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.