December Fun

The beginning of December was filled with performances, assemblies, and lots of Christmas fun!

At the beginning of the month, Kate had a gymnastics show week where the parents could come in and watch during their class. She loves gymnastics SO much. She asks to go everyday.

The next day, I got a call from Nathan's teacher that he was receiving an award that morning at an assembly. There are many, many days when I'm grateful to be a stay at home mom, but that day was definitely one of them. I'm so glad I have the flexibility to attend all their activities- especially the last minute ones!

Nathan received the character award for Integrity at the assembly. I'm so proud of him for that! I try to remind the kids often that their character,  kindness, work ethic and the way they reflect Jesus matters so much more than their academic performance.

We got to have a few fun play dates with Kamryn and Addisyn during the month too. These girls have the cutest little friendship. They're always dressing up and putting on shows when they play together.

The weather was pretty mild for a lot of the month, and we took advantage of pretty afternoons with playdates at the park.

I love my silly, adventurous girl!

Our good luck with staying well ended in early December, when my sweet baby was sick for several days with an ear infection, congestion, and fever. Bless her heart- it felt like she was never going to get over it. One afternoon I held her in the steamy bathroom while she slept to hopefully relieve some of her congestion. We were all ready for her to be back to her normal, spunky self.

For our Advent calendar this year, I tried to be more intentional in scheduling small Christmas activities that would be fun for the kids. A lot of days, they got a note to tell them where to look to find a piece of candy, but several days they read a note about an activity we'd do as a family. One day we went to Hobby Lobby and everyone picked out new wrapping paper.

And a couple of days they got to do a Christmas craft.

Santa came early for me this year! Matt surprised me with an awesome freezer for the garage. I'd been BEGGING for one for years, and I guess I finally wore him down :). I was so surprised and grateful!

I love Christmas dressed during December!

The kids made fun Christmas treats for one of their Advent activities.

This Cutie Pie is never left out at Karate. She's always imitating the exercises.

And she's also always posing by the Christmas tree.

One of our Christmas traditions is decorating gingerbread houses. The kids were excited to show off their creativity and consume way too much sugar.

Katherine was a BIG fan of this Christmas tradition, ha!

Oh, you know just taking the baby for an afternoon stroll :)

Elisabeth had her Winter dance performance in the middle of December. She loves to perform and did a great job.

Her sister is a performer too! She copied all the dance moves while the girls were dancing. She's so ready to sign up for dance classes!

The best part of dance performances is always the cookie party afterward.

The kids always make "reindeer food" as a part of their Christmas gifts for their teachers. We made a giant batch and shared them with their AWANA leaders too.

I love watching Katherine play. She's always so talkative and animated in her play.

For one of our Advent activities we made Santa pancakes for dinner.

Everyone was a big fan of dinner that night :)

Katherine had her very first preschool Christmas program right before Christma break.

That sweet little program has been a part of our Christmas celebrations for the last six years! It was strange only having a Little One in the program without another sibling to watch too. It's such a cute program.

She was a little distracted during the program, so she sang some of the songs for me later that afternoon







The kids' karate always has a fun Christmas party. The kids were excited to go! Santa even came, and the kids told him everything they wanted for Christmas.

Samuel told him he wanted Mario Maker 2.

Nathan told him he wanted a bike.

Elisabeth asked for a Magic Tears Unicorn Baby.

Katherine asked for a playhouse.

They ate snacks and ran around the gym for the rest of the night.

I never want to forget how cute this girl is when she gets up in the mornings with her bed head and arms full of stuffies.

December is definitely a busy month for us, but we treasure all the special activities it brings.