December Fun

We have had a fairly non-hectic December compared to lots of other people.  Celebrating Christmas at Thanksgiving allowed me to get lots of things done before December, so we have been enjoying the festivities!  In fact, I realized the other day that there was in fact some things that I really needed to get done before Christmas that I had forgotten about, whoops!

Emmett had a basketball game and we have enjoyed watching his improvement.  After his game we went to the family Christmas party that Jim's work puts on.  We saw Santa, got gifts, had lunch and did some projects.  We saw quite a few of our friends from church there that work with Jim or have a relative that works there (it is a huge company).

First glimpse of Santa!

Santa didn't look too happy, and Elliott wasn't very happy about him either.

We also went to our daycare's Christmas party.  We all went on a horse-drawn carriage ride around the neighborhood, then went to see Santa.  Again, Elliott wasn't fond of Santa.  The teachers have a room decorating competition and there is a craft in each classroom as well.  We also had cookies and hot chocolate.

Elliott just moved to the Toddler room and was glad to show us around.

We trekked into the woods to get our Christmas tree and invited our children's pastor and his family to come along.  They also traditionally go chop a tree down, so it was fun to do it together.  We went to a slightly different spot than usual and had a challenging creek crossing and steep hill climb to get where we wanted to be.  The payoff was a great selection of trees, and I think we got a douglas fir this year.  Usually we get a sub-alpine fir, but our tree this year is more full and just about perfect.

We got our tree in the morning and stopped for hot chocolate on the way home.  We got to decorate the tree as a family and it's always fun to see the boys remember the ornaments.  The s'more snowmen set was a big hit this year.  Elliott has done remarkably well not pulling on the tree or messing with the ornaments much.  The tree did fall over once, but no one was down stairs so we are blaming the cat.  It is now tied to the walls.

The boy tolerated being dressed up for church...

...but Elliott wasn't feeling it for the picture

In our spare time we have played in the snow, gone to play dates at the community gym, made gingerbread and decorated a gingerbread house, listened to lots of Christmas music, and driven around looking at Christmas lights.  Jim has taken the boys down the street to sled at our "neighborhood hill" a few times and Elliott goes down all by himself.  Elliott had a few rough nights and I finally took him to the doctor and they diagnosed him with an ear infection.  So he is on antibiotics for the first time in his life, which seems kind of amazing to me.  Jim and I also swapped babysitting with some friends and went out a couple nights before our actual anniversary for a great dinner.

I did the frosting and Emmett put the candy on the house and Ezra did the tree and people