December Part 3 - Biggs Family Time & Bennett's Blessing

Like I have previously posted, we felt very blessed to get to see my parents and my sister and her family within the month before Christmas. That made not spending Christmas with them bearable for me. I still had a rough time on Christmas Eve during the day, missing my family and wishing I could be with them. Normally, we would have travelled out to California after Christmas to spend several days with my family, but with my sister's holiday and travel plans, it just so happened that they were all coming out to Utah after Christmas so they could spend time with her in-laws and planned to bless my new nephew Bennett. So my parents and my brothers came out too. So, although we weren't with them on Christmas, we still got to spend 2 days with them in Utah.

We met my parents up in Lehi at my cousin's house where they were staying. We got to have a 2nd Christmas with them. Brek got official Christmas pjs which match his cousins. (Despite loving his penguin Christmas pjs from last year, he still has been quite upset that he didn't get cupcake ones like the girls so they could match. So my mom made sure they matched this year.) Grandma and Papa also gave him a CD player for his room and some CD's to go along with it. He has LOVED it! He will put on his music and jump on his trampoline and play for much longer than he used to.

Joe got some new long-sleeved shirts and a laminator that he's been wanting for his Primary chorister calling.

I received a warm fuzzy blanket, a new sewing ruler, and 2 new purses. 

Plus we received a new Christmas book, some games, and a new movie. We felt very spoiled and very loved.

That evening we met up with my older brother Mark and his wife Eliana (their kids weren't able to come out) and my sister and her family, and we "rode the train" aka Trax, up to Temple Square to see the Christmas lights. It was cold, but we had fun. And I just loved getting to be together.

On the "train":

We went into the Visitor's Center first because Papa didn't think it was dark enough yet. But it was cool to see the models of the inside of the temple and we got a couple cool pictures. We also lost kids a couple times.

Love all these cuties!

Amy and Brek:

Rori and Brek loved picking the ice off the garlands. And then complained about their hands being cold. Yet we couldn't convince them otherwise to stop. Gotta love 4-year-olds!

At the big Christmas Tree of Lights with Uncle David. We thought it was cool that those aren't all lights, but they have large sequins in between the lights to help it sparkle and shine more. So pretty!

Group picture:

Mommy and Brek with the temple in the background:

We went and saw the Christus statue in the other visitor's center and in an attempt to warm up. We caught the train back to our cars and then went to Village Inn for dinner for most and hot chocolate too And then we drove by the "Tree of Life" in Draper before going home.

The next day, we met at my brother-in-law Dustin's brother's house in Springville for Bennett's Baby Blessing. His full name is Bennett David Aaron Belt. Bennett is my mom's maiden name. David is Dustin's middle name, along with his father's first name. (It also happens to be my brother's name, and my mom's father's middle name.) Aaron comes from Dustin's best friend, and also Brek's middle name. Tracy really wanted Bennett to wear the same outfit that Brek wore when he was sealed and blessed. We were worried that it would be too big since Brek was 7 months old at the time and Bennett was only 2.5 months old, but it mostly fit him really well.

A photo shoot of Brek and Bennett. You never know if they will turn out well so I just took a bunch:

These are all the men that stood in the circle to bless Bennett:

Aaron Patty, Kerry Belt, David Belt, David Biggs, Joe Jensen, Mark Biggs, Dustin Belt, spacing on friend's name, Bishopric member from Kerry's ward, Guy Biggs, Dustin's nephew - Jacob? Belt

It was very sweet and wonderful. I'm so glad we were able to be there and with our family for such a special event.

Then Joe and I hijacked the baby and I took more pictures:

We finally shared with my dad:

It was nice to sit and chat with family and friends throughout the day. At one point, one of the little boys fell asleep and his dad (Aaron) put him down on the stairs and he stayed asleep there. It was cute!

All the boys with Aaron in their name:

 All the boys with David in their name:

 Bennett with Grandma and Papa Biggs:

 Bennett and his wonderful Mommy and Daddy:

 Bennett with his daddy and his Grandma and Grandpa Belt:

And just a cute picture of my daddy who I love so much!

It was a really nice day and weekend. I sure love my family! It was much harder saying goodbye to my parents. (Less hard to say goodbye to my sister because we were getting together during the next week and caravaning home together too.) I'm so blessed to have such a wonderful family!

December Part 2 - Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, & Boxing Day

Christmas Eve we spent with Joe's younger brother Dan, and his family, and Joe's mom. Brek, of course, loved the cousin time! (In fact, to the lack of his poor manners and the fact that he is 4 and barely has any even tho I try, the moment we arrived at Joe's mom's house after a long day of driving, he walked in and said, "Where are my cousins!?" No "Hi Grandma!" or "We're here Grandma" or "I missed you Grandma." Just asking for the cousins. Thankfully he had some wonderful time with Grandma Jensen to make up for it.)

Anyway, back to Christmas Eve. Here's Brek and Madison playing with cars. They especially got giggly when they would crash them in to each other, which I also thought was hilarious.

And once Matthew warmed up to us, he enjoyed going and sitting on the track and getting in the way as the cars went around. He thought he was pretty funny.

Once Dan was home from work, we got started on our festivities. Dan & Michelle had planned a "Bethlehem Dinner" with grapes, cheeses, crackers, mini-hotdogs, a veggie tray, and sparkling grape juice. We were originally going to eat it on the floor, but with the grape juice and nice carpet, we decided against that. Brek dressed up as Joseph and Madison dressed up as Mary and we all ate together. It was super cute and so much fun! I thought it was a great idea of creating a kid-friendly (and still adult-enjoyable) dinner for such a special evening.

After dinner we did craft time. I found this idea on Pinterest, and loved it because it was something all of the kids could do on their own if they wanted to. And it was simple enough that it wasn't too much work for me to get ready.

Madison was pretty funny to watch because at her mom's request, she tried to be thoughtful and meticulous about putting the pieces of tissue paper on the contact paper. But then she lost interest so she just took a handful of the tissue paper, dropped it on the contact paper and quickly spread it around until all the sticky parts were covered. She's one of those "craft projects are interesting but spending a lot of time on it isnt' my cup of tea." Such a cutie!

Brek took a bit more time on his project. And Matthew decided he wanted to make one too, so Grandma Jensen helped.

James wasn't feeling too well, but it was fun that he joined in.

The finished projects:

This one is Brek's:

Matthew cuddling with Grandma Jensen

Next up for the evening was cutting our sugar cookies:

Dan had a fun gift-passing game ready for us as well, which I guess their Grandma Jensen had started as some sort of tradition when they were kids. It was fun, and even little Matthew loved passing the gifts around the circle as Dan read "The Night Before Christmas."

The last thing we had planned was reading the Nativity story (and the kids were going to act our the story.) But Brek and Madison decided they had a little play to do first. They passed the little microphone back and forth. I don't remember what they were saying, but we had a hard time keeping our laughter down. Brek thinks he kept talking about how the play was going to start soon. They are cute kids!

Our nativity play ended up with puppets and dressed up figures, and Brek changing between being Joseph and a wise man, and then Mary becoming a wise man too.

Our nativity play didn't result in quite the gentle spirit and calm of the evening that we had hoped for, so we ended up watching the short nativity movie on lds.org as our ACTUAL final activity and the kids were very calm and quiet and enjoyed it.

Our movie watchers

We had such a wonderful time with Dan & Michelle's family! It was the only time during our Christmas vacation that we got to be with them, so we are grateful that we got to spend the evening together.

Back at Grandma Jensen's house, we all opened up one present and then went to bed. Here are the boys all ready to open their Christmas Eve presents:

Brek got pjs! (We were hoping to find Baymas pjs for him, but got Lightning McQueen instead.) Brek was thrilled!

All the presents out and under the tree, ready for Christmas morning:

Stockings and presents from Santa. (Joe's Christmas Eve present was that I finished his stocking.)

An up-close shot of Brek's delivery from Santa:

I was super excited about our Christmas morning plans: We had decided that we definitely wanted to do more on Christmas to acknowledge that we were celebrating Christ's birth so we had talked about the things we do to celebrate our birthdays. Joe's suggestion had been a birthday cake, but I figured that there are already plenty of sweets around Christmas that we probably didn't need any more. Brek's suggestion was breakfast in bed. We both loved the idea, but were unsure if Joe's mom would be on board with the idea, and weren't exactly sure about the logistics of it, but we decided to try and move forward with it.
Once Brek was up, we all got up and went into the kitchen and made breakfast together. We had smoothies, pancakes, bacon, and sausage. Brek enlisted Grandma Jensen in re-reading "The Magic Curtain" again (as we had read it Christmas Eve before bedtime, per Jensen family tradition.)

Then we all went back upstairs to the room where Brek was sleeping, and sat together on the bed and the floor and ate breakfast together. We re-read the scripture account of Christ's birth, and per Brek's request, we also watched the nativity video again. (I think he watched that video about 10 times during our trip. He loved the spirit that he felt when he watched it, and it was so sweet to see him want to keep the focus on Jesus through the wonderful Christmas season.)

Finally, we convinced Brek that it was time to go see what Santa brought and open presents. I seriously was more anxious and excited about it than he was. We started with his stocking first

Here he is showing his Baymax action figure:

He got the whole set:

Then he opened the presents from Santa. Here he is giving loves to his Baymax toy. Horray! (Santa had a really, REALLY hard time finding one of these.)

Joe and Brek reading the book about dinosaurs that Santa brought:

Playing the fishing game that Santa brought:

Santa also brought "Baymax wrapping paper!" which in reality was a Baymax poster.

Then we moved on to the presents under the tree from family. My sister got him a Spiderman punching bag and boxing gloves.

Brek got lots of games and activities from us. One of the activities that we wrapped up for Brek to open was all of our swimming gear. So the day after Christmas, we went over to the Provo Rec Center and went swimming. Brek was disappointed that the big slides weren't open, but we still had a fun time!

The rest of Christmas Day was filled with playing and relaxing. I'm pretty sure we all took naps. Brek and Grandma Jensen went out in the snow (that came that night) and built a snowman. Grandma Jensen of course made Christmas dinner, so several of Joe's siblings stopped by in the evening. Brek had fun seeing cousins and playing. Joe & I got to go deliver dinner to Joe's sister Janelle and her family, who all weren't feeling well. It was a fun and happy day!

On Boxing Day, Joe was invited to go play at the Locust Salon (which is the house of our brother-in-law's brother, who also happens to be a former professor.) Joe was able to borrow a tuba from a friend, and of course enjoys getting to play.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christ-filled Christmas!