Me and My Boys: December 2015

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Christmas 2015

The boys visiting Santa and Mrs. Clause. Bryson didn't get scared this year.

Family Home Evening activity

Notice the summer attire. We had unseasonably warm weather the week before Christmas.

Christmas morning! We started opening presents at about 8am. I didn't do as well this year at taking pictures. We tried to focus on around 6 presents per boy: a book, a game, something to wear, their favorite sugar cereal, and 2 fun things/toys + their stocking (toothpaste, "fun" bandaids, play dough, and candy).

Bryson got this fishing game

and a new car to drive!

Caleb's favorite presents this year were a new basketball and a new ping pong paddle. He got a new fun game called Doodle Quest. The other two games pictured were ones Matt got for the family to play on Sundays together. They've all been lots of fun!

Carter said his favorite present this year was this new church outfit. Kind of a surprising answer. Another favorite was an incredible hulk costume that he specifically asked for from Santa.

Austin got some new pajamas from Grandma!

The Christmas present to ourselves this year was a new stone fireplace. We're still deciding what color to stain the mantel. We also did some house painting! We painted the kitchen, breakfast nook, and family room the first few weeks in December.

My parents gave us this beautiful picture of Christ for Christmas. We love it so much!

We enjoyed our Christmas break and spent a lot of time playing ping pong and games together. We also enjoyed spending time with extended family!

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is always an event to look forward to! We love spending time with family. The evening consisted of chimes, a yummy turkey and ham dinner, talent show, acting out the Nativity story, white elephant, and present exchange. I didn't catch pictures of everything, but it was a fun-filled evening.

Waiting on the stairs for their part to be called.

Caleb kept track that it was his turn to be Joseph this year.

Shepherds and angels

The 3 wisemen

Monday, December 28, 2015

Some December Pictures

One thing I stayed on top of this December was wrapping presents as I bought them. The drawback: this sneaky boy found where I hid some of them and decided to open one! Luckily it was one of his presents. He had fun playing with that Christmas present early.

Bryson moves around a lot at night, usually from bed to bed. All 3 of the older boys share a room so sometimes we'll find Bryson in Carter's bed or Caleb's bed (and sometimes our bed when he gets really scared...). This moment just warmed my heart, and I was glad to capture it on camera.

{I don't have an explanation about where Bryson's shirt is! He must have been hot or spilled water on it or something. (If he spills on his clothes at all, he wants to take them off and put new ones on.)}

Last week as a nursery kiddo. He'll be going to Primary as a Sunbeam next year! (And I'm one nervous mommy about how he'll do with seeing me at the front of the room each week.)

We did a zoo trip with cousins in December when Aunt Lindsey and Teddy came to visit. No pictures of them. Sad.

Cousins Gavin and Lili holding baby Austin

3 months old on December 10th!

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Baptism

Caleb's baptism day was scheduled for Sept. 12th. I really felt like I was going to have an August baby, so I thought Austin would be around 2 weeks old at Caleb's baptism. My younger brother lives 3 hours away, and he planned to be there at the baptism to play a musical number as well as participate in Austin's baby blessing the following day. Because Austin arrived so late on Sept. 10th, we cancelled both events.

Instead, Caleb was baptized on October 24th. There was a hurricane happening in Mexico that day, so we had some very rainy weather with predictions of flooding. I was a little concerned that we might have trouble getting to the church building due to weather! I thought it was symbolic that the earth was cleaned by rain on the same day that Caleb's life was cleaned by baptism.

Caleb and Carter both had sports games scheduled that day as well as pictures, so we thought it was going to be a super busy day. Fortunately the rain cancelled everything except Carter's pictures, but it still ended up being chaotic as Carter's pictures were an hour before the baptism. Matt and I split up to divide and conquer, but some things got forgotten--Carter's church clothes that I had set out and a towel to dry off. Both important items! So Carter attended the baptism in his soccer uniform and Caleb and Matt used paper towels to dry off after the baptism. :)

Here are some of Caleb's baptism pictures that I took:

This is the one we used to display next to the programs.

It's taken me so long to post about Caleb's baptism because I want to recreate this picture. It's a little fuzzy and Caleb's eyes are closed. We've tried twice to recreate it and something came up both times that prevented it from actually happening.

Caleb was baptized with two other children from our ward that day. Both of Caleb's home teachers spoke since they were the home teachers of another girl getting baptized that day as well. Brother Pennington gave the talk on baptism and Brother Sivula gave the talk on the Holy Ghost. Jared and Ariane played a piano duet, "The Spirit of God," as a musical number. Matt performed both the baptism and confirmation. It was a special day especially because Caleb had been looking forward to it for such a long time! Caleb has the sweetest spirit, and we feel so blessed to be his parents. We are so proud of him and this decision that will influence both this life and the next.