It's easier to get behind on blogging this time of year. Easier to get caught up in the activities and easier to forget to document them. That's not necessarily a bad thing. But in reality I want to remember this stuff too. So I'll do my best to catch up with pictures I do have.
Today Mark is gone working on a 12 page final paper. We had a late night last night with our staff Christmas party. Uber fun! So I've got the kids today. A little hungover from the excitement of yesterday. A tad whiny and a tad bored. I'm resisting putting on yet another Christmas movie until after quiet time. In the meantime they are asking what they can do.
Instead of letting them run free I've tried to create things for them to do. I started with toilet cleaning but Kate was the only one to take me up on that....I moved on to salt dough ornaments (Pinterest to the rescue once again). So I got all excited and starting making the dough. I asked for help but Kate and Jack ran to get paint even though I told them it would be a while till they could
No matter. They got into painting paper while I made, rolled and cut salt dough. I had a blast cutting out ornaments (Kale wasn't all that interested either). Kate and Jack didn't even pause to participate.
Kale painted mistletoe.
After I got the ornaments in the oven to bake I said "let's wrap presents!" Chirp chirp. That's the crickets chirping. So I wrapped presents and they watched and fought each other with wrapping paper rolls.
Then came time to decorate the ornaments. Again, I had a blast by myself. You really can't say I didn't try!
BUT! They did go into the boys room and create this year's nativity scenes. Which I love! And if they don't want to do activities with me then they can have fun together :)
Here is Kate's: Mary, Joseph, Jesus lying down in the tunnel, the donkey, the white Legos are sheep and the sword is the star. Love it!
And Kale's: the shepherds are wielding guns (clone troopers), as are the wise men (storm troopers), the droids on the roof are the host of angels, and Mary, Joseph and Jesus are inside. Again, I love his creativity.
And now for a bunch of other random phone-dump pictures to catch you up on this month.
Our visitor the other morning. Mishka was going nuts! 
We watched this movie. It's one of my all-time favorites. Such a wonderful portrayal of the whole Christmas story. Makes me cry every time.
Mark has been spending a lot of time at the office finishing up his two classes. We've spent a lot of time doing this. Like his beard?!
The kids and I have been finishing up school and baking. Lots of baking. It helps to keep us all sane. Here we are doing gingerbread cookies. They were yummy! We tried homemade marshmallows but I wasn't impressed. At all.
The finished product looks like flowers but they're snowflakes.
Been wrestling a little...
Sent out our staff Christmas card. We're nerds :)
But the nice ones are beautiful.
Silly us.
We took a family day and went to see Frozen. Loved it! We also did a little Christmas shopping. The kids bought for each other. They'd been begging me for weeks!
I'd love to say this was a beautiful, special wonderful day. But I'd be lying. It was fun. There were wonderful moments but I did find myself at one time thinking "we've got one day people! Have fun darn it!" Nice huh? :)
We've done a little sledding with friends. So thankful for Violet to share her sled with Jack. They were hilarious to watch.
And this picture is too cute to not share over and over. His expression says to me "look mom! They have me a big stick!!"
And there you have it. December in one post!
