I had a lot of fun doing my little Christmas home tour last year and I really wanted to do it the same way again this year–have a day where I cleaned the whole house to perfection, did the tablescape and had people over for dinner. But this year has just been a little too exciting for that to happen. Fortunately, however, I was able to get pictures of just about everything that got decorated, though on different days. And I straight-up didn’t even actually clean the front room when I was taking pictures of it. I just moved the pile of junk around so that it was never in the shot. (Just keepin’ it real. 🙂 )

So, though it wasn’t as perfect as the dream, I am really pleased with how everything turned out! And one thing that is a solid improvement on last year is that I took pictures while I had daylight! It made a huge difference! Take a look.

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This year didn’t get an official tablescape; but the counter did get decorated and we used some of the gold stuff I loved from last year that didn’t match either of the other rooms’ color schemes.

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Then we move into the family room. I went for the winter-wonderland theme again this year with blues and whites.

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So there you have it! It felt so special to have the house so pretty all season! I loved when people came over because I felt like, with the decorations and the Christmas scented candles we had, it was like walking into a Christmas fairytale just coming into the house. But maybe that was just me. 🙂

Have I mentioned to you how much I love having a theme-verb for each year? It has been such a blessing in my life both years I have done it and here’s why: I feel like both years have basically been like me saying, “Hey Heavenly Father, here’s what I want in my life. I wrote it down.” and He replies with “Great! Here’s what you want in your life. I’ll give it to you.”

And while that is really amazing, and has been such a glorious learning/growing experience for me, I feel a little bit like choosing “engage” as my word was akin to praying for patience. (You all know that is unadvisable, right?) Here are some ways engaging has changed me.

The biggest single change to my life this year was the birth of Helen. She is a fabulous miracle and blessing (and frankly, a very good baby), and I am so glad she is here. But her advent into the family has thrown my world upside down. Every new child is an adjustment, but for some reason having number 4 has pushed me past anything I have ever experienced before, as far as my day to day struggle to maintain life and sanity. I feel like this is the venue the Lord has used to teach me about truly engaging. We all know that there are good things without number for us to fill our time with; but as I have struggled so much to do very basic things (dishes, laundry, cleaning up, making meals, keeping food stocked in the house, etc.) I am realizing what things are really critical in the eyes of God. So, very little housework is done regularly, I basically never exercise, we do a fraction of the outings we were doing a year ago, and I’m not even spending all the time I’d like simply enjoying being with my kids. But I AM on track to finish the Book of Mormon before the end of the year. I HAVE somehow managed to increase my temple attendance. We ALWAYS have family scripture study and prayer. We DO fulfill our callings and try to minister to our assigned people. We DO have family home evening each week. And above all, my children DO know that I have a testimony of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, my personal Savior, and the Head of His restored church.

And so, really, what else matters? Right?

But that’s not all I’ve learned about engaging. Because while there are times in life when the fundamentals are all you need, the Lord didn’t intend for us to never enjoy the other good things in the world and exclusively focus on the essential. He also sent us here to glean every good thing we can from this life! So another lesson He taught me this year was the power of my own agency.
There are a few things in this life that none of us can control–for example we can’t really control when people die, or if people get sick or hurt, or what goes on in other people’s lives/society at large. There’s nothing we can do about those things. bummer. But the things that affect our lives the most are all within our own power. So if my life isn’t what I want it to be right now, I have a choice. Maybe I can’t change the fact that I am completely overwhelmed by life with 4 children. But I CAN change the feeling of being trapped at home in my catastrophe of a life by going and doing that one thing I want to do with my children. Is it ideal to look for Christmas decor carting around 4 children? No way. But, it was either that or sitting at home pouting that I don’t get to do what I want to do because I chose to have 4 kids. When Portia was the baby I did a lot of that pouting, and it was very detrimental to every part of my life, not the least of which was my mental health.

I don’t feel like I am quite able to describe this principle as powerfully as I have felt it at times throughout the year. But it truly is an amazing concept: that I get to choose what life I have! And I have also been taught that though there are some very strict rules for followers of Christ, there are approximately infinite choices as far as what you want your life to really look like. I used to sometimes be frustrated with the idea of seeking the Lord’s will for my life–as if He had a plan for me that I didn’t really get a say in, except for to throw the whole thing out the window and be miserable forever by following Satan. But I have realized this past year that instead of life being like a car ride where I am in the passenger seat and God is just driving me wherever He feels like I should go; it is much more like me driving the car with Heavenly Father in the passenger seat. I tell Him where I’d like to go and He tells me “Okay, here’s the best way to get there.” Either that or He tells me “No, going there will not be what you think it will be. Try going this other place. It has what you are looking for.”

The power is mine! The choice is mine! And as He has demonstrated by how much He supports me in my simple little yearly theme-verbs, Heavenly Father wants me to have these other good things! He wants me to have what I want, the things that I choose! That’s why He sent us here! So that we could choose our lives and how we want to follow His Son!  

It’s all just so exciting!

I’m very far from fully taking advantage of my own agency–I still have times where I pout about not getting to do everything I want to do, instead of just going and doing it, if with all the cuties. But I’m so grateful that because I made the goal to engage this year, the Lord has shown me that there is a better way and I have the power to choose it! And not only that; but that He will help me!

It has been a whirlwind of a year! And I’m very much looking forward to a new start in 2019! I’m 98% decided on my theme-verb for next year, and I’m getting excited!

We sort of stumbled upon a spectacularly Christmas-fun-filled week. We only had one festive thing planned, but then we ended up doing a ton of fun, festive things!

On Monday night for Family Party we had a rousing “indoor snowball fight.” We got a box of indoor snowballs as part of Josh’s triumph at the ugly sweater competition last Saturday, and we genuinely had a lot of fun with them! Sorry for the lack of photographic evidence. Also on Monday I took the kids to the library and they had their super fun scene setters up, so of course we had to take pictures!

On Tuesday afternoon Josh called from work to see if I wanted to bring the kids downtown to go on the scavenger hunt at the Grand America Hotel. We did, and it was lots of fun! The best part was definitely the bathroom there. I felt like royalty just walking in there! If you haven’t ever used the bathroom on the main floor of the Grand America, you should use the Christmas window displays as an excuse and then go!
Anyway, after that we decided that instead of Josh going back to work and being responsible for an hour and then coming home, we should go get an early dinner at the mall food court and then go see the lights on Temple Square! The lights were beautiful and it was fun to be spontaneous!

Friday was Carter’s preschool Christmas program. He has been singing Christmas songs and practicing his part for weeks, and He did such a great job! We are so proud of him!

There was the big family progressive party in Utah county that night, but it was already late enough that we decided to go home and have a mini party and get the kids to bed only 1.5 hours late instead of 4 hours late. We made delicious peppermint oreo milkshakes! I took a picture, but felt somewhat silly posting it.

Yesterday, we got it into our heads that we needed to make gingerbread houses. We had been planning on doing it this season–out of real gingerbread, because Fay and Carter don’t remember when we did it that way before–but hadn’t settled on when. But when it got in our heads yesterday it stuck good, so Josh made the gingerbread last night (while I read a zillion pages of the Book of Mormon trying to finish by the end of the year) and we decorated houses and gingerbread men today!

And then tonight after dinner we decided it was a good time to go on our annual Christmas-lights drive. We like to go to the fancy houses in South Jordan and see their extravagant light displays! We saw one house tonight that was totally Grinch themed! Green lights everywhere and 3 Grinch figures in different places. It was Fay and Portia’s favorite.

It was a really fun week! I am so grateful for Christmas and the excitement and joy it brings to life! I am also grateful that it is a time for me to draw closer to the Savior so that in the new year I can hopefully be at least a tiny bit more like Him.

Josh has been dreaming of a vacation for a year. We did some trips during the summer, and they were all super fun! But they just didn’t quite hit the spot for Josh. He was thinking bigger, longer, more relaxing. Also, Josh’s parents have been talking about how it would be fun for them to go on a trip with just our family–to spend some quality time with just our kids, because babies now abound in the Monson family and the newest ones always require the most attention.

Anyway, so Josh one day, around Thanksgiving, just decided we needed to go to Disneyland as soon as possible, and also that it would be the perfect opportunity for his parents to have their trip with us. So he called them up. It did take a while to convince them, though. I think he was on the phone with Mom for about 18 seconds by the time he got a solid affirmative response. 😉 So then plans went into the works and everything was scheduled within the week. But we decided to not tell the kids about it. (This was our plan before we learned about Jordan and Crystal’s family doing the same thing.)

We made the big reveal right when it was time to get in the car. Their reactions were initially somewhat lackluster–I think just because it was all so much to take in; but by the time things actually did sink in, they were much more excited. And despite an semi-anticlimactic reveal, we had a really fun trip!

Our time at Disneyland was spent as you might imagine. We rode the rides, waited in the lines, met the princesses and other characters, ate yummy things, and walked a lot! Carter initially had the concern that it was going to be snowing at Disneyland and that it would, therefore, not be much fun. We told him that it doesn’t snow at Disneyland, but that it would probably feel like springtime weather there, and that helped him feel much better about everything. And indeed, there was no snow; though we did have a lot of rain on day 3 in the parks. It was nice, though, because, at least in the morning, we kind of just walked on to whatever rides we felt like. To give you some perspective the wait time for Indiana Jones was 15 minutes.

Here is some photographic evidence of our fun trip!

Another notable aspect of the trip was that we left some of our luggage on our very first shuttle from the parking lot to the airport in SLC. Despite our great efforts to retrieve it, we had to leave it behind. That suitcase held all the girls’ clothes. So, darn it! We had to buy them all new clothes! 😀 I have dreamed of leaving on vacation and just not packing at all. This was pretty close to living that dream. Though there were also some inconveniences like a missing favorite blankets and no swimming suits to be had because it was December. Still it made things more memorable!

We had a wonderful trip! And we’re so grateful to Mom, Dad, and Jayden for making it so much easier for us to be there!

And we came home to all the Christmas festivities! One highlight each year is our ward Christmas breakfast. They have done ugly sweater contests (I actually think most “ugly” sweaters are just fun and cute) for the past few years; and Josh goes all out for them (surprise)! He even won it this year!

The week before Disneyland was one of my absolute favorite Christmas traditions: the Festival of Trees! We had so much fun looking at amazing trees, wreaths, gingerbread houses, etc. as well as watching the fun song and dance numbers! Here are the kids posing on one of the stages. It’s blurry; but they are cute!