goodbye december

december was good to us.  it was not exactly full of peace and quiet, but it was indeed full.

• right after thanksgiving, we headed to the tree farm to pick out our christmas year.  it's amazing what a difference a year makes::

2012, lena not exactly happy about the outing -->

2013, muuuchhh better 

• then came a week of snow days...no school, no routine, no going anywhere...which was really fun for the first 4 days and then...as matt said it..."i pulled the kids off the walls and ginny off the floor". tis true. i can only make paper snowflakes and hot cocoa exciting for so long.

• lena louise turned 7.  glorious celebration.  we had pizza and christmas lights with friends one night, ukrainian borsch and varenyky with gifts and family another night.  i think she felt loved and special. 

• i ran a half marathon...that got canceled because of snow and ice then a group of funky fayetteville folks put a facebook page out there and over 100 people unofficially ran it anyway.  including me and the best babysitter/friend ever.  all the weather meant we didn't exactly finish training, so the last mile was a bit rough, but ya know what?  we finished! 

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• hazel and anders' preschool christmas program...these things are always hilarious.  they are sorta for the kids but really for us psycho parents, who just can not wait to get 1 more video on our smartphones of our preschoolers singing jingle bells.  in the middle of it, i know it's ridiculous & it can feel like this commercial, but they are just so stinking cute, so i elbow matt to get closer to get a better shot. hazel rocked some handbells, which we had previously heard nothing about.  and anders picked his nose on stage between songs. 
  
  

• our advent was simple.  just some reading and talking almost every night.  but they are old enough now to talk and process this long awaited Messiah.  questions and thinking and actually dialoguing with them was really cool.  then, the week before christmas we did some fun things together...

• the whole family went to a movie in the theater.  this was all 3 kiddos' first time in a theater and they were soooo excited.  we weren't sure how it would go, especially with ms lena, but they all loved it.

• we went to a live nativity {in the rain, you gotta want it}, where anders wouldn't get on the camel without me.  

• we did some dates.  a friend of ours kept & played with lena at the house while hazel and i got to go to lunch and the nutcracker with some wonderful friends and matt and anders had a man-date to the arcade.

• lena's amazing speech therapist, gave me this.  it's her first crafty ornament to bring home and i loved it.  put it right front and center on that tree.

we truly were given the gift of a lot of great time together as a family last month...goodbye december, you were good to us.