Scenes from our December

December was so fun and festive and busy! Here's a look at some of our month up until Christmas Eve:

1. Once the tree was up and stocked with candy canes ready for snitching, Lily seemed to make it her personal mission to empty the tree as fast as humanly possible. I caught her hiding in a corner with a snitched candy canes a couple of times a day. This was a particularly awesome incident where, in her efforts to hide, she came around the couch towards me (when she was more hidden to start - just by the tree) and hid under an end table right next to me. Hehe. 

2. One Saturday morning in early December, we decided on the spur of the moment to finally tackle the last of the organizing/box unpacking/future garage sale pile sorting project waiting in the garage. This turned into an impromptu garage sale when passers-by saw our various piles out on the driveway. It was awesome. I felt sort of white trash and kept hearing quotes from this StrongBad episode in my head all day. :) But it all worked out well - we made like $14 and got our garage cleaned out and our future garage sale pile finalized.

I think it's awesome that we were out in flip flops sorting through our garage on a December morning. And also awesome that people here in Arizona can garage sale year round. Winter (well, more like what everyone else would say is like the end of fall, but we're calling it winter) FINALLY came about the second week of December. And what a blessed, wonderful relief/tender mercy it has been! I have really struggled with Arizona for the last eight months (you probably hadn't noticed....). When I was sweating in my t-shirt on Thanksgiving Day, I officially gave up hope and felt like I would never feel cold again. And then, Arizona got the memo that Christmas was a few weeks away and our lows got into the 30's, it became too cold for the cockroaches and red ants (for the most part), and we busted out the pants and coats and fuzzy warm pajamas and socks. And it started feeling downright festive. I literally thank the Lord for the December weather at least once a day. It has made a huge difference. And Arizona and I have struck a sort of truce for a few months, at least. December has been huge to me.


3. Food!! Appropriately, it has been a month of fantastic food. I didn't realize just how big a part it played until I was sorting through my pictures from the month and came across a lot of food shots. :)

Smoothies(!!), the best vegetarian black bean taquitos ever, and Arepas courtesy of the Harina Pan Eric brought back with him from a quick trip to Utah (it is really hard to find here from some reason).

4. We had the special treat of getting to see lots of our family throughout the month. We got to host the Bain cousins two weekends in a row, while their parents did the Christmas work party gig a few times in Phoenix. Our little ladies were thrilled to have some of their favorite playmates over! One of the weekends the Bain kids were here, we tackled our annual Spritz cookie decorating. Which was an excellent idea because it meant four extra decorators!

Ready and waiting

Hard at work

They were all very polite, patient little sharers. :)

Oh, the carnage...

Finished!

Pancakes and cousins - Elena couldn't ask for anything more.

5. December brought us our very own pizza delivery man, as well.

Eric started his long-awaited part time job last month. He is Eric Hoffman, Structural Engineer by day and Eric Hoffman, The Best Domino's Delivery Guy Ever by night. :) Basically he is hard core. And amazing. He works so very, very, very hard for our family. I'm so proud of him (and all of us, for that matter - it's no picnic being apart so much and being the only parent at home ALL day for 5.5 out of 7 days a week :)). Together we are going to vanquish all of our nasty medical bills and get our lives back! We also can now understand why Dave Ramsey tells people to go get a second job selling pizzas to help pay off their debt. If people are tipping generously, you can make decent money for just a dinky part time job that doesn't require a degree. It's an adventure! But it makes us feel good to know we are working hard and doing it the right way.

6. The girls and I enjoyed many holiday traditions and a few hi-jinks around the house. Both of the girls developed an abiding love for the movie, White Christmas, and requested to watch it over and over again (sniff, sniff... I'm so proud!). We wrapped many presents together and they both kept their present to Eric a secret all month! (There was a few times, I wasn't sure if we'd make it.) One day, they made their own snowstorm out of packing peanuts from a package we received. (And I spent the next two weeks cleaning up styrofoam bits. :))

And several times, I looked over while cooking dinner to see the girls going through their presents. Makes me grin like a kid every time. :) Christmas was more magical than ever this year - kids are so much fun at Christmas!

Such a glorious month that lead up to Christmas! We are so blessed.