Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! We had a delightful holiday this year. We got to host my mom and my niece Anna and it was just a lovely holiday. The kids glommed onto Anna like she was their favorite person in the world, which she was for the five days she was here. They are loving on my mom like crazy too. The gifts were loved. The kids had fun. We adults got to play not one but two nights of games. In fact, Bill and my mom are playing another game tonight while I do some work. I love this season. I'm glad to put away the decorations when it's over, but love it while it's here. And so, here's a million pictures from our last few days. 

Grandma is here

Grandma arrived on Saturday and we're having a great time and the rest of the season is looking lovely. I didn't take that many pictures this week, but here's a few. 

 I finished Genevieve's new bed this week. The drawers were really tweaky to install and the left one isn't perfect, but it's in and works and I'm happy with how it turned out.

 Her shoes of choice with her fancy dress? My hiking shoes. Lol.

Sleepy morning faces, but Chloe decided she needed to wear her pretty new dress on just a random day of the week.

It snowed!

 Bill and I went to a grad school end of semester party hosted at Clemson. It was semi formal. I don't really have any formal dresses anymore, but I did take the opportunity to actually do an updo with my hair. The actual event felt so much like a teenage church dance except with better dressed people, good food, and lots of beer. lol. We went with two other couple friends and we had lots of fun.

 Chloe got her current jacket wet in the snow and so I pulled out her next size jacket, which Genevieve wore and loved for like three years. It's a bit big, but she loves it! And we ran out of kid gloves that weren't wet, so we just pulled out the adult gloves and it was amusing.

 We legitimately got a bit of snow! A couple inches ended up falling and there were big, pretty snowflakes. It snowed for 24 hours. Pretty fun! And perfect timing. It ended Saturday morning and we didn't end up with no school for days and days.

 Jumping on the trampoline in the snow is fabulous.

 It was really coming down. It started as sleet and went to big, beautiful flakes. I haven't seen nice snow like that in five years.

 Just chilling by me while I work.

 Fish lips!

 Testing out her new bed. It's not hers yet, but will be very soon, come early January once my mom heads back home. She's coming for two and a half weeks and I'm so excited. 

 And then testing out Spencer's bed. Also a big hit.

 She actually managed to balance this recorder and was so proud of herself.

 A little fuzzy, but crazy face Chloe loving wearing a cape.

 Hey mom, take a picture!

We broke out the super warm gloves and Aaron wore them to church and all through sacrament meeting and Spencer played with them all night. Apparently happiness is wearing oversized gloves.

First week of December

 Two things about my tree make me laugh. One, there's fewer and fewer ornaments where Chloe can reach them because she's at that stage where she takes them all off the tree. She still puts everything in her mouth too, so I've re-glued several ornaments together already. Also, there isn't a strong center branch on the top so I had to just lean a lightweight star on the top, but it still looks topless. I still love it though.

 Aaron and Chloe playing the piano this morning.

 I had an extra piece of plywood and I really like these snowflakes I'm making, so I designed a new one and made it small. It still needs some glitter, but I love how it turned out.

 I went to Genevieve's class on the 1st and read a book and then helped the kids make these snowflakes. They loved them and I always feel like a celebrity when I go there. They're so cute. I even took Chloe and Aaron and they were universally loved.

And finally, a video of them making "beautiful" music together. :)

Thanksgiving Break

We actually took a break! We never do that! Bill took off the whole Thanksgiving vacation and it was lovely to just relax. We didn't do anything special. Stayed at home, went and got our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving, as per annual tradition that our kids made sure we kept, and just chilled out. It was lovely. Maybe we'll learn and do that more often and the normal life stresses will be easier. Probably wishful thinking but hey, I'm a dreamer.

 Genevieve thought it was Sunday on Saturday and she got up and put a pretty dress on. She kept it on most of the day and even did some kid yoga in it. 😊

 I finished my Santa paint-by-number just in time to add it to our Christmas decorations.

 The piano we got this year gives me a place to make a mantle of sorts!

 The Christmas tree doesn't really have a top, so our normal tree topper doesn't stand up on it. I got a star that I can rest in the branches. It's still a little funny looking, but I like our cute little tree this year. The star isn't in this picture, but I haven't gotten a new one with it in it.

 I still love this string art sign I did. And the cute little nativity my mom made years and years ago. I put it here so Chloe could play with it.

 Another spot for decorations that I didn't have last year. This was before I added the Santa.

 We had a great time cutting down our Christmas tree.

 Poor Genevieve. Turns out she was a bit sick and she was so tired walking around with us. She sat down in every bit of shade she could find.

 I made a sour cream crust this year and it was really good! I did a pumpkin pie and an apple crumble pie this year. Both were so tasty of course.