As always, December was a busy month, but as I was still dealing with the worst of my morning sickness, it wasn't as busy as it could have been. And bear with me because none of these photos are great. To be completely honest, as much as I wanted to continue to document life, I didn't put any effort into pulling out my big camera and I didn't even attempt to put energy into getting good cell phone photos. Sad, but true.
The month started with a day warm enough that Beebs was able to break out the little paddle pool for one final swim. And her dollies joined her. I think that overall our winter was extremely mild this year. We had a cold spell, but it was short lived, which is scary. It means this could be a killer hot summer.
I taught Sunshine to play one of my favourite games from growing up- Pass the Pig. She is almost always our score keeper which is really helping her to fine tune her addition skills.
Sunshine participated in a children's choir that a member of our stake put together. It was fantastic. She had several rehearsals followed by a few different performances at various senior centers and nursing homes. She had such a great time participating and we really hope that the sister from our stake will do this again in the future.
We studied the letter J in preschool and made these cute little jellyfish. I don't know why, but they are probably my favourite preschool project of the year. The kids absolutely loved making them and one of my little boys from class even showed up at church with his! Beebs still has hers on a shelf in her room. She loves it.
Bruce and I hosted an ugly sweater party for our trek kids. It was so much fun! Almost everyone was able to make it and it was so good to see everyone and catch up on their lives. We seriously had the best trek kids in the world. I still think about them all often and I love it when I happen to run into them while out and about. I always get the biggest hugs and a "Hi Ma!!" with a huge smile. I don't think I've ever blogged about trek... mainly because it's just too hard to even put into words. I'll have to figure out how to remedy that and at least put a few thoughts down eventually. It was an awesome experience and I'm grateful Bruce and I were able to be a part of it. Especially since it means I now get to call this great group "mine".
One of my favourite Christmas traditions is to take the girls to a Christmas show. Well, this Christmas I was far too sick to even think about getting us tickets to something until it was too late. Bruce to the rescue! He found us a free flute performance on the temple grounds and he and Man Cub accompanied us so I would be able to rest on the way there and back. We were able to cross a lot of things off our Christmas festivities list that night... not only did we attend the show at the temple, we were able to visit Santa at Bass Pro shop on the way, grab a bite to eat and enjoy the lights at the temple. It was a good night but it absolutely wore me out.
While waiting to meet Santa at Bass Pro Shop, Man Cub spent a good 30 minutes watching the train set go round and round. The boy has never sat so still for so long in his life. He was absolutely mesmerized.
Sunshine, being the great friend she is, told all her friends at school that she was going to meet Santa and asked if they had requests. She brought a packet of about ten Santa letters from her various friends to deliver to the man in red.
Man Cub wasn't quite sure about being held by a complete stranger, but no tears!
While at the Mesa Temple, Beebs and Sunshine took the opportunity to touch the Mesa Temple. We've been there dozens of times, but this was our first trip over there since starting our "Touch the Temple" challenge, so we had to get a picture.
And speaking of "Touch the Temple", that was a big theme for us in Primary last year, so when it came time to think about Christmas gifts for the Primary children, I reached out to a woman in our ward who was able to make these beautiful Christmas ornaments for each of the children and teachers in our ward. I love, love, love how they turned out and I hope that each year as the children pull them out and hang them on the tree, they will remember just how exciting it was to get our very own temple in 2014.
At our ward Christmas party, I was in charge of Santa. We had a few minutes alone with him before the program portion of the party ended and the kids came out to greet him, but Man Cub wanted nothing to do with Santa. He plopped himself down on the floor just close enough to Santa and Mrs Claus to snag a candy cane, then proclaimed "No Tanta meet!". It was about the cutest thing ever.
Sunshine exchanged Christmas gifts with my best friend KJ's son. Shockingly (wink, wink) they each got the other a scripture journal to help them as they prepared for baptism. Sunshine LOVES hers.
Sunshine also loves her swim team parka. It was a must have for about two months of swim practice, when getting out of the pool was super chilly. Luckily, it's a big parka and she'll get several years of use out of it... but only for a few months each year. Ü
Just a couple more December related posts and then I'll finally at least be blogging in the current year! Slowly but surely... I'm catching up.
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