Snapshots of December

December 2021:

Normally, I love December and everything that comes with preparing for Christmas and bringing the Christmas spirit in. This year, things looked a little differently for me because I was experiencing quite a bit of morning sickness, and with 2 little kids, it was a lot for me to deal with. We did what we could and had to prioritize the most important things and then the rest of what I would normally like to do had to be let go and we'll try again next year. The most important thing for me is that Christmas time feels magical and full of love for the Savior. At the beginning of the month I made a list of 24 things I wanted to do to celebrate being a family and spending time together and bringing the Christmas spirit into our home, but throughout the month I had to narrow it down to the things that we could reasonably accomplish. We read lots of Christmas books from the library, we did our 25 days of Christ ornament advent where we read a story about Christ's life and then hung an ornament on the tree. We listened to Christmas music and danced around the Christmas tree. We went and saw the Christmas lights at the river woods, and watched every Christmas kids movie we could think of. We ate a lot of pretty lame dinners (Mac and cheese, quesadillas, grilled cheese, chicken tenders, etc) and we didn't go outside very often because shivering made me feel extra nauseous. Luckily, kids find the simplest things magical and wonderful, so Rose and Lucy still felt like December was the best month ever even though I worried that I wasn't doing enough. 

A few highlights:

- I ordered some fairy lights for my photography business, and had fun playing around with them with the girls and some self portraits.

- We spent a weekend at Grannie and Papa's house and had fun playing in the snow.

- Rose and Lucy tried out sledding for the first time ever! And were good after going twice. 😅

- We made gingerbread houses with my family. 

- We got a Christmas tree and decorated it.

- It snowed a few times and we went on a couple of walks in the snow and also made snow cones and an itty bitty snowman.

- Elsa came to the library for story time and gave Rose and Lucy magical snowflakes that wouldn't melt for their hair. 😍 Rose was in heaven, and Lucy was super upset with me for stepping away to take a few pictures. She was fine when I picked her up again. 😂