SMITH: December

Looks like I didn't take a lot of photos in December. It's a balance I struggle with, photographing life, and living life. Sometimes I err on the side of living life and not worrying about the pictures. I don't even have pictures of Christmas, though we do have some of that on video.

December was kind of a crazy month for us. It was great, just very busy. For instance, I was in charge of Dallin's class Christmas party, Mark's sister got home from her mission to Estonia, and my sister Amanda and her daughter Iris came to visit, all in the same day.

Here is Dallin and his class at the party. The teacher had someone come as Santa and visit the kids. Dallin is near Santa's, um... paunch.

Here are the boys and me when we dropped off some donations for a Christmas sponsorship we did with Save the Family, a shelter for women and children leaving abusive situations. I was hoping to get the boys involved by purchasing gifts for some other boys, but we signed up late and got the last family left which was a mother and teenage daughter. Still, Dallin and Adam helped us make the purchases and even got to sniff out some lotions at Bath and Body Works and pick their favorites to give. We loved doing this and definitely want to make it a tradition to give whatever we are capable of each Christmas. Mark worked a lot too with us in researching and gathering gifts, but was at work the day we made the delivery. I loved dropping off the gifts and seeing all of the black bags full of wrapped presents, seeing the happy volunteers, and saying hi to the other families that were there dropping off donations.

Christmas Eve we went to the yearly Skousen Family party (my mom's side of the family). We have dinner, a Christmas program, talent show by the kids, a couple of games, and a visit from Santa. My mom came home with us and stayed at our house, helping us wrap presents and watching the fun Christmas morning. The boys had a great Christmas, in fact we all had a great day. We went to Mark's family's house for a couple of hours, then went to church in the afternoon. For dinner, my family came over and we ate then hung out and played some games until late that night.

Mark took Monday through Wednesday off work that week which was great. He has been working really long hours and we have really enjoyed all being together. Monday we went out for a movie and lunch. Tuesday we got some work done around the house and went to an ultrasound appointment for baby #4. It's another boy! We are happy and love our boy-filled house. I am glad too that I don't have to hear people tell me they hope we are having a girl. We will take whatever the Lord decides to bless us with.

Wednesday we drove up north to play in the snow. The boys all had a blast, though Owen lasted the longest in the cold.

Dallin and Adam had fun sledding.

Mark and Owen even went once or twice.

There was a steep hill some kids were sledding down that Dallin wanted to try. After climbing up to the top he tried to sit down on the sled but the sled went and he slid without it. It ended up working out fine, and the other kids that were there all started sliding down without their sleds, which worked out a little better because it wasn't quite as fast that way down the steep hill.

We had a hard time keeping gloves and a hat on Owen. After throwing a few snowballs with bare hands, he started to understand what the gloves were for and allowed us to put them back on. From then on he was toasty warm and didn't want to leave.

Dallin, posing like a professional snowboarder.

Look! I was there too....

When we got to the snow we handed the kids their snow clothes to put on in the car. Adam had a pair of waterproof pants, not snow pants, to wear over his jeans. After playing for 45 minutes or so he started getting very cold. That's when I realized he wasn't wearing his jeans, he was only wearing the plasticky pants that kept water out, but definitely not the cold. He was frozen and done with the snow so he went back to the van to warm up. Shortly after that, Dallin was sledding when he and his sled turned around and went backwards. The sled knocked into a bank that someone had built up to keep people from running into a pole. It worked. The sled hit the bank and Dallin flew off and fell flat on his back. He was then done with playing in the snow and went to the van to warm up.

Owen, however, was still playing and not ready to go home. He wanted to make a snowman so I started rolling up some snow. After I got one big ball made, he was content with that as our snowman and stuck the hat and carrot on that we brought from home. I went back to the car with the other boys while Mark worked on finishing the snowman, making a snow cat, a snow Batman, and a snow Robin, all at Owen's request. We eventually had to pull him away to leave. While we were loading the car I turned it on to get the heater going. Owen, who was still outside the car turned to us and said, "Bye mom!" and left to go play some more. He wasn't happy when we made him get into the car and out of his snow clothes.