December

 I just wanted to enjoy the season and bask in the joy this year. My goal was one thing a day. That worked ok but I never felt finished.  I wanted to read Christmas stories with the kids at night. I tried to print out short stories, but some were even boring for me to read. Sometimes short does not guarantee good.  It was about 50-50 on good and horrible.

I once heard a quote, "Even a hard-boiled egg has a golden heart." It is all about missed opportunities to do good. Not to be a downer but I totally missed an opportunity at the dollar store. Azalyn was even being and angle. There are always guarding angles. I cut a chunk out of my finger. The only way to stop the bleeding was super glue, blessing I had just bought some at the dollar store.

Colvin is my critical thinker. I got mad at the boys. I told them for their punishment from now on I was going to delete games from their kindles.  After about 5min Colvin brought his kindle to me, “Look mom I cannot get in trouble, I delete all my games.” His home screen was empty but one "junk" folder. He had put all his games in the “junk” folder. My kids make me laugh every day. Colvin made a fort out of boxes. He was getting so mad at his sister for wanting in. I went downstairs and brought up a play tent we have. What one did the kids fight over; the nice upright play tent or the tent taped together with cardboard boxes? Yes, the cardboard box thing.  My kids are best friends. Azalyn has the most doting brothers. We had to walk Colvin into school, I had to drop off stuff for his classroom. Azalyn started running and crying down the hall when Colvin started walking to class. We were running later than usual for school with Colvin. We had forgot to comb his hair, I used snow as water and fork for a brush. He thought it was the greatest day. Denali is getting big fast. After karate he is starting to stink. I took him to Wal-Mart and let him pick out his own under arm. He thought he was so big; I did not cry. Fridays is Singing time for mom and Azalyn. I tough her, "popcorn popping" and it was love at first note. For dinner we tell something we did today, Azalyn was so excited to sing for the family. Talking about singing I have a song for nap time, "The best time of the day is nap time nap time hurray hurray" I started singing on the way home and Azalyn yelled NO! We got a little snow but not really enough to go sledding. I had an idea; hook up the snow tubs to the lawn mower. Did not work the lawn mower did not have enough traction. Denali lost his blue coat. I went to look in his school lost and found. YA a blue coat in a school that their school uniform includes a blue hoodie almost a lost cause. Good thing he found it in his classroom. Azalyn discovered the fun of spinning till you fall. She spun and spun all morning. However, she then discovered the skittles. She ate a hand full then spun some more. NOT a good combo, she threw up a colorful mess.   I think I have figured out my boys love language. Denali’s is physical tough he loves to snuggle. Colvin’s is words of affirmation just like his dad. That is hard because mean words affect him more. 

We watched the live Disney Mulan I give it 3 starts. Don't change it if it’s not broken. Timber was so sweet and sent us Hot Chocolate bombs. They were so fun to see pop and drink.  We went to the arcade. (Really the only thing to do in winter and with COVID-19.) Azalyn discovered the 4-person merry go round. I did not make a lot of Christmas candy because I knew we were going to be gone and I would eat it all. However, I did make ginger play dough. It brought back so many good memories of making play dough. (I did not know you could buy play dou till I was older than I should have been) It made the whole house smell like Christmas every time the kids played with it. 

We have 2 "Proctor" family tradition. One is driving thru the light at the park. Everyone had a great time. Azalyn was NOT happy when we had to put her back in her seat. She loved driving with daddy. Colvin loves the Christmas lights on main street. He loved the lights after karate every night. *side note about my van that I think is cute. Every time the kids get stickers, they put them on their window. It is a memory of all the fun things we have done* The other big family tradition we have is going to SL on the train. It is always a memory maker, but we love it. This year was a little different because most of Temple Square was closed (they are renovating the temple) We walked the mall. Azalyn did really good the first half of the train ride but then she had sat long enough. Very cold night so kind of a blessing there were not too many lights. Yes there were some fighting and crying but also smiles and fun.  

Home improvement projects are coming to a close. I finally got my rug and love it. We all missed some carpet. We did some painting. I finally got to paint the wall in my room. I did a Yellow undercoat (the yellow made me so happy) then we taped it randomly then painted it gray. The review pulling off the tape was incredible. The other painting job was a red wall in the front room. Red is really hard to paint since red is white based. Greg loves having projects when he is between semesters. This time his project was putting boarding up on the Island. It looks fantastic but man glitter (saw dust) was EVERYWERE. It might take a year or two to clean it ALL up. The last project of the year was finishing our half bath. I love the big sink. Now just wait till the new year to complete our new list of home improvements. 

I got thinking of the things my kids are missing out on with not having primary. The number one thing that came to mind was singing time. I sing primary songs all the time. Therefore, we started doing singing time before zoom church. It helps that our singing leader uploads a 10min singing time video each week. We did a zoom FHE with McCarty. It was on sin with batteries. We took a 9V battery and had all the kids lick it. It gave them a little zing. That is like sin at first, we do something wrong and it is makes us feel a little bad. We let them do that a few times till they were used to the zing.  But then she brought out a 24V battery and asked what would happen if we licked this. Little by little sin gets bigger and bigger and we don’t feel it as much.  That is why we need to stop and repent. 

I love having my kids home for the Holiday. I really love the help. I told them that we would watch a movie in the morning on my bed then clean. We had to clean out all the upstairs room in anticipation for the new year carpet. After 2 days Denali asked, “mom when will vacation start and we only get free free time” I told him when we got to Grandmas. Talk about cleaning out rooms; there was SO much trash. I really need to do this more than once every 3 yrs. I did try to do fun things with the boys. I took them driving at a church parking lot. They loved it; Denali got a little crazy. 

As soon as we got home (from grandmas see Christmas blog), we took the tree down. Getting ready for our crazy New Year. So many great memories were made this year. Ready for another year!!

Thought: After everything was said and done it was tons of fun and worth it. Days are long but years are short.