When I think of December I think of Jesse's birthday. And Abe's birthday. And my birthday. And Mike and my's (my's???) wedding anniversary. And Christmas Eve. And Christmas Morning. And New Year's Eve.
It's a lot of big celebratory stuff!
But of course those big things all fall within a host of ordinary and necessary happenings--as all of life's large moments do. Some of those happenings tend to be a bit more festive in December--what with our little, daily Christmas activities and all (though often those "activities" are as simple as reading a Christmas book or having hot cocoa), but it's still a month that, despite its large celebrations, is full of normal living; and some small bits of that living are captured below:
For our two cats being outside cats ... they sure show up inside a lot!
Some sort of family wii time. (Somehow we have developed this terminology in our home. "Have you already done time today?" "Anders! You already finished your time!" "Does anyone want to do family time? (as opposed to individual time)" "We aren't going to do time today." "You lost your time today, remember?" It sounds like we are talking about doing prison time or some such, and I can just imagine the confusion someone at school might feel if one of my kids were to ask them in small talk, "So, what do you usually do for time?" or "How much time do you get?" But it simply refers to the 30 minutes I give them to play a game on the wii or computer or on my phone or whatever. Somehow it has just evolved into "time".)
Some model magic ornament making. Hans made this. Pretty cute--especially since all the model magic was white and you had to knead marker strokes into it to get any color.
Mette recreated Goldie's old Perry the Platypus ornament.
This lovely note that fell off of someone's backside. The neat handwriting might lead me to suspect someone older, but the spelling points to Hans. ...
Daisy at her best friend Megan's wedding reception (it was also the first temple wedding Daisy got to attend).
My little Hansie.
"Mom! Come look at the bunny I made!" -- Starling.
We gave Abe an instant print camera for his birthday. He sent us one of his first pictures. Of course he had to take a photo of his instant photo with a non-instant camera (phone). Haha.
A little taped together winter box with a snowman. She's a cute little crafty one.
The intersection just above my kids' elementary school in Mendon. I think Mendon is one of the most charming towns to ever exist. It's removed from everything else so it remains its own tiny community (while still being close enough to Logan to make grocery shopping, etc. not too big of a deal). It has tiny, cute roads and neighborhoods all bundled together in a little close-knit-tiny-city feel (with a library, post office and parks) but is still circled about by vast stretches of farmland to the east and mountains to the west to keep it feeling remote and rural. I just really adore it and am glad the one school in the town happens to be the elementary that county kids (like us here in Young Ward) attend. Between that, the post office, and my only close-drive for hills if I want a run to contain them, I get to be in Mendon somewhat regularly, and I keep hoping one of my kids will settle in that happy little place someday.
Daisy brought home a little "cat-cat" hat for Starling. (Cat-Cat being the name of her stuffed animal with the same appearance as this hat.) She was much happier with it than this picture would lead you to believe.
Boys doing sit-ups.
Jesse got his learner's permit! Time to get another child driving! (I have a feeling getting his 40 hours in will happen more easily than it has with our other kids as going anywhere takes a decent chunk of time--even just driving to our ward building and back.)
Part of an Activity Days event for the girls. I'm glad Summer and Mette are so close in age and will likely spend most of their years in youth church activities in the same group!
Daisy's BYU choir had a performance that, luckily, we were able to watch from my phone (which I cast to our TV). We snagged a few screenshots whenever we got to see her, and the kids cheered her on as one would ... if her performance were a football game.
Our biggest Christmassy activity this year was the Peter Breinholt Christmas concert. I think maybe the Tabernacle Choir performance was that night as well? Or a host of other events? Downtown Salt Lake was absolutely packed! We spent a great deal of time in traffic before ever finding a place to park--and the dinner we'd intended to get before the concert had to be moved to after the concert; but we all enjoyed the concert so much! I'm not much of a concert goer but went to a fair share of large ones back in my day (U2, Tom Petty, REM, etc.) but I've never enjoyed any concert more than this one. It was just so fun to be there with our whole family (except for Goldie--which really was a loss as she would have loved it as well as any of us could have), and, as I've mentioned before, his Noel album is one all of our kids have grown up associating with Christmas, so it just all felt very happy. (At one point Peter was talking about some songs that aren't actually Christmas songs but that remind him of Christmas because of when he listened to them or was gifted an album as a kid. We thought it was funny that what he didn't know is that if my kids hear any of his songs--even songs not remotely related to Christmas--they think Christmassy thoughts. His voice and style are just too tied with Christmas for them.) I also felt like crying a bit when he played "Jerusalem" as I feel so nostalgic hearing that song. I'm really glad we went and think we will have to do it again when Goldie gets back.
And to end ... this little December memory that popped up on my phone. I know I still have a houseful of young children (seven still living full time at home), but I am still sometimes in shock and awe that past me had so many babies to care for at once! Look at baby Summer and Mette. And we were only a year away from baby Hans joining them! (And Starling not too much later!) There were ten kids at home and four of them were four and under! How did I do it? HOW? It was so hard, but also so amazing! So many babies to love! I'm so glad such a lovely and impossible stage of so many kids (and so many of them babies at once) got to be a part of my mortal experience! Sometimes I would cry every day because it was so overwhelming and there were so many needs and I felt often so failing and so tired (especially when Mike's work hours would keep him away from us for great lengths of time). And yet ... I feel so glad! So lucky and grateful that that was my life and my story. And ohhhh how I do miss those babies! (Which is perhaps why we all treat four-year-old Starling as a baby still.)
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