I documented Hallie at 12 months in this post HERE, but I'm still (forever!) playing catch up, so I'm just now finally showing her little birthday party. :)
The balloon arch was so fun! It took quite awhile to make, and it was SUPER distracting for the boys all day long (face palm), but it was fun to have for the pictures...which is all that matters anyway, right?! haha
With covid and everything, we tried to figure out how to celebrate with Curt's family and my family, without overlapping. (Since we'd been getting together in person with each family separately, but we needed to be careful about not gathering too many people together, and figured it would be best to not mix families just yet.) Originally we were going to do two parties, one day apart, but then we found out that Chad & Lisa were going to be out of town for the whole weekend. And then since Collin & Rachel had just had baby Cash, they weren't going to be coming either way. So then we were just left with Curt's parents, my mom, and Cory & Allie. And with that few of people, it didn't make sense to do two separate parties...so we decided to do an in-person dinner for whoever felt comfortable coming, and then everyone else could zoom in for the cake smash. Curt's parents were trying to be careful, so they just joined in on zoom, and Chad & Lisa and Collin & Rachel were also able to zoom in as well, so it worked out perfectly.
Her lack of hair & beautiful physique inspired the theme, haha, and we had fun with it. Almost everyone joined in on the bow contest, and it was so fun!
Chad & Lisa and the girls all had amazing bows on zoom, and I'm so sad I forget to get a screenshot! Karli ended up winning for the biggest bow (she had made a bow out of ferns, haha!), and Cory won for most creative.
Everyone who came in person got to decorate circle (bald head) & bow cookies:
(I had the idea to take cookies to everyone who was going to be on zoom, so they could decorate their own cookies too...
but the thought came too late and we ran out of time to deliver them.)
And everyone (zoom & in person) got to guess how many bows Hallie had:
*I think the number was 56, and Tucker guessed it EXACTLY right! We thought he had maybe cheated, but he promises he didn't...just a crazy lucky guess, haha!
We had Hallie's favorite meal of teriyaki chicken & rice, and then we had these cute cupcakes for dessert:
A friend in our ward made the cake--and it was so cute! (And SO nice that I didn't have to worry about making it!) It ended up being almost as tall as Hallie, haha! For the first little while, she didn't want to touch it with her hands, so she just leaned in and gingerly ate it with her mouth. But then she started getting a little more daring and took a few chunks out of the side...and then she took the bow off the top and was LOVING that, hahaha.
The boys were RIGHT there by her side--the entire time. It was fun to see them so excited about it. :)
It ended up being a fun little party, and zooming people in seemed to work pretty well. It was so fun to celebrate her, and we appreciated everyone participating!! Here are a few other cute pictures:
She loved playing with the balloons:
We had this cute display of pictures of her throughout the year:
And I was so excited to give her her first doll!
And then lastly, I did this little photoshoot of her a few days before her birthday--she's so cute!
Happy Birthday, Hallie Girl!! We love you SO much!!
We kicked off December with the drywall being delivered for our basement...and from then on out, the basement pretty much took up any and every spare second of Curt's time:
Drywall was the only thing we hired out, and they were amazing and got it all hung in one day! We were so excited to go down and look at it as a family that night, and because it was so dusty, we all wore bags on our feet so we could take the bags off and throw them away when we were done, and everyone thought it was pretty funny, haha:
For Christmas this year, we made a 12 Days of Christmas package for Landen, with symbols of Christmas. We gave him a book with descriptions of different symbols of Christmas, and a little tree with ornaments for each day, and a little present to open each day that corresponded with each symbol. It came together really well (even if it got a little stressful at the end...), and we hope he liked it!
I worked hard and stayed up late to address & put stamps on all of our Christmas cards one night, and then the next morning as I went to gather them up to take them to the post office, I found that Hudson had taken a pencil and drawn on almost every single one...! (while I had been helping the big boys with online school) I was too tired to do anything about it, so I just put them in the mailbox as they were (and then did a social media post to explain, haha). Oh the joys of having a two-year-old!
The only picture we have of Jack our elf this year. And since Curt was doing the basement every night and I was left in charge...this was about the most creative place he hid, haha:
We woke up one morning to snow, and Tucker, bless his heart, went out and shoveled it first thing--before we were even out of bed! Bless him.
Cute Hallie! She smiles really well when I take selfies of us...so I end up taking a lot of selfies with her, haha:
Hudson playing with the ornament container, hahahaha:
More Hudson shenanigans--with a spool of floss:
A picture of our Christmas tree with our new ornaments we made this year:
I don't remember when this was or what we were doing, (or who took the picture?!), but it pretty accurately describes/shows our family trying to sit on the couch together:
Tucker had an appointment (over zoom) with the Bishop...and this is how he dressed (face palm, crying face emoji) Gotta love the 2020 look! (and Tucker was called as the new Deacon's Quorum Class President!)
And then this was the look for tithing settlement (again, over zoom), hahahaha:
Here's the big boys doing a trick on the trampoline (in the dark!) that they wanted me to record:
My mom had a really rough month, finding out she had a kidney infection and having to get daily antibiotic infusions, and having terrible reactions to the antibiotics that caused all kinds of problems. My siblings and I put together a 12 Days of Christmas for her and took turns taking her gifts and spending time with her, etc. It was neat to be able to come together to do that, and so good to be able to show my mom some extra love and attention.
The last few weeks before Christmas were really, really hard, and one night in particular I was at about my wits end without any dinner ready, when our neighbor Rebecca called and said she was bringing dinner over. Tears were shed, and I was reminded that the Lord truly is aware of us and blesses us through the hands of others. What a tender mercy. This was my post on social media post about it:
I knew going into this holiday season—with Curt trying to finish the basement in the evenings at an accelerated pace—that it would be hard. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to do as much or as many activities as I would like or as much as we have done in years past. And, for the most part, things really haven’t been too bad, and I’ve been able to keep somewhat realistic expectations. But the past week has been really hard. Curt has been working even more crazy hours, and I feel guilty that he’s up so late working so hard and that I’m not helping him, and he feels guilty that he’s downstairs all the time not helping me with the kids upstairs. And for whatever reason, the kids have felt like this is a great time to be even more crazy than normal, haha. 🤪 And then just the normal stress of trying to get all the Christmas preparations done, on top of everything else, has been utterly exhausting. And so tonight when things didn’t go as planned and the kids were hungry and I didn’t have anything ready for dinner...a call from my neighbor saying she was bringing over dinner (out of the blue) was truly heaven-sent. 😭🙏🏻😭 I’ve tried to participate in some of the #lighttheworld activities with the kids this year, but we’ve done far less than I’d hoped. And even though I’d much rather be on the giving end...being on the receiving end tonight, receiving dinner at a time when it was such a blessing, strengthens my testimony that the Lord truly is aware of us and takes care of us through the hands of others. ❤️ Thank you to everyone who is taking the time to serve others this season, and thank you @rebecca.35 for serving us tonight. 😭
During the whole time Curt was working on the basement, I put the kids to bed by myself every night. It was fine at the start, but by the middle of December, it got SO hard, and I was emotionally and physically beat. I decided to do an insta story showing the whole routine I went through, and after recording it all and realizing it took about an hour-and-a-half every night...I realized, no wonder I was dying!! This is probably the hardest/longest bedtime routine we've ever had, and I'm glad I was able to document it. Thankfully, now that the two oldest boys are down in the basement, and Hallie is done nursing, bedtime has gotten easier. (though it's still hard, haha) But hopefully it won't be this hard and long ever again...!
Tucker got to help Curt put up shiplap one Friday night, and he really enjoyed it! (And Curt said he was actually pretty helpful!)
He did get a little injury though, when he was trying to hold one of the boards above his head and it slipped out of his hands and gashed his eye...but thankfully he was fine and no stitches were needed.
Curt's white head after painting with the sprayer:
The first time I found Hallie sitting up in her crib!
Celebrating Christmas with my family before Cory & Allie headed out of town. It was a low-key night with just pizza and gifts (and ugly sweaters haha), but it was fun!
Curt even emerged from the basement and put on his Christmas jacket for the occasion. ;)
We did a yummy hot chocolate bar after opening gifts, which the boys thoroughly enjoyed:
Collin & Rachel gave the boys this mini pool table, and they were obsessed with it for a long time. They loved it!!
I was on the hunt for a couch for the basement from the minute we started finishing it, and I came across this DownEast feather sectional on facebook marketplace for a screamin deal...but it was a few weeks before the basement would be done. So Curt, bless his heart, borrowed a trailer early one Saturday morning and picked it up and rented another storage unit to store it until the basement was ready. (And then...spoiler...when we finally put it in the basement on Christmas Eve, it was too big for the space! face palm. So we ended up re-selling it and finding a different sectional instead...which was nicer and brand new, but much more expensive...)
Our master bedroom became overrun with boxes by the time Christmas came around...! Thank goodness for amazon who did all of my shopping for me, haha!
We got this little Santa outfit for Duke...and he was not a fan, haha. Poor little guy!
Mike & Chris took all the older cousins a few days before Christmas and had a day full of fun activities for them--it was the best thing ever! (They wanted to give them some fun time together to do older kid activities without the babies & Hudson.) The boys were so excited to be able to spend a full day with the girls, and it was SO nice for me to be able to have a full day to get more Christmas preparations finished! Win, win!! (though I'm pretty sure Mike & Chris were exhausted by the end of the day, haha)
We did our advent calendar with gifts of togetherness again this year, and we were able to keep with it pretty well, even with Curt working his tail off in the basement. Things were just more simple, and we had to do most of them without Curt. I didn't document very many of them, but here were the gingerbread houses the boys made one day:
Sleeping by the Christmas tree. It always sounds more fun than it ends up being, haha. Calvin ended up going upstairs to his bed during the night because he couldn't sleep well. But at least we made the effort!
Sad day. Curt was trying to blow out the dust from the charging port in his phone, and his idea to use the air compressor ended up backfiring...and it blew out his screen. (face palm) But the silver lining was that he was eligible for an upgrade on our plan, so he was able to get a new phone pretty quickly. (it just cost us some extra money we weren't planning on spending...)
The week after Christmas, I finally broke down and started potty training Hudson. This will require a separate post on it's own, but in a nutshell: he got pee down SUPER fast--he barely ever had any accidents, and he was a champ! The poop, however, was a whole separate issue that took months to work out...and we're just now finally getting the hang of it (as I'm writing this...) But he had a whole fan club of supporters with all his brothers cheering him on! :)
Yay Hudson!
New Year's Eve selfie with miss Hallie:
And a New Year's Eve kiss at midnight!
We had a pretty low-key New Year's--we invited Cory & Allie and Collin & Rachel, and we ate lots of yummy (non-healthy) food and chatted (and played games? I can't remember...). We put the two littles down to bed, and then we let the older three stay up until midnight, and they loved it.
