December {2012}

Sisters wearing new princess tiaras and shoes in Grandma's living room on Christmas Day. (It looks like I can upload more pictures right on my blog without paying each month for more data.  {This link} helped me figure out how much of my storage I'm using. I'm still a little confused, though.)

2012 was a hard year for us, but Christmastime was great. I want to remember:

• Our children's joy: When they saw our Christmas nativity scenes and cups and other things that they'd forgotten about. When they looked at any Christmas tree. When they said "Christmas lights!" as we were driving and they saw some. When we talked about how many days it was until Christmas.
• Book club on December 5th -- really just my friend (and visiting teaching partner) Erica and me chatting. I'm glad I re-read The Mansion anyway. Erica started the club not very long ago, and a lot of people said they were interested, but only one other person besides us has actually shown up.
• Watching the 3-year-old play at playgrounds while her big sister was at school. 

• The Saturday (December 8th) when the five of us went to Daddy's work. It's a fun place. The kids liked the big wreaths, and they were totally happy with eating the lunch we had brought from home.
• How excited our girls were about the gingerbread house kits my mother-in-law bought. She, the kids and I went over to my mom's house so we could all assemble and decorate the big gingerbread house. My MIL had to leave at a certain time so with small houses we could only assemble them. Later my big girls and I finished the small ones.

 

• Simple times hanging out by the Christmas tree (which my husband found at DI for $10!). 

I was so happy the night that we girls watched The Christmas Bunny and I didn't try to do anything else at the same time. The movie was better than I had expected, and C nursed to sleep. Now I remember that we were able to watch maybe half before bedtime, and then we had a breakfast picnic to watch the rest. Another decent movie we discovered thanks to Netflix was Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. You can totally tell it's from the 1960s, which is great.

• Singing in our stake choir fireside on December 9th, and my parents coming to see and hear me perform. The music was wonderful. We also had a Seventy and his wife speak. It's a good thing Sister B. asked me to play the piano for the vocal solo, because I hadn't thought of participating until then.
• Shboogoo's notes about the season -- some to Santa, some not.

(Dear Santa, please bring me a puppy in a box. And a bird. Thank you.)

Not a note, but a drawing of where we live. She colored it all in later.

• C meeting Santa for the first time, at our apartment clubhouse. She cried when I started to put her on his lap.

• The kindness of my mother-in-law's friends. Julee and her mom, Eleanor, both gave my family gifts. Eleanor had sewed two aprons for our daughters, plus a bag to hold a cookie sheet, spatula, pretend cookies and felt doughnuts with felt frosting to put on top. They gave us the gifts at their family Christmas party on December 15th. I was really sad to miss the parties due to being sick. The other one was a surprise birthday party for mother-in-law's aunt. The night before I had a fever and couldn't sleep well because I felt so cold. In the middle of the night I used the bathroom and must have fainted. I know I fell. My neck hurt for a week after that.

• Shboogoo's first school holiday sing-along. My husband said it well . . . something about how parents love their kids enough to be there for two hours so they can hear their kids sing for a few minutes. Shboogoo moved from her original spot, so we could hardly even see her (which reminded me of her first Primary program, when we couldn't see her from where we were sitting). In this photo she's the red glasses above the black hair, on the right side. I still plan on making a video of her singing "the peace song." The principal cancelled it so the last group could do their performance and finish on time.

• Watching Mr. Krueger's Christmas (my #1 favorite Christmas movie) at my mother-in-law's on Christmas Day. Most hadn't seen it in years, and my brother-in-law's girlfriend never had.
• My date with my husband the Saturday after Christmas to use the gift I gave him: a gift certificate to Chinese restaurant (because he had been saying for a while that he wanted Chinese food). The food was all so good. Especially the spring roll.

Now the best photos of our December 24th and 25th. :)

Christmas Eve: My husband worked until 4, and then we went over to my Mom's for dinner. 

  

I took some photos outside when we were back home.

 

 

This girl got to stay up as Mom and Dad finished wrapping.

Christmas Day the kids woke up around 8:00. Opening gifts was so lovely. Our kids gave Daddy a pair of jeans and a belt, because he's lost weight so most of his pants are too big. He thought it was cool that we found great ones at Savers. I already mentioned the Chinese restaurant gift certificate. He gave me a new makeup bag and new makeup and brushes. I really needed it all. :) The only thing he didn't know I was completely out of was blush. Shboogoo had asked for real binoculars, and was thrilled when she opened them. The one thing L had wanted when I asked was "a new favorite bear," so that's what she got. For some reason she named it Chunky. They also got a couple of Usborne books, and crayons to share. The big sisters gave C a teething ring, and we gave her two Usborne board books. Stocking stuffers included dried apples, teddy grahams, and cups of chocolate pudding.

You like my thumb in the bottom right corner? I think I did that twice.

We left home by about 9:15 to open gifts and have breakfast (a late one) at D's dad and step-mom's house. Uncle Jack couldn't make it but had a generous gift for me: a $50 grocery store gift card. Everyone we spent Christmas Eve and Christmas with gave us plenty of gifts. We really appreciate the people and the fun and useful things!

The second place we visited was D's mom's house; we were there for 2 or 3 hours.

Last stop was my dad and step-mom's house at 4:00. The pot luck dinner (but most of it the work of my step-mom) was delicious. They invited my mom this year (she was giving my brother Mark a ride over there anyway) so we got to be with her two days in a row. Mom and Mark had already left by the time my husband took this picture, though.