December

December was a great month! Tommy traveled to Geneva for a week, but other than that we were home and enjoyed so much time together. It has been unusually warm and I have loved it! We have spent a lot of time outside for December. :)

Us and the Guffey's were in charge of our ward's Christmas dinner this year. They assigned several families to help us. Tommy and the Keister's organized the activities and the Pahulu's and I did the food. It was a lot of work and I didn't get to talk to many people at the party since I was busy the whole time (and it was super hard that we had small children to tend to during it), but it was very successful and turned out good. We had a huge turnout and our gym was packed to capacity.

Bradley had his preschool Christmas program and party. Both were so so cute. Bradley is a very outgoing kid, but often gets shy about performing. I wasn't sure how he would do at the program, but he sang every song very energetically. Other moms told me the next day how much they loved watching him and how cute he was. He got really into it. I have loved watching his development in school and I love how much he loves it.

We did an overnight staycation with the Stices downtown. Skylar had a couple of free hotel nights that were expiring at the end of the year but they hadn't had a chance to use them so they invited us to spend a night in Cincinnati. It was a lot of fun. We went out to eat, walked to Over the Rhine, watched the ice skaters at Fountain Square, and got Graeters. After we got the kids down we went to their hotel room and played games. The next morning we went to Findlay Market and then went home. Short, but fun.

We did all our typical Christmas activities like the zoo lights, Christmas walk at Neiderman farm, making toffee for friends, and singing Christmas carols every night. Christmas this year felt so magical. We loved having just our little family together and our boys are so much fun.

Christmas eve we went to the zoo in the morning. Our bishop had us and a few families over for dinner that night. I was hesitant to go because I had just wanted to do stuff as a family that night...but I'm so glad we went! They did it early enough to leave families enough time to do their own traditions at home and it was actually really nice. We had a good dinner, played a game with Christmas carols, acted out the nativity, and had a little spiritual message. It actually made the evening feel even more exciting.

And Christmas day was perfect. It took us almost 4 hours to open all the presents because we stopped and played with each thing as we opened it. So much fun!!!

This dog was easily Caleb's favorite gift. He loves it so much. He walks around carrying it around its neck like this and snuggles it so good at night.