A Little of This and That in December

December was a crazy, busy, fun, memorable month for us, filled with activities such as these:

Sitting . . . in front of the space heater. This is not unusual, but at the beginning of the month, our furnace broke, and so we were especially attached to the portable heaters for a few days. Luckily, Mike fixed it. (I thank myself pretty much every day for marrying an engineer.)

Shoveling . . . tons of snow. We got dumped on in the middle of the month. Then the temperature dropped, which ensured a white Christmas.

Spending . . . time with family. We didn't go to Colorado like we usually do, but we still had lots of parties with all of our siblings who live nearby.

Capturing . . . Clark's first long word on video. It was "dinosaur."

Acting . . . out the nativity. As a Christmas present for Mike's parents, Mike's sister recorded all of the grandchildren performing the nativity. We also recorded all of them reciting the story from the scriptures, and then our brother-in-law, Rob, added music and edited it all together to make a truly touching film (a time-consuming labor of love).

Wrapping . . . hundreds of caramels to deliver to friends in the neighborhood. Mike and I high-fived each other when our kids did all of the delivering. Finally, they're beginning to earn their keep.

Reading . . . lots of Christmas picture books. In addition to doing a book countdown to Christmas, we checked out many new books from the library. New favorites included Who's That Knocking on Christmas Eve?, The Reindeer Wish, and The Reindeer Christmas.

Keeping . . . secrets about presents and an upcoming trip to San Diego.

Missing . . . Mike when he was gone for four days on a work trip. Hoping there will be fewer work-related trips in 2016.

Enjoying . . . lots of slow, cozy mornings during Christmas break. I am a homebody at heart, and my favorite days of the break were the ones with no place to go and nothing to do. My kids liked those days, too. 

 
Listening . . . to Christmas music nonstop. I went out of my way to try some new albums and found a few new ones that we really liked: Wave Your Antlers by Bobs and Lolo, Christmastime by Hilary Weeks, Christmas Songs by Diana Krall, All is Bright by Mercy River, and A Lovely Way to Spend Christmas by Kristin Chenoweth.

Blabbing . . . with Suzanne about pretty books we'd love to own. Such a fun conversation. 

Defending . . . the Christmas tree from attacks by Clark and the cat. Seriously, I was ready to take down the tree after the first day because those two would not leave it alone. And the times when they happened to be under it together? Even worse. It's a wonder it survived the month.

Singing . . . "Once There Was a Snowman" a dozen times just to see Clark do the actions again and again.

Marking . . . off the days until Christmas with our advent calendar. (Sadly though, the boys lost one of the squares, and it still hasn't been found.)

Sledding . . . on Christmas Eve with cousins. Clark was ready to go home as soon as we got out of the car. Aaron could have stayed all day.

Staring . . . in disbelief and shock when the mantel above the fireplace came crashing down . . . at midnight . . . on Christmas Eve . . . shattering a glass cup and several pieces in two nativities . . . and waking up a certain five-year-old in the process. Not exactly the magical way you imagine Christmas Eve ending. The bright side? At least I had already drunk the milk from the glass before it broke.

Building . . . Lego creations. Okay, not me. Aaron. It's pretty much all he wanted to do over the break.

Enduring . . . endless talk about the new Star Wars movie. I live in a house with boys who are obsessed with it, and I couldn't care less. I watched the first (or was it the fourth? Whichever one was made first) several years ago, and it was torturous. I have a feeling I'm going to be roped into seeing the new one though because everyone loves it (even non-Star Wars fans).

Assembling . . . a new art table for the boys. They love to do art projects in their room so that Clark won't bother them, but I was getting tired of the markers, paper, and scissors constantly scattered on the floor. The new table was designed by Mike and uses Ikea's Trofast system so there's plenty of storage. I'm still hoping to put together an entire post about it, but it's really hard to get pictures in Aaron and Maxwell's room.

Ringing . . . in 2016 with my brother's family. (Bradley crashed at 10:15pm after a bitter loss in Pass the Pigs.)

 What were your December days filled with?