The Day to Day of December

Here's my attempt at summing up the day to day activities from this December up to Christmas celebrations.

 

My favorite family tradition is that each year we pick out an ornament to give the kids that represents the year and write a letter to them. If something were to ever happen to Luke & I it would be one of things we would want to make sure they got. So after the house is decorated for Christmas, then we read them their letters and present them with their first Christmas gift- their ornaments followed by their Christmas jammies.

 

Bailey with her Crayola box. We picked this ornament because Bailey loves all forms of art, especially coloring. We also talked about why the different colors reminds us of her or what the color represented this last year. Funny thing was that we couldn't pick a color to represent our favorite event of 2013 for Bailey, which was when she ask Jesus into her heart.

 

 

Blake with his Spiderman ornament. Blake loves superheros and we love that Spiderman taught him how to say I love you in sign language.

 

Blair with a Fancy Nancy ornament. We have never read a Fancy Nancy book over here, but this particular ornament features F.N. in dress up heels with socks on, with a crown on, and a sheet tucked into her undies and it reminds us so much of Blair and her dress up style.

 

 

Bailey's school got out the 2nd Wednesday in December & the last day her class got to wear Christmas socks for the day.

 

 

It was fun to be one of the helpers at the Christmas party stations and get to watch Bailey interact with her classmates. 

 

Bailey got to go on another daddy daughter deer hunting trip.

 

The first one was while we were up in Santo and they did not get anything. It was on this trip that Luke decided Bailey needed something other than a pink coat to hunt in and something warmer.

 

 

Something more camoflauged...can you spot her and Emmy in this tree? Kyle, Luke & Joel along with their girls each sat in a different deer blind that day.

 

 

And this smile is all because of the next picture

 

deer and lots of them. One of the two they shot only had 3 legs and they saw a coyote!

 

Sadly our tree fell over twice- once because me & my belly lost our balance while I was cleaning underneath it, but I was able to help it fall so nothing broke. When Blake was trying to use Spiderman to get the star on the top, well, that was another story.

 

 

One of my favorite ornaments given to us by the Fosheas that broke. : (

 

On a happy note, here's a cute t-shirt that his preschool class made using his hands & feet.

 

On another happy note, Tori came to visit for the weekend on her way home to Santo.

 

One funny story: Blake did not know that Tori would be sleeping in the top bunk bed in his room. So  when he woke up he got dressed and came to find me and with huge wide eyes told me that there was something in his top bunk bed. When I ask him what he thought it was, he responded that "it was probably a big mouse or a coyote." When we were in his room to see what the something was, we both heard Tori move and he looked at me and said "see mommy, it must be a big mouse!" This was the kids seeing what was on the top bunk. 

 

 

And once they knew it was Tori they were not going to let her sleep in.

 

Bailey and I visited the Thinkery aka the children's museum in Austin. Since Bailey got out of school while Blake & Blair still have preschool we have gotten in some good mommy dates. We had a blast there and highly, highly recommend it! It is hands-on & fun!

 

The playground

 

Painting

 

Light Brite anyone? Bailey put all those in!

 

 

Creation Station

We even got to take home her diving board creation.



 

And we wrote her name in hot wax.

 

 

Trail of Lights

 

The kids had a blast and a huge thank you to Noelle for the parking tips!

 

 

 

 

 

It was at this point when Blair & I were spinning that we spun right into one of my former students who is ... a freshman in college!?!?! Has it really been that long? It was a student from my second to last year of teaching and I loved hearing how well he was doing.

 

Two Pictures from Tara, Rob & Colt's visit

 

 

 

Blair and Colt playing

 

Blake and I were trading off taking pictures of each other. He wanted one by the stockings.

 

 

Sadly this is his picture of me & where you will find me most nights. The 4th pregnancy has been harder on me than the other ones and there was no "glorious second trimester". Thankfully everything is normal, but I have been having horrible cramping & Braxton Hicks contractions. The only thing that helps is to rest laying down, so this is where you will usually find me post naptime. Yes, I can make it until about 2pm, when I nap, then I can make it till about 6:30-7 and then the cramping gets to be too much. Everything is fine and the cramping/Braxton Hicks is said to be a sign that I am doing too much and need to rest. HA! Rest & December & 3 Kids seems like an oxymoron, but very normal 3rd trimester fun.