The First Half of December

Can you believe December is already half-way over? That's crazy. Today was supposed to be a really busy day, but we woke up with one throwing up Gwen, and two sick-ish other kids. There's a slightly croupy sound to Lindy's cough and it's freaking me out. So, we are going to stay in as much as possible and enjoy all this fabulous snow that we've been getting.

First Dance Performance
Miles and Gwen's dance group had their first official performance at the Festival of Trees the first week in December. It was completely magical to watch them. Neither were nervous even a little bit and both of them seemed to know the steps better than anyone in their class. (To be fair though, I was mostly just watching them :) I forgot my camera, but did remember the video camera. About 2 seconds into Gwen's performance, it died. I was so sad! Luckily other mom's shared their pictures.



Home-school Christmas Party
We hosted our home-school group's Christmas party. It was really low key, just pot luck soups, salads and bread sticks and lots of talking. The kids ran around and played with each other, but eventually we called them together to perform on the chimes. :) Mom Garner bought a set of chimes for the kids to use and we practiced a few Christmas songs. Far from perfect ;) but a really enjoyable experience for all.



Laundry Bomb
It must be December. Along with everything that comes in December, you still have to keep up with all the regular stuff. "Keep up" is a loose term, obviously, as shown here.


Miles Meditates
I walked into the family room on Sunday and found Miles like this. Cracked me up.


Play Date
We had one of Miles's favorite friends over the other day. They were busy down stairs for a long while, but eventually came up holding a box of cake mix and declared, "We're going to make cupcakes now." We went with it and ended up with some really colorful Christmas cupcakes to share with neighbors.


Ward Christmas Breakfast
Always an event to look forward to. This time Richie was busy washing windows up in Park City, so we missed him, but it's always good to get together with the awesome people in our ward.


Temple Square
It was a Christmas miracle for sure. I actually convinced Richie to take us to temple square to see the lights! He had been washing windows all day and was cold and tired. However, we had an errand to run all the way up in SLC, so I suggested that we might as well see the lights while we were up there. He was such a good sport, especially with the mass amount of people. :) We had no major meltdowns from the kids, no kids got lost in the crowd, no kid peed their pants....it was a total success!


More Window Painting
Here's a few more pictures of a few more jobs I got either in late November or early December. It's nice to earn some extra cash doing something so fun. On one particular job, it was so cold outside. I was frozen by the time I was done. When I got home, Richie practically pushed me on the couch with a blanket, brought me dinner, hot chocolate and then rubbed my feet while we talked. What a guy, right?


First Big Snow
We woke up this past Monday to a winter wonderland! It was completely magical. There wasn't even a flake in the sky on Sunday night, but on Monday morning it covered everything outside. It's like one of my favorite Sam Payne songs says, "It's like the world noticed, just how much you need a break. So it dropped a load of icing and invited you for cake." :) It made for some dicey roads, but the kids and I had a blast outside in it. I convinced Richie to come home early to avoid rush hour on the icy roads, and then he took the kids outside again and built an igloo. Then he came inside and made a fire while I made some "chicken" noodle soup, this time completely pellet free! Ha! Oh, and it was delicious. Good memories made. A near perfect day.