Pages

Saturday, December 31, 2016

December wrap-up

We were out of town visiting family over the Christmas weekend so I have yet to get to pictures from Christmas itself, but as for the rest of December, it was wonderful and packed full of family, friends, and lots of lovely Christmas activities.

Our small group decided to host a Christmas party this year for people in our lives that we didn't spend much time with yet but felt could benefit from a little extra fun and community this season (new neighbors, co-workers, friends from school), so we went with a gingerbread house decorating competition. It was a blast and we all got to meet a ton of fun new people. Our new neighbors ended up winning the contest, which was awesome because they thought they were coming over to watch our kids decorate houses (they don't have kids) so were pleasantly surprised when they found out they were competing. I believe that Chris and my house could have been a real contender except that Jane was fussy so Chris spent the entire time holding her and Eleanor had a tantrum in the middle of the timed contest so I had about five minutes less than everyone else. Maybe next year... the winners are on top and our house is the middle left one.

Jane has been my shopping helper this month, but I have to be careful now because she likes to put things in the cart when I'm not looking.

The girls and I have really been taking advantage of every decent weather day and have been walking or biking everywhere we can. One day we biked to Eleanor's Friday class and it turned out to be a lot colder than I thought. Her cheeks were so rosy when we got there!

Jane is getting smarter every day. The other day I changed her diaper and left her pajamas off of her feet. She disappeared into Eleanor's room for awhile and when she came out she had gotten one of her feet into her jammies all by herself (albeit the wrong foot, but still impressive).

Eleanor somehow (and I'm still not entirely sure how it happened) put three of her books through the washing machine. I was so sad because one of these books was signed by everyone who attended her baby shower before she was born. Bummer.

My grandparents sent us a bonsai tree for Christmas! Hopefully I will be able to keep up with it and keep it out of reach of the girls! It is very cute.

My girls have been helping me with all the Christmas baking.

Jane had an unfortunate trampoline incident where she had been bouncing with Eleanor behind her but when she let go, Eleanor kept bouncing and Jane launched forward landing on her face on the floor. It was a lot of blood, but she eventually recovered pretty well.

One evening when both of our spouses were out of town, our neighbors invited us over to decorate pretzels with chocolate. Eleanor and Jane both had a great time - Eleanor participating in the activity and Jane sitting in the corner eating chocolate.

We got a Christmas card return to sender in the mail, but it was a card from LAST YEAR! I couldn't believe it. Sorry guys! I didn't even know mail hung around that long...

One day I found Jane in the kitchen trying to eat a stick of butter that I had left out to make cookies with later that day. And people wonder where her thighs come from...

Our neighborhood unveiled a little library this month and we have been using it quite a bit! It was a fun/great idea from the neighborhood and I am glad we are able to contribute and benefit from it.

We had a semi-impromptu kid Christmas party the day before my last day of work before we went out of town for Christmas. We ended up having more than 15 kids under the age of 4 and their moms over for ornament making, cookie decorating, a candy cane hunt, and necklace making. It was chaotic, but a blast.

Sweet Jane actually fell asleep on me the other day. This girl is not a snuggler, and I can't remember this ever happening in her life after around 2-3 months old, so I definitely enjoyed every second of it.

I love December and all its festivities...hope to get to pictures of Christmas, soon! Normally I don't have too much to look forward to in January and February, but my sister is getting married in just under two months!

2 comments:

Dorothy said...

Wow that impromptu party did look like a blast. The Xmas card from a year ago!!! Unbelievable!

Patty said...

Love these pictures when we're not there all the time. <3