Christmas is past, December is almost over, gone by in what has become a typical blur for me. The kids love this time of year, I love/hate it. I hate the business and consumer-driven side of it, but love the traditions that the little ones look forward to every year - seeing the Nutcracker, A Christmas Carol, baking cookies, making ornaments and gifts, spending time with family, even listening to carols (WHOM was playing in our house on Thanksgiving Day this year, that was somewhat painful). I try to keep it simple, while including all these favorite things.
One thing I love is going into the forest to find a tree, but we didn't have time to make a trip to the White Mountains this year. As we were figuring out our options, Silas declared that he'd rather have no tree than pay for one (I really love that); luckily, we've got some relatives with a nice patch of woods nearby, so we found a lovely and free tree.
As always, there were some mishaps. Levi fell hard off his chair and onto the table and split open his eyebrow, but has healed up nicely.
On Christmas Eve, Arlo turned 9 months old. What a change we've seen in this little guy in the past month, he has grown three more teeth, become very adventurous, crawling off into dark bedrooms all alone and started pulling himself up to a standing position. His favorite spot seems to be right in front of the lego table, where he is sure to find the most chokeable items. He seems to have a least one heart-stopping (my heart that is) choking episode every day, I hope this changes soon!
I've noticed that Arlo doesn't seem to stop and smell the roses, as soon as he mastered the crawl, he went straight into standing. Are all babies that way?
Silas & Levi both love to wrap up presents, but they aren't so good at keeping those gifts a secret. Silas is slightly more subtle, he just draws a picture of what is inside, Levi goes ahead and spells it out for the recipient.
Our tree Christmas morning, including our new "Hinden-shark"; a 4ft long, helium-filled, remote controlled, air-swimming shark whos home is now anywhere in the upper half of our tiny home.
Can you guess what I got for Christmas? Both boys were jumping for joy as I opened my Ninjago Lego set.
Crazy, busy but good times. We hope your holidays were happy too!