Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was kind of a bust.  We didn't do anything during the day - it was too cold to do anything outside (last year we went to the zoo).  We kind of just lounged around.  

For dinner we had our usual sea food buffet.

These cuties made it all worth it.

Except for they were kind of the worst when it came to our traditions.  After dinner we went to drive around and look at Christmas lights and the hated it and screamed almost the whole time.  They just wanted to see the "gingerbread house" and so all the houses we saw before that was a waste of their time, and then by the time we got to the gingerbread house it was a total let down.  We cut the trip short and went home.  Megan was really disappointed, I guess that is her favorite tradition.  They also cried all during our "Muppets Christmas Carol" tradition.  Jason thought they were old enough to appreciate it, they were not.  The older kids were really good about not blaming the babies or getting upset or saying the ruined Christmas, but I could see it in their faces.  We have kind of kept the babies separate from the older kids but as they get older they will incorporate more into the family and we will all have to adjust.

Lucky for them I anticipated the babies not living up to our Christmas traditions so I compensated by having a rockin dessert and hot chocolate bar out every night while we watched out Christmas movies or the Chose.  BTW - I decided to binge watch The Chosen with the kids over winter break to help them get excited for the New Testament.  None of them wanted to and I had to bribe/force them to give it a shot.  It totally worked.  They all loved it and I think laid a brick in each of their foundations.

No matter how hard I work all December to have a quick Christmas Eve set up, it seems to take hours.  I am always shocked at how late I get to bed.  But it is always pretty and worth it in the end.

 

Jason took these pictures, he liked our little preschool tree best.

 

Gingerbread Houses

After a 2 year covid hiatis the Neyenhuis' had their ginger bread part again!  It is one of our favorite things - mostly for me becasue I dont' have to make or clean up anything.  Marisa is the best for doing this every year.

Jason helped Dane. 

Hannah helped Eve.  Ever really likes being with other women if they are around.  She prefers them over me.  She likes Krista, Marisa, Kayleen, Hannah, and Kai's mom - if they are around she would rather be with them than me.

 

Dart Wars

We gave each of our older kids "committee assignments"  it is a bad name because it is a committee of 1.  It was supposed to serve several purposes, a few were: lighten my load and put some mental burden on other people, let the kids take on some responsibility and give them some agency in what our family does, give them a chance to receive some responsibility that they maybe done want and still do it (like a church calling), support each other in their responsibility, even if you don't think they are doing it right or how you would do it (like church callings), and then, the main reason, give them a chance to seek and receive revelation (and then act).  It has not gone well.  I don't know if it is just going to die or if we will adjust and keep trying.  The committees are: No Poor Among Us (Serve "poor" around us (there are lots of definitions of poor)), Gather Israel (on both sides of the veil), Ministering/social, family unity.  

Madison's assignment is family unity and she decided to have us all have a dart war in our house one evening.  Everyone had a blast, especially the babies.  Go Maddie!

Of course Jason is the star of the game and everyone just wants to get him out, he takes it very seriously.

But if I can remember right, he never won.  Megan won like twice, and I think Brock another time.

We played a few different ways: every man for himself, boys against girls, and everyone vs dad

 

December Fun

secret santa family 

Since we have been remodeling our house for the past 4 months (a post to come later) We don't have any furniture or shelves to put christmas decorations on and I haven't put any holes in the walls yet - so decorating for Christmas was a challenge.  I didn't use everything and just kind of let Dane and Eve put things where they wanted things.  Dane was very judicious about setting up a little tree in the corner.

The young men and young women went down town to sing at the giving machines.

Megan had a school assignment to make and clean up dinner all by themselves. She made shrimp fettuccini alfredo.

For light the world these three (Brock was at wrestling) went early one Saturday morning to the elementary school to set up the breakfast with Santa event.  I didn't do much with light the world this year.  I felt like they were old enough to do it by themselves.  They, I guess, disagreed.  A few days in they were like "when are we going to start doing light the world things".  I said, "I have the calendar up and the reminders of  things you can do, look, decide what you want to do, and do it"  They wanted whole family service projects, which is great, but I also feel strongly that I need to stop spoon feeding them things and they need to start taking some initiative.  But I guess asking is initiative, so I went online and found a few things.  They happily went.  I think I will plan a few more big things next year.  I also have some plans to do a few things throughout the year.

Megan had a young woman sock exchange (Maddie also had an AD one - but I didn't get pictures)

I had a birthday.

My friends took me to PF Changs after Christmas (December birthday's are hard)

These two melted our hearts all Christmas season.  

Madison was the only Herbert doing Battle of the Books this fall.  It was harder and different to stay on top of it without several kids participating, but I was so proud of her and Jason for staying on top of it.  She finished all 10 books - but what was best was she managed it all herself.  She got the books and read them with out me having to be involved or us making a tracking sheet for her.  Her team rocked it at the school battle and won by quite a bit (even though Maddie said they were to "worse team").  Sadly Maddie didn't make the school team, but she took the disappointment well.  It is hard being  the 4th Herbert sometimes, and sometimes things shake out unfairly for her.  But we have loved Battle of the Books, it has blessed our lives so much and really created a strong culture of reading in our home, and reading and discussing books together.  I truly believe it changed Brock's life.  It is the end of an era.

We had quite a few sicknesses in December.  Mostly me and the babies.  

The older 4 and Jason go to church an hour early to go to choir.  Noah doesn't participate in the choir and instead helps set up, Megan wants to do both.  She loves setting  up chairs and putting out the hymn books.  She does that for about 30 minutes and then goes to choir.  In December I went to choir instead of Jason because I love Christmas music more than Jason, so I got to watch their service.  It was endearing 

One of our outings is going to the mall and playing at the play place, running around, and playing on the escalators/elevator, Christmas is even better because we get to throw seeing Santa in there.  We saw him maybe 3 or 4 times.

I was quickly and sternly told by Santa that I can not take pictures.  I must pay for them.  haha

We have had colder weather here than we have the last 10 years we have lived here.  One morning it was negative 17 degrees, I woke up the kids and told them that if they wanted to feel what negative 16 feels like to go outside.  A few took me up on it.  

Megan and Noah spent the majority of their winter break at the library.  

Dad, of course, read to us.  He read the usual, The Worst/best Christmas Pageant Ever, but we are also reading Mistborn - it is like 700 pages, so it has taken a while.  Noah recommended it for us.

Brock was home during finals week a lot because of an adjusted schedule (Noah had tech - other wise he would have been home as well).  I actually loved it.  I don't get a lot of time with him, and while he slept a lot, I just liked having him home.

He needed new shoes so he came to the mall with the babies and I to play one day, and he chased them around and was so much fun

Everything is better with an older brother!  The babies loved it!

And a random morning picture.