decorated with ornaments draped around me haha. The party was super fun though, I walked in and everyone had different names and then I had a different name and then I may have volunteered to be a guy and I DEF had the body language down. Ask anyone who was there... too bad I don't know many of their real names haha:

Grace and Jason also hosted a party! Pajamas and hot chocolate and watching Home Alone - and the Curtises? Four of my favorite things!

Chuck's work party is a guaranteed good time - how can it not be, with this crew of yahoos? Sean and Melissa hosted (ahhh for the last time at that house!) and as always the potluck dinner was fantastic and the kids had a blast:

I'm not sure exactly what was going on with this Angry Birds game? But Clyde was entertained so it worked for me ;).

Melissa had super cute Christmas crafts for the kids to work on and Carma loved hanging out with the big girls as well as her little twin Jaylee:

Ummm Veronica is the freaking cutest. Love her.

The big event is always the white elephant gift exchange. I love how every year we have to double check the order of seniority (aka the order of opening gifts). Write it down or something people! ANYways, I think this year's funniest gifts were the Roto-Wipe that Chuck opened (mostly the sixty seconds it took all of us to stare at the box to figure out if it was real or not haha...) and Sean opening Chuck's almost empty whipped cream from the break room fridge (let the record show I'm on Team Miss Diane for this one; Chuck only wrote his name on it like five times. I feel like six or seven would have made it more clear hahahah). 

And the official portrait ;). Love that Amari made his way into the picture too!

Randomly found this picture of Jack from his school Christmas party; Ms. Crane emailed it to me. Such a cute shy kindergartner! 

 Zumba on a Saturday is a party, right? ;) Only if I'm with these cute girls! (Aleesha, Karlina, Jenn, Bridget)

The ridiculously cute Walker kids hosted a Christmas break party at the dance studio and it was pretty epic: pizza, bounce house, snowball fight, games, dance lessons... basically the coolest shindig ever. Perfect way to end a month of parties!