On the 1st week of Christmas. . .

. . . December gave to me . . .

1 bridal shower

My girlfriend, Malorie, gotten engaged a month ago and we are all so excited for her upcoming wedding. Jill and I hosted her bridal shower and had so much fun doing it.

2 boys at Costco

Luke loves to spend as much time as possible with his best friends, Briggs and Asa. Brigg's mom had to spend a few days at the NICU with their new baby, so we were happy to have Briggs along for all errands. I finally picked up my Christmas cards. Hopefully they'll all get out soon!

3 days of gingerbread men

Ms. Becky always come up with the best holiday activities. Last week was G for gingerbread men. Luke begged me all week to make some gingerbread cookies, so I finally gave in. While I was making cookies I started on my cookies for the cookie exchange. I now have 7 dozen cookie balls in my freezer.

4 parties 

Including a birthday party for our favorite 2 year old, Lucy! Luke especially is a big fan. Ellie and her friend went to a birthday party where they were the only girls. GAH!

5 hours at the temple

 

I was able to take some names through initiatories for a girlfriend and then just a few days later I got to go through the Temple with this cute girl for her first time. I've been her Activity Days leader, her Primary President, her Sunday School teacher, her camp director, her Mia Maid advisor, and her Laurel advisor. It was hard enough sending her off to BYU. I'm not sure I'll survive her being on a mission for a year and a half.

6 families serving

 

My girlfriend hosted a Monday night where we all put together blessing bags. We had to have it at the church because with just our 6 families we had over 20 kids.  It was chaotic, but I love that my kids really got the message. Every time Nate prays, he asks that we will have an opportunity to give our bags away.

7 days of our Elf

 

The return of our elf, Buddy. I actually forgot all about him until I woke up at 5 am December 1st and checked instagram only to see 8 other elves whose mothers had not forgotten. I am so grateful to have Ellie's help this year. She is much more creative than I am and doesn't forget. I know some people hate the idea of elves, but we love ours. I don't threaten the children that hes watching and I don't go crazy with pinterest ideas. He's just a fun elf that moves around the house and sometimes brings something fun.

8  nutcracker ornaments

We have an advent calendar wreath made out of little boxes. Each box has a family activity for the day and every year we go Christmas ornament shopping. This year my children are obsessed with nutcrackers. For example, at the grocery store Luke did not ask for a toy or candy, he picked out a huge nutcracker. And then he said, "Nate is going to be so jealous." He was right. That nutcracker then became his best friend. They watch TV together. They eat lunch together. All the kids have tried to trade their nutcracker with him, but he resisted. In the end both Nate and Sadie picked out packs of mini-nutcrackers as their ornaments. Then they came home and played with all of them together.

9 ladies lunching

Breakfast with some of my girls. We all just finished our health challenge and planned a meal to pig out. Unfortunately for most of us, we signed up for a month of a boot camp where he makes us track our food.  Whomp whomp.

10 advent calendars

 
I absolutely love Advent calendars. I've always made sure that I have 4 to change (one for each kid), but this year I added a few more. There are now so many that we actually forget to change them all every day.

11 Christmas books read

 

I love Christmas books and movies, and nothing is more magical to me than reading/watching them by the Christmas tree.  Our very first night with the tree was watching Elf, my very favorite Christmas movie of all time.

12 degree dip in temperature

The temperature dipped into highs in the 50 which to Arizonans is like dipping into negative numbers. Running in the morning has been brutal, but it's been kind of fun to have a real reason to drag out coats and boots. Luke had been wanting to wear this vest for a looooong time. We even ended up at Bass Pro (my first time ever) and I though it was very fortuitous that Luke was dressed appropriately.