Alec's birthday

Alec is the opposite of a greedy, picky birthday boy. He always seems so pleased and happy with even the smallest gestures. I really love seeing him so content with life. We made him french toast with frozen peaches and cream, eggnog and hot wassail.  There are definitely some perks to have a birthday after Christmas and delicious options for drinks for your birthday breakfast is one of them!

Big thanks to Grandma Dixie for helping me think up decorations last minute the night before. 

We had a big party with all of our Archibald AND Betteridge cousins at a fun foam-pit, rock wall, rope swing, trampoline, slack line, ninja warrior, trapeze ...kind of gym place. Alec was in heaven! A perfect spot for our big 9 year old who is a great mix of natural talent, caution, and physical interest. Also, it was a good place to let a bunch (like 22) kids jump, run, and swing around in the middle of winter. 

We all enjoyed watching Mary show us her skills on the silks:

Chris went to get pizza, water bottles and hand sanitizer. Our car battery had been acting up a bunch over the break. We even had a scary moment in the middle of our long drive out to Utah when the car wouldn't start after a bathroom break in the middle of no where New Mexico. As luck would have it, the battery gave out again while Chris was buying the pizza and he was stranded for a bit a few miles away during the party. My trusty brother, Jordan went with jumper cables to save the day. 

Early that morning (but not early enough!) I set out to make Alec's cake and realized we didn't have enough eggs! So I mixed the other ingredients together and sent Chris to the store. I didn't have time to bake the cake before needing to meet people at the gym at 10:00am, so helpful Dixie offered to stay home late and finish the cake. He only requested a vanilla frosted chocolate cake. I did our good ol' Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Chocolate Cake recipe and was planning on doing crushed Oreos in the whipped cream frosting, but something went VERY WRONG and the cake didn't rise at all. Like, at all. But it still tasted decent, and just had the texture kind of like brownies. It all got eaten, so I guess no complaints? Alec didn't seem to notice or care ... like I said before. He's such a sweet birthday boy.  

We spent most of our time jumping around that by the time we opened presents we only had like 2 minutes left before needing to be gone so we did them really fast. 

Alec is my good-hearted, sensitive, intelligent, strong-minded, independent, social-loving-but-shy, boy with such an infectious deep laugh. He's always the first to share his special treat with his younger siblings or anyone else. I love watching his sense of humor emerge and his quick mind is a joy to watch develop. He loves to tease his siblings, figure out how things work and build and invent things both physically and conceptually. He's progressing well on the piano and is a wonderful artist! He loves to read books, shoot basketballs, play with his brothers, play puzzler-type computer games and get good grades. Even though he won't admit it and doesn't show it, he still loves kisses from his mama. When I tuck him in bed at night its a wrestling match to give him a kiss on the cheek. Its literally a game he insists we play each time.  He's a natural early riser and the watch he got for Christmas is a definite help on monitoring his early morning waking... now we just need to work on not waking his siblings up! He's making some really good progress on dealing with the strong emotions he feels and I must say he is so brave to be born first. I can totally see him hanging up in Heaven with his siblings and volunteering to go first so the bulk of the mistakes we make as parents are placed on his willing and strong shoulders. He's definitely making Chris and I better people and I'm so grateful for him and we love him so much!

Christmas

Christmas Eve we ate yummy homemade challah bread and clam chowder. The kids opened a present from Grandma that was matching Christmas PJ's! The kids changed and then we tried to take a few pictures before doing a cousin gift exchange. 

 

It was a little confusing for Freddy to be given a present to hold and then be expected to GIVE IT AWAY to someone. As the youngest in the exchange he was given a present first but he didn't want a new present, he wanted to open the one he was already holding. All confusion and tears were cast aside as soon as he did open the right gift, he LOVES the little wooden car transporter Mady gave him!

The kids were super antsy and the parents were anxious to put kids to bed but we felt like we should do something else, so we asked Great Grandma (GG) to recite for us the poem, "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" She had come down from Ogden just that morning and we were so happy to have her there. Despite her wonderful poem, Freddy was too tired to actual sit still and be quiet and I didn't get to hear half of it because I was trying to calm down a screaming Freddy in the kitchen (He's starting to throw some doozy tantrums!) 

As the families dispersed to put their kids to bed, I was wanting to talk more about Christ on Christmas and have a nice spiritual moment with the kids, and so we gathered our children all on our bed in Thom's old room to try and talk about the meaning of Light at Christmas time and try and give everyone a turn to share a time when they felt the Light of Christ during the past year, and/or a time when they've reflected or shared His light. I had wanted to use candles, but improvised with a bedside lamp. It all sounded so good in my mind, but it was a COMPLETE BUST. Alec and Charlie were just mad that they were stuck in a room with siblings and parents when there were cousins to play with, Gwen was whining about something else... probably wanting to eat a treat or not wanting to go to bed, and Freddy was going crazy with the lamp and Mom and Dad were getting frustrated about being frustrated when we were aiming for calm and spiritual. *Sigh* Do we get points for trying? After explicit instructions for the kids regarding expectations about staying inside bedrooms until certain times, we put the kids to bed. 

We helped get the room ready for Santa and by the time that was done we had eaten our stomaches full of peanut and plain M&Ms, red licorice, and cinnamon bears and honestly I can't remember what we did next. Probably just went to bed. 

Christmas morning started at 6:30AM! By 7:00 we were lined up on the stairs and ready for fun!

Because both Thom and Brittany and us were traveling and trying to not spend very much, I think we did a great job with moderation on the presents. I think every child felt loved and spoiled, but I didn't feel anyone went over the top. We had worked all week on a special present for GG and we were all excited to see her open it. It was an "Open When.." box. We filled it with envelopes with instructions written on each one like "Open when You're Worried" or "Open When its Easter" etc.  I got the idea from my sister, Sarah and while it was a lot more work than I thought it would be, it was good to see the kids excited about making it and giving it to her. 

Freddy's exuberance did not disappoint!

Then Chris and I braved the newly fallen (and still falling) snow for a drive up to Herriman to visit with my siblings and parents. It was nice to see them and spend a few hours with them. I forgot to take pictures. Darn! But all too soon (I admit, I cried when it was time to leave) we headed back down to Provo for a scrumptious Christmas Dinner: turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberries, stuffing, yams, jello, rolls, and trifle.  

It was so fun to be together and have so many fun gifts and eat such delicious food. I hope next year I can be better about really keeping Christ as the focus. Ideas anyone?

Bowling, snow play, music night, gingerbread, motorcycle

Although we mostly kept the almighty Google Doc, we had to make adjustments on the meals since we were just adding daily to the MOUNDS of leftovers in the fridge and scaled back on a few things (like Candy Cane making) since some of us weren't feeling well still. We went bowling at BYU:

Played outside in the snow ALOT:

Had lots of good cousin time inside playing board games: Battleship and Sorry were some of the favorites this year. Our little 2 year olds: Freddy and Jane and Cyrus were so cute to watch interact. Mostly they did well, but also loved to pester and tease each other with toys. Here are Jane and Freddy saying cheese for the picture but not actually smiling or even looking at the camera. 

On Christmas Adam, we invited all my Betteridge family (4 siblings + spice and kids, and even my parents and youngest sister, Hailey were in town for Tiff's baby) for a music night of singing favorite carols around the piano. I think its absolute heaven when both sides of our family get together. I was a little self-conscious that all of this was happening because of me but both sides were kind enough to oblige me and after I weaseled out of organizing/leading the songs I really enjoyed making music with people I love. We even sounded good on some parts!

We made gingerbread houses. For maximum enjoyment and minimum whining us moms hot-glued graham crackers together to make little houses and let the kids be involved with the decorating ... each child with his own plastic knife and mini cup of frosting.  After making the first 3 houses big, we realized we'd run out of crackers and had to downscale the rest. We decided the oldest in each family would get a big one, but still had lots of complaints. Alec was really kind and let Charlie have the big one to decorate. I LIVE to witness moments like that. 

Uncle Eddy brought his little motorcycles over on Christmas Eve. He's been fixing them up and it was really fun for the kids and dads to ride on them. Chris' first time driving a motorcycle! I think some little bikes like these would be perfect to drive around our yard back home in MS.