So December Just Kinda Flew By...

Well, Hello! 

Apparently, it's almost New Year's.  

So I hear.  

I feel pretty certain the entire past month was a complete blur.  

Complete.  Blur.

Could be because we were only home for half the month.  The other half we spent traveling and visiting and celebrating.  

The Chicago trip alone could be a post for each day plus one dedicated entirely to the redemption of Chicago.

Yes, yes, God can redeem an entire city.  

Of course, you knew that.

Then there's Pumpkin's Christmas program and Rhys' too.  Go ahead and sit on pins and needles over those posts.  They'll be full of SECOND VERSE, SAME AS THE FIRST.  

Sweet introvert.

And, of course, going to see Santa.  No Christmas is complete without climbing on speed boats at the Bass Pro Shop.

Then Christmas Eve and Santa and playing with the world's most adorable niece.  

So, for tonight, let's see if we can cover most of the general daily life stuff in those two weeks at home...

Rhys made crafts.  His first year at school and so, his first Christmas crafts.

And I CAN NOT stand how cute this is!  Rudolf Rhys!  

I'm totally hanging this at his rehearsal dinner.  

Rhys and I also spent a day at Paradise Pond.  He was in HEAVEN.  Please don't miss, he's surrounded by Super Heros.  AKA, His Happy Place.

And when I say "day," I am like 97% literal about that.  He insisted on taking Froggy into the church, put him in the cubby and then, yes, walked out without him.  He realized we'd left him about five minutes from our next destination.  So we turned around and drove the 25 minutes back to get him.

The staff was waiting on us.  They knew we would be back.

Because they are awesome.

We did manage to decorate for Christmas.  Since this was our first Christmas in the house, we got to figure out how to decorate with the stuff we had.  It was fun.  At least, I'm choosing to remember it as fun and forgetting the million times we had to tell the children, "CHILL OUT AND WAIT!'  

They were a little jazzed about the whole experience.

AK has been begging for a star to go on the top of the tree.  I usually just have a big red bow.  But she got the idea from somewhere (I'm looking at you, Library Books!) that Christmas trees needed a star on the top.  Chris and I both bought one.  

Mine was a blinged out sparkly one from Hobby Lobby.  Very AK.  All it lacked was the ability to twirl. 

Chris' was a techno-colored monstrosity he found at Home Depot.

Clearly, we have some work to do with the children in the "good taste" department.  

Because that thing is TACKEY.

But the overall decorative effect was...pleasant.  

That darn star is all up in my face.  So "good" just can't be.  Pleasant is acceptable.

AK spent the entire two weeks creating and decorating and coloring.  Along with singing and dancing and prancing.  She would go to bed at night and as soon as we closed the door after tucking her in, the singing would begin.  

Loud and clear for all to hear.

Bless her.

She is, mostly, just pure joy.  

Such a refreshing reminder that she did, in fact, return to her true nature after her Threenager years.  Basically, 2.5 to 5.  Gives me hope for Rhys.  Some day, he too, may return to his proper self. 

One can only hope and pray.

OH!  And we had a small group Christmas party.  We ate an obscene amount of calories and played Dirty Santa.  

Our contribution to the gifts was a framed and signed headshot of Chris.  It reads, "All my Love."

Again, I'm being literal here when I say we all laughed so hard I peed a little.  

We totally won Dirty Santa.

How cute are we?  One of the gifts was a Selfie Stick so clearly, we needed a selfie.

Clearly.

In one of the Chicago posts, I'll tell you how I learned more than I ever wanted to know about taking a selfie.  Mrs. JT, my traveling companion, is a PRO.FES.SION.AL selfie taker.  Heavens, I had no idea all the life lessons I was missing out on!

Fingers crossed I actually write another post this month!