December Randoms

M E R R Y C H R I S T M A S! 

What a whirlwind, magical day it is. Nothing is like Christmas and the best part is that it's all month long that you get to feel the magic. It's been a fun filled month with lots of festive activities, fun and trying to be calm and enjoy the moments. 

December 1st our elf arrived with our lego countdown, matching PJ's and a note letting us know he would be here all month long. We started the month off right with our usual pizza and Christmas movie! 

June went to a birthday party for one of her little friends. We dropped her off and went and did some Christmas shopping back in our old stomping grounds. 

Our traditional drive through Highland park was a huge success. One of my favorite traditions with the kids. 

Kate being Kate. She is in her own world and seems to always find hats! And digging through mom's wallet. 

One night for mutual my Mia Maids made snow flakes and wrote messages on them for our local Fire Department. They kept those snow flakes on the whole month! It was great driving by and still seeing  them there. It made the girls feel special. 

Ward Christmas party fun! We had a great time that night but had to quickly dash off to head to Dan's work party. 

Sugar cookies are a must for Christmas time! And Owen is rocking that face! hahahaha 

We realized we had no red food coloring and the kids wanted to be in charge of the colors, so we ended up with some interesting looking icing for our cookies. Then we had squeeze bags for decorating. It made for some great looking cookies! 

All our cookies! They turned out pretty good and all were consumed by friends who stopped by and of course ourselves! 

Dan has made dozens of these rolls trying to get the recipe just perfect. It's my mom's roll recipe and he is determined to make those rolls to perfection! 

One early morning after getting June on the bus, the sun was rising over the hill and was so pretty. Dan is usually with us waiting for the bus to come but he had an early meeting so it was just me. I ran  to the top of the hill and snapped a yogi picture. The sky was so pretty. 

We had some incredibly warm days this month. So warm we spent majority of the day outside and that included lunch! 

Kate mimics everything we do and say. Her vocabulary and sentence structure has gone to a whole new level. It's been so fun watching and listening to her speak. We sing Wheels on the Bus about 20 times a day and that usually happens while I'm preparing dinner or the kids are eating dinner.  June and Kate singing "The mommy's on the bus go shhh shhh shhh". 

The kids live on the tramp. They spend a lot of time outside and I LOVE it!! 

After running a million and one errands one day, Owen asked so nicely to stop and get a Sonic Corndog. I can't ever say no to that sweet smile. His smile holds incredible power, I tell ya. 

Owen spends a lot of time with me in my yoga room and actually does a lot of yoga with me. He practices with me, listens to me teach classes and sits with my while I write in my journal or mediate. He's becoming quite the little yogi. 

One night after Dan got home from work we went out back to our ponds and fed the ducks and geese. 

We celebrated another little friends birthday at Chuck E. Cheese. 

I took June on a little girls night to see The Nutcracker. I had only planned to stay through intermission because I thought for sure June wouldn't want to stay through the whole show, but she LOVED IT!! And we stayed through the whole performance. I was pleasantly surprised. We then went and had a late dinner. 

She loved getting all dressed up and I even let her put on some lipstick. She was in heaven! 

Ginger bread house in the making! We saved all our Halloween candy to make it extra special. It turned out cute! 

We have a pretty rad Chick Fil A. Since the new Star Wars movie was coming out, Chick Fil A was celebrating it with a Star Wars themed night. Dan took the kids Christmas shopping and then went there for dinner. It was so great to get the kids out of the house and I got everything cleaned and ready for the Holidays! 

One night I was videoing Kate and told her to look up so I could take a picture. This was the look she gave me. Hahahaha! 

I was hacked by my Young Women! We went caroling one night and I ended up with a bunch of pictures on my phone. We have such an incredible group of youth! 

Kate LOVES putting on my panty hose stalkings. EVERY MORNING while I'm getting ready, she pulls them out of my sock drawer and brings them to me for her hands and feet. It's so awesome. 

Our school district didn't have school released until Friday before Christmas! FRIDAY!! How lame right?!!? So I said forget that and pulled June out of school. We played hooky and went shopping and had lunch! I know school is so important but they are so little and having fun is important too! 

That wraps up our December! We had lots of fun things we did that aren't pictured like participating in the LDS Light the World campaign, lots of yogi stuff happening this month but saving that for a later post,  late night dinner and a laugh fest with friends, date nights and truly just enjoying being together as a family. 

More to come on my birthday, and our Christmas!