December summary

Wow, did this month fly by. But, December always seems to do that. I think I should do a recap of all that this month had to offer. Luckily for you, it includes photos and lots of them.

OK, lets start with the week after the first snow. My sister was visiting and we thankfully got a lot of snow while she was here. Not only snow, but lots of ice as well. I guess you could have called it an ice storm, but it wasn't too bad. This was another first for me. I have never seen one up close. Now, you are probably wondering where the photos of Noelle playing in the snow with the boys are. Well, sorry, but the photographer was inside her cozy home with the baby (a good excuse not to have to brave the freezing temps!). Besides, Noelle was borrowing my snow boots. I did manage to sneak outside for a bit to take photos by myself. I had to come in after about 10 minutes because I could no longer feel my fingers or my chin (silly me had not put on a hat or gloves). After thawing, I made another jaunt outside (this time with said hat and gloves) and got some amazing shots just around our apartment building.

This is the window in David and Luke's room. That icicle made it almost all the way to the bottom of the window in the next day or two.




This is my favorite shot. That's ice. Pretty cool!

We celebrated Christmas present opening at out house on the Saturday before Christmas day. The kids went to bed the night before and then Mark and I placed all the pretty packages under our tree.



When everyone was awake, they tore into the gifts. They had so much fun. Especially Hannah. She would give a loud "Ohhhhh" everytime a gift was presented or opened. She got 2 purses, a shape sorting box and a baby glow worm. The boys cleaned up on the Lightning McQueen stuff, thanks to Grandma! We spent the entire day playing together and enjoying our warm home.

The next day we went up to Fort Wayne to spend Christmas with Mark's family. Everyone gathered at Mary Jane and Jeff's house for food, presents and the Christmas story. We had 26 people together that day.

Hannah is enjoying a story on Aunt Jeanne's lap.


Here she is after the present mele´. I guess opening presents is hard work.


It's a tradition every year that Mark's dad read the Christmas story from the bible while the children act out the story using the plastic nativity characters. It goes all the way back when Mark and his sisters were little. In fact, this nativity set was the very set that was used when they were kids. His dad even built the stable.


When the part was read about the angel from heaven coming down to earth to tell the shepherds about the baby Jesus, Emma and Luke spontaneously started making snow angels on the fireplace hearth. Not sure which one initiated this, but it was very cute and got a lot of laughs out of the adults.

We then spent the remainder of the week at Mark's parent's house. They are the most gracious people. They put up with our "stuff" for 5 days. We spent most of our days playing and lounging around. We really didn't go anywhere. It snowed a bit 2 of the days and the boys got to go sledding. I actually read a whole book! Mark's grandmother was with us the whole week too and she just delighted in the kids. Everything Hannah did made her smile. We celebrated her 94th birthday while she was here (Jan 2 is the date). She is one amazing lady!


This week also marked 2 milestones for our family. David lost his first and second tooth. They both came out on Christmas day within minutes of each other (with a little pulling). David was so thrilled and excited! He got 2 dollars under his pillow the next day.

You can even see the new tooth growing in behind where his old tooth was. The other one has broken through as well.

The second milestone being that Hannah started sleeping all night while we were visiting! 14 1/2 months of night waking. I can finally sleep all night! Woo Hoo!

I'll leave you with a photo of David's snowdeer.

That's probably the best snowdeer I've ever seen!

Finally, a winter wonderland!

It snowed! We woke up Wednesday morning and the world was covered in a quiet, white blanket. We got about 4 inches. We usually go to school after lunch, but that day was David's big field trip to the dinosaur exhibit at the children's museum. So, I had to get all the kids out the door by 7:45 am (we didn't quite make our target time), drive through the snowy streets of Indianapolis, drop David off at 8:30 am and then drive home. That was my first introduction to snow driving. First, the windshield wiper fluid froze on my windshield. It took a few minutes of panic and me squinting out the tiny area that was clear before I realized I needed to warm up the windshield with the defrost button. Problem number one solved. The streets were not too bad, but I went a lot slower than usual. Once I got to the school I pulled into the drive and started making the slow, curvy drive to the front door. Immediately my back wheels started to slide to the right. I panicked again and turned the wheel to the right. My wheels then started to slide left. I pulled the wheel to the left and miraculously I was able to straighten out the car without careening into one of the ponds on each side of the road. Whew! Heart was beating kinda fast at that point, but I successfully got David to school on time. The drive home was a lot less stressful. Unfortunately I spent the next few hours worrying as David went on his first ever school bus trip to his first ever field trip without one of his parents or grandparents traveling along. Thankfully he had a great time and arrived back at the school safe and sound.

The kids then spent the next 3 hours, yes 3 hours, out in the snow. They had the best time! The sun had come out by then and it must have warmed up to 20 or 30 degrees! I took Hannah out for a few minutes so I could get some photos of the kids. She didn't mind being in the snow. She was quite curious. She was able to walk around some and play with the boys, until she fell face first into the snow and found out just how cold it was. I took her in after that. Her poor cheeks were bright red. We still have snow on the ground today and it's supposed to snow again tonight. Fortunately I don't have to go anywhere in the morning. Oh, and I didn't have to use my ice scraper either. Someone even came and shoveled and salted my walkway. That's one nice thing about living in an apartment complex! Good thing too since I haven't bought a snow shovel yet.

I'll leave you with a few shots of the kids playing. Just remember as you put on your shorts and flip flops (that's you Noelle) what we lack in warmth, we make up for in fun and beauty!