Christmas

My parents wanted to be here when the kids came down and saw what Santa brought them.  We decided that we would come down at 7 and that's when my parents arrived.  But naturally, since most of us were sick, Thad was up coughing at 4 AM and didn't get back to sleep.  By 5:30 AM all the kids were in bed with us watching Charlie Brown's Christmas.  We called Ben's parents in Hong Kong since it was an ideal time to call them.  And then we heard our garage door open and the kids went flying out of our bedroom because they knew they were finally allowed to go downstairs.

When your kids are eager for the presents they've been waiting months for, you're only going to get blurry shots because they wouldn't stop moving.

Skyler got the marble run he asked Santa for.  "I really got a marble run that has booby traps?!"

We also found out that it took Santa 2 hours to put together.  What a nice and patient old man.

Lily got the jewelry box she wanted.  It was full of stick on jewels to decorate it with.  I have to admit that I was worried, because she wanted it to be filled to the brim with jewelry but she didn't even care that it was empty once she saw that she got the jewelry box she wanted.  Good job Santa.

Thaddeo got Magformers and they have been one of the most coveted gifts this year.  Everyone plays with them, especially a 32 year-old man I happen to know.

Ella got the ballerina doll she wanted.  They have been inseperable the past few days and I don't know how many times she's changed her outfit (thanks, Mom and Dad, for the outfits).  I asked Ben if as a teenager he would have ever envisioned his older self changing doll clothing like it's nothing.

Also, that motherly look on her face makes me melt.  Ella and Lily are both such mini mommies.

The kids were so excited to get "life saviors!"

Oh, I mean light sabers.

My parents also got Lily a similar jewelry box that she had to put jewels on.  Both boxes were completed on Christmas day.  Am I surprised?  Negative.

Papa ran the babies around the house and let them "fly."

Skyler's biggest hope this year was for a Hot Wheels track.  He ended up with two.  I should have only bought him one.  Why do they not clearly label the package as saying that they are massively huge and will take up all the space in your entire downstairs???

Ben and I decided to do a simpler Christmas this year.  Each of the kids got quite a bit less than in Christmases past, but fortunately none of them noticed or cared.  I did all my shopping online on Black Friday and didn't buy anything else afterward.  Lily and Skyler were also given library cards as one of their gifts because they've been begging for them for months.  As silly as it sounds, it's actually a huge deal and I was happy that it was free.  :)

We spent the day playing with toys, taking naps, and coloring in our adult coloring books.  It's funny because I bought some for $2 each in Hong Kong for the kids for Christmas, and unknowingly, my mom bought one for me too!  There have been a few times when we have all sat down and colored in our coloring books together.  Lily has suggested that we form a club.

Dinner was delish and this was the first time my family has ever made a turkey on Christmas.  Traditionally we have always done ham, but in the most recent years, we've done steak to appease my former pregnant appetites.

As a kid I remember being so excited about Christmas during the Christmas season.  As soon as Christmas music played on the radio, it was on 24/7 and it never got old.  As time has gone by, I have felt that excitement disappear a little each year.  This year, I decided to try an experiment.  I created a Mormon Tabernacle Choir Pandora station and almost solely listened to religious Christmas music this year (this also includes Pentatonix and The Piano Guys, because, come on).  My Christmas spirit did a 180 and I appreciated Christmas so much more this year than any other year.

We hope that all of you had a wonderful Christmas, too.  We are so thankful for our Savior who was born for us -- who lived for us and died for us.  I am so thankful that we have the Christmas season each year to refocus on that wonderful moment in history.

Randomness

I was going through phone pictures and realizing how many I haven't put on the blog.  So here are some really poor quality pictures for your enjoyment?

Ben and I decided months ago that we would give each other Star Wars tickets as our Christmas presents.  Ben's never seen an IMAX movie before and I've only seen one.  We figured if there's any movie you should see at IMAX, it's Star Wars.  It was soo soooo good!  Ben's taking the kids to see it after Christmas which is saying something since we never take our kids to new releases in the theater.

These two cuties sometime this past winter.  I love them.

Ella loves going to Lily's ballet classes with me each week.  Normally she ends up playing on my phone's calculator since I'm not cool enough to have games on my phone.  This one day she just wanted to take selfie after selfie.  She insisted that I wear her Princess Sofia amulet.

A picture of her gorgeous hair before it was cut.

This was my favorite half hour from the 10 hour drive home from Pennsylvania.  Considering we had no way to watch movies this trip, there was a lot of book reading, coloring, and accidental toy dropping.  Thad talked and talked nonstop and we kept thinking that eventually he would pass out, but it just didn't happen.  Until, of course, we were an hour from home.  Then it was quiet enough that everyone could nap.

Skyler got to be an angel in Primary on Sunday.  

There were a few times this summer when I took all the kids to dollar movies.  Each one was progressively worse for Thad.  Poor kiddo.  This was the last movie we saw before I gave up on taking them anymore because I ended up walking out in the hallway with Thad for an hour.  Thank goodness my mom was there to sit with the rest of the kids.

One day I was in the kitchen looking out the window when I saw this hawk that was the size of a large owl.  I love living in this house.  We have seen so much wildlife that I haven't seen anywhere else I've lived.  So far we've seen tons of deer, rabbits, foxes, a couple of herons, toads, vultures, turtles, and my own 4 wild kiddos.

Ballet

Ben usually only goes on his business trips to NYC once a quarter, but during Thanksgiving break he found out that he was going to have to fly in to attend a Goldman Sachs Christmas party and to give literally a 3 minute presentation.  So while Ben was partying it up at the Rockettes' Christmas show, I was sitting at home debating with myself.  Do I take all 4 of the kids to Lily's dance performance or do we just skip it all together?  It was a very casual performance in one of the dance studios, so it wouldn't have been a big deal to miss it.  Plus, Lily had missed a few practices with our Hong Kong trip and other reasons, so she wasn't up to speed on the entire dance.

Ultimately, I figured, meh, it's an hour.  I can survive an hour of anything.  Even with two toddlers in tow.  Even when one of those toddlers is Thaddeo.

Fast forward to when we arrived at ballet and realized that I had forgotten to put Lily's hair up in a bun.  That may sound trivial, but Holly Springs School of Dance has a pretty strict dress policy and not having your hair up in a bun is unacceptable.  Lily's hair is shoulder length and when I put it up in a bun once and hair started popping out of the bun, she sent word from her teacher that I was supposed to pin it next time.  Without any hair ties to be found, I looked back at Ella with her hair in these adorable pig tails, pulled out her hair ties, and put up Lily's hair in this terrible un-brushed bun.

*sigh*

For once, they kept the door open during practice.  Ella and Thaddeo were thrilled not to have to take turns being held up to see through the one way mirror window.

Have I ever mentioned that I think Lily is just absolutely beautiful?  Because I look at her everyday in awe.  Honestly.

Lily is so determined to go far in ballet.  She desperately wants to do pointe, but I've told her that that will be several years down the road.  I hope she sticks with it because I never grow tired of watching her dance.  She may not always be on beat or twirling in the right direction, but when she dances on her own, she is so beautiful.

One of my favorite things is that Lily has started giving Ella dance lessons at home because each night in Ella's personal prayers she says, "...and please bless that Lily will teach me ballet."  They hold onto the sofa, go through different positions, practice different moves, and then they dance together.  In other words, it's beyond precious and I really should record it one of these days.

Santa

As is tradition, Santa came to our neighborhood club house for a visit.  Fortunately, this year Ella was excited to see him and Thad was only weirded out.  I was so proud of him for not crying!

A ballerina doll.

Something unintelligible.

Marble Run.

Rainbow colored jewelry box with diamonds, and sparkles, and jewels, with a ballerina that spins and plays music, filled all the way to the top with jewelry -- "Because Santa's elves can do anything."

*sigh*

Fortunately, Santa is amazing and told each of the kids that he can't actually make everything and anything happen, but that he does his best.  Thanks, Santa.  *wink*

The biggest success of the night?  Ella and Thad's hands in this picture.

Oh, don't mind me.  That's just me bawling my eyes out in the background over relief of their newly found friendship.

Relief Society Christmas Party

I have two callings.  I am a Primary teacher and I also serve on the RS Meetings committee.  Long story short, the party ended up being at my house and it was awesome!  I mean, my house is 2600 square feet so it is neither tiny nor humongous, and with 25 women attending, it sure did feel packed.  We somehow ended up with the exact number of seats we needed.  It was a Christmas miracle.  ;)

We had a couple of short talks about how to keep Christ in Christmas, a musical number, a "favorites thing gift exchange," and we each shared a tradition that our families have to keep Christ in Christmas.  It was such a great night.  There were lots of laughs and a lot of spirit.

I love these ladies so much!  I never want to leave the Harris Lake Ward!  (Not to mention half the ward lives in my neighborhood...)

Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania

We went up to Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving.  We spent 7 days up there and Ben worked from Trina and Robert's home.  This trip was amazing.  The whole thing was great.  It was so relaxed and it was just what I needed, personally, amidst quite a few crazy months.  And this was our first road trip without a baby.  Um, hello!  It was amazing!  We only had to stop twice each way, and that was to buy some fast food and make a quick potty stop.  We got there so much faster this time because we didn't have to stop to feed a baby or change diapers.  This is life-changing.  :)

Oh Claire and Ella.  They are 5 weeks apart.  As soon as I saw what Claire's current personality was like I was overjoyed because she and Ella are basically personality twins.  They're both smart but sassy.  And adorable.  It took Ella a couple of days to get out of her typical I hate everybody mood, but once she was comfortable she and Claire were inseparable.

The day before Thanksgiving we drove an hour and a half to the priesthood restoration site on the Susquehanna River.  They recently finished the visitor's center there and it is gorgeous!

They had lots of activities for kids, which I thought was awesome.  They had a huge touch screen that you could pretend to write with a quill on.  They also had this wagon wheel you had to spin to help Joseph move in his virtual journey.  The wheel was highly fought over.  But let's be honest, when you have 9 kids age 9 and under and 1 wheel, it's just going to happen.

We were able to walk just a little ways to see both of the Hales' homes.  This rock wall is pretty special because when they were restoring both homes, the state of Pennsylvania told them that they couldn't rebuild the cabin on its original stone foundation.  So they used those stones to build the wall.

They raised 9 kids in that tiny cabin.

When Emma was, I think, 5, they built and moved into this home just a few hundred feet down the road.

The senior missionaries told us that the plates were supposedly between 40 and 60 pounds.  Each kid got to take a turn trying to lift a box that heavy.  The Butler kids were all great at it but the Macbeth kids... not so much.

Ever since our trip to Hong Kong where we were able to spend so much time with different senior missionary couples, I have grown to respect senior missionaries so much more.  These two were great  They even told us that we were their favorite group they'd ever had.  I'm not sure how that worked since there was a lot of crying and constant interruptions from Ella asking if those were giant donuts on top of the hutch. 

Ben is the best dad.  I love him.

(And I love that tiny little guy he's holding, too)

P.S.  Thaddeo has finally stopped promising to stay little forever.  I am crushed.

This is somewhere close to where Joseph and Oliver Cowdery were baptized.  

I thought the mud looked dry, but it was still wet and really slippery.  Robert, Claire and Trina fell (Trina while she was holding little Natalie).  Trina was hurt enough that her leg was still in pain when we left a few days later.  I'm just amazed that Natalie wasn't hurt when I saw the fall.  I am so sure there were angels there that day.

These two played with their dolls almost all day every day.  But most of the time they would lock themselves in the coat closet to play.  It was basically the cutest thing ever.

The kids gearing up for Thanksgiving dinner.  Alan had a great idea and on his own he drew place mats for each member of the family.  Each paper had a picture of a Thanksgiving food like turkey or stuffing.  We each got to color in our own.  I though it was adorable!

Now let it be known that when we first met Natalie when we walked in the door, we were told that she doesn't really like anyone other than Trina.  Apparently Robert is just recently in her good graces.  But if anyone can woo a baby, it's Ben.  He has some serious baby magic.

He also loves taking naps with babies.  Go figure.

Uncle Robert did the traditional craft on Black Friday.  The kids made these fuzzy little guys.

Our last day there, the kids played outside almost all day in the warmer weather.

It was a great trip and I'm so glad we went.  The cousins all had a blast playing together and we parents had a blast putting them all in bed and laughing all evening over stories and youtube videos.  The whole 10 hour ride home the kids kept talking about how much they missed their cousins.  But the good part about that is that it's a true sign that the trip was a success.