December Memories

I have a cup of hot tea next to me (a gift from mom for Christmas), just downloaded ALL my pictures, and am now attempting to fill in all the blanks of our last month into one entry.
I *might* actually be able to do it too, since the oldest 3 are fully engaged with the TV, and the youngest is asleep in his crib. Of course, it all depends if my laptop battery can manage to not die on me, cause digging out the cord, and finding an available outlet will definitely take too much work.
The start of December brought us Noll, our elf. He was a little crazy this time. My favorite thing to wake up to each day was the running of feet down the hall and the giggles when they discovered what he had been up to all night long.
Then we had some weird weather....
Like one day it was sunny and perfect to play outside in the leaves,
and the next we had a freak windstorm that ended up shattering our outdoor glass table.
Weird.

We ended up ditching tradition and picking out our tree from the Home Depot lot. Fun, but not the same. I am convinced this one was already loosing needles before we even set eyes on it. As I sit here, it's now about 1 static electricity spark away from burning our house down.

We did our annual "borrow the church van, load up all the kids and car seats, pass out some cookies, or popcorn, and drive around at look at lights" night too. This year we only made it to 3 houses, but I think they kids had fun while it lasted!
(Cannon was really trying to smile here, but he apparently he had missed out on getting a snow globe when his penny dropped in the bucket at one of our stops. He cried for quite awhile. Quite awhile...)

Brynn was an angel in the church Christmas Eve services this year for the first time. She had fun performing up front. I had mixed reactions. Is it normal to be teary-eyed and terrified at the same time? I have terrible stage fright, (which I am so grateful that she doesn't have) and seeing her up there just makes me so thankful that I get to be her mom. Even is we both struggle with it sometimes.
Our church does a really cool "Christmas Town" for the kids after the services. There are little activities, dress up, and some photo ops. They enjoyed their time playing.
Is it disrespectful that my oldest son was trying to strangle Joseph, and my youngest daughter was trying to poke Mary's eyes out? Nolan was fascinated with the small people that were lit up on his level...

We squeezed a quick trip in to see Santa, which went really well. No tears, no fits, and instead of those stinking mini candy canes they usually give out that make every mom's laundry load bigger, they gave out peppermint candy cane lollipops! Genius! Brynn is starting to question who the guy is at the mall though, because (and I quote) "Santa has GOT to be loading up his sleigh right now, there is NO WAY that he has time to be at the mall taking pictures with all these kids".
Then the week of Christmas's began. Every night a different side of the family for 4 days straight. It's a lot, but we have a system down now that is meeting every one's needs, and I love that I don't have to make choices of who we see which year, etc.
Christmas morning at our house was mellow and fun. The kids opened their gifts, and we FINALLY found the gift that Santa had left in the garage. A new (used) Wii! Hours of fun, let me tell you, hours and hours and hours of fun. (Maybe mommy and daddy have used it more then the kids, but whatever.)
Notice all the ornaments have migrated north on the tree...
So now we are just kicking back, enjoying all the new toys, and the time off of school. It's been busy, really, really busy, but I think everyone has had a great month of fun!