Christmas

I remember that making these cookies felt like a victory.  In all of the craziness of December, we found time to make Christmas cookies!

Christmas Eve was held at the clubhouse by my Mother-in-law's new condo.  It was perfect, actually.  The space was big enough for all of us, with a nice tiny kitchen for all of the food and a downstairs room for the kids to go bonkers in.  Kaitlyn played Jingle Bells for the annual concert, and we played our Piano Guys song as a duet.

Jasmine played the part of Mary in the nativity play . . .

 . . . and Kaitlyn was an angel.

Christopher put the stack of music he bought to good use.  He even had a book that a violinist could follow along with, which was a nice addition.

This year, Grandma heard that Santa was a little too busy to come and visit everyone, so she dressed up and pretended for the kids.  The only problem was that she didn't fool a single child.  Tyler knew as soon as Santa walked in, and tried to talk to her and yanked off her hat.  Other kids loudly asked about it.  I pulled my kids aside and asked them to pretend for "the little kids" so they could be big and in on the secret, and that at least kept them from being too vocal.  It was really funny!

The next morning, I told the kids I needed a traditional "coming down the stairs" picture, so they had to walk slowly.

Kaitlyn likes to be the clown as often as she can, now.

But onward to important tasks.

Kaitlyn's wish list was short this year.  She wanted this exact American Girl doll, which was all of Santa's usual budget.  She was really, really excited.

Santa got Jasmine a real guitar, since she loves to play with her dollar store one that she named a "guntar".  She hasn't learned much yet, but she likes to walk around and play on it.

And as usual, Tyler was content with the first item or two he opened.  He found a cool LEGO set, and then sat down to work on it.  The box in front of him is a Santa box that he hadn't opened yet, even though his sisters had been done a while ago.

Christmas fell on a Sunday this year, which is my favorite.  I love interrupting present chaos to go and listen to Christmas songs! I think it makes the whole day perfect.

Heading into Christmas

I felt like there was a lot to get ready for Christmas this year.  On a whim, I posted on a yard sale group on facebook that I was selling embroidered toilet paper for gag gifts for $7.  In one day, I had people request over two dozen rolls.  Not all of them showed up, but other people ordered later, and I ended up selling 27 rolls before Christmas.  And 9 hooded towels. And I did a custom order, putting 12 names on separate tags for her to make Santa sacks for grandkids.  That kept me rather busy.

After Thanksgiving, we wanted to put up the Christmas tree, naturally.  We had sworn to ourselves (back in August, when we put off the task) that we were not going to put the tree up on carpet.  We needed to rip out the carpet and put down the new floor first.  So, Christopher got that finished as quickly as he could.

The two converged, of course.  I had people coming to pick up toilet paper rolls while he was working away.  Having the dining table in the front hall was almost convenient for that.

Thankfully, the floor really was a quick project in comparison to everything else we've done lately.  No baseboards, since we'll want to paint those outside in warm weather, but those baseboards are the very last step for everything.  We hope.

One thing that took up a lot of my time was being asked to play for the Ward Christmas Party at church.  Christopher and I enjoy playing duets together, and he's frustrated that he can't play in church on Sunday.  I'm glad they asked us to prepare something for Christmas, in that case.  Christopher was so excited that he went shopping and came home with an armload of books. We could have picked an easy one, and we did have those in mind as a backup, but instead, we worked and worked to learn a Piano Guys song.  "Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel".  It was just too pretty!  It was a huge task, but I am really glad we learned it.

Jasmine danced in her first ballet show.

She told me that day that she wasn't sure she wanted to dance on the stage.  Once she remembered that she would get to keep her mug, however, it was decided.  She wanted her own hot chocolate mug from her "Hot Chocolate" dance.

Her best friend Avery is in a different class than her, but the same level.  Love these girls!

A few days later, we had the biggest change for us in a long time.

I don't know exactly why, but I had been feeling for quite a while that it was time for our family to have a dog.  Personally, I'm not a pet person, exactly.  And yet, I found myself researching and looking at ads every day.  We made a lot of decisions.  No puppies.  Those are too much work, and I don't know how to train a dog well enough.  No big dogs.  I actually like bigger dogs, but no one else does.  Christopher wanted a pug, but I think they are odd looking, and the only one we went to look at was intent on biting us over and over. I didn't think I could handle a shelter dog, who was probably traumatized, so we hunted ads for "I love my dog, and just need to find the perfect home for him." Which is exactly what his ad said.

Chewy spends most of his time sleeping on our bed.  I was a little sad that he doesn't want to play with everyone, but I can't be upset because he is the easiest dog ever.  He is perfectly potty trained.  He had one accident the day after he got here, and one during a crazy birthday party when a dozen kids were running around crazy.  Both pretty stressful times.  He loves walks and table scraps, but otherwise is completely chill.

And loved.  At first, he followed me around, since his last owner was a single mom my age.  Christopher fed him enough table scraps of smoked meat to change his mind.  Now he follows my husband around any time he is home. I'm not sure yet why I felt so prompted that we needed this little doggie, but he's part of the family now, for sure.

Family pictures

I had told Christopher that we weren't going to do family pictures this year.  We had a lot of things going on, and I just didn't feel up to matching outfits and dragging my crew through that.  Unfortunately, when I started gathering pictures to make our Christmas card, I realized that I didn't have a single good picture with all of us together.  One at Arches National Park with us in mismatched camping clothes, and one in Legoland when I hadn't done my hair or makeup or anything that day.  So I told him that he was stuck doing at least the bare minimum in the cold and snow.

I posted on facebook that I wanted someone to trade with, and thankfully a neighbor also wanted family pictures without paying for them.  So we met at the same location, took pictures of our own kids, and then took turns taking pictures of the other's family.  Perfect.

Photographer's trick - they were blowing instant potato flakes.

It was really, really cold, though.  The kids were not all that happy, despite the smiles I managed to get on camera.  The girls were mostly upset about cold toes as they waded through a foot of snow in dress flats.

I think that picture sums it up.  Oh well!  I got what I needed- a few good shots for the card, and to hang on the wall for a year.  Sorry sweetie!