December

Christmas is always my favorite time of year. I love holiday music and winter coats. I love the hustle and bustle of Christmas shopping. I love to see my family and all of the traditions that come with it. It is always such a busy time, but somehow I have always managed to just enjoy the moments... But this year, it seemed to just slip by. I don't know if I was just too busy or preoccupied with other things going on in my life, but I feel like Christmas just slipped by! Here is what my December looked like:

The Christmas tree went up and was decorated with help from the kids.

The kids wrapped 90% of the presents this year! They were all so excited to go shopping for their sibling for Christmas and couldn't wait to come home and wrap what they bought and then ask if there was anything else they could wrap. Lauren had her last elementary school Winter Program. She loves to be on stage and preform!

Ashlyn is really starting to understand that we are having a baby. She came up to my tummy one day and put her arms around it the best she could and whispered, "I love you baby Paige."

With the understanding and excitement of having a baby also comes the occasional rebellion. "I don't want to be a big sister! I want to be the baby." She found a pacifier about a month ago (she has NEVER taken a pacifier even when we tried when she was a baby) and loves to put it in her mouth and drag her blankie around.The big kids are always asking if they can feel the baby and wanting me to read to them about my pregnancy. "How big is she now?", "How much does she weigh?", "Is she moving right now?".As you can tell, Jason is still playing with the camera a lot! He is getting SO good! It's nice though because he is capturing all of these "real" moments in our lives that we wouldn't otherwise have. (Like me in my jammies! I just realized Ashlyn is doing my hair in the picture above. That has been her new thing. She tells me she wants to make my hair "stylish".) Everyone is so used to seeing the camera, so it is easy to ignore. Most of the time he is just checking lighting and the pictures get deleted, so we don't really think anything of it.

The other night, he took pictures of us doing dishes and cleaning up after dinner. I'm not sure if he was just trying to get out of cleaning up or it really was a new lighting he hadn't tried to shoot in before. :-) It was actually kind of fun looking back at pictures of our everyday life and not just events that we pull the camera out for. (To be fair, he usually does most of the cleaning up after dinner. I'm usually the last one finished eating because I am busy helping the kids, so he gets up and gets most of it done before I even finish my dinner.)

Lauren had her Christmas Dance performance.She is so much fun to watch because she just loves it! Maryn and Lauren

Ashlyn helped me make my Sugar Cookies this year.

She managed to get flour everywhere!

I love this happy face!

I continued to grow! I took my 6th month picture a little late, but here I am closer to 6 1/2 months along.
We went to a couple of Christmas parties. Jen's annual Christmas party and white elephant gift exchange is something I always look forward to! I always laugh so hard that my cheeks hurt!

Jeff, Haley and Jason

The highlight of the white elephant gift exchange this year was definitely the live chicken that Aaron got!Justin Bieber was also a hot item and ended up going home with Jason SmithPeople get more creative every year and it is always so much fun!

We went to another Christmas party at the Greenlaw's and had fun socializing with with our friends and eating yummy food.

So, there is December and we haven't even gotten to Christmas! Don't forget Danale had her baby and we went to Newport and Disneyland! Busy, busy, busy and so much fun! Next year I will have to remember to take the time to enjoy the little things and start playing my Christmas music a little earlier.