Finally December

And we’re here for it! Rainbow Ellie Sparkles brought some fun advent calendars and hid with them under the couch till the girls found her. 

They are sharing a science project advent calendar. 

Cosmetic/hair advent calendar. 

And a shower steamer advent calendar. I’m most excited about the shower steamer one, I’ve been wanting to try one of those forever. 

We’ve drawn names for the great sibling gift exchange with 6 participants this year - jeanne and Damian joined, but Alexis bought everyone a gift so she bowed out. I had the girls write wish lists and this was part of Delaney’s. NOT vanilla bean Noel (because we already have that one). 

Frankie took for-ev-er and then when she finally gave me her list I saw why. She made a virtual presentation. 😂

See’s advent calendar deliciousness. 

And a puzzle advent calendar from aunt cami. I’ve never met an advent calendar I didn’t love. 🤷‍♀️

I took Delaney and Ellie to Alexis birthday party last night, which meant that it was just me and Frankie and Adi at home, so we watched 27 Dresses and ate popcorn and it was lovely and kind of strange. Our nest is sometimes very empty and it’s good and different. 

This morning I went for a foggy run and then Delaney had Nutcracker dress rehearsal. I read through all the nutcracker directions yesterday and swore today was a full hair and makeup run through, so here’s how Delaney looked. And thennnn, she and 2 other girls were the only ones in full makeup. 😂😂😂 better to be over prepared than under prepared, right?

While she danced I ran a few errands. I am so on top of this December gig, I’m feeling really good about this season. Today I got and put up more lights for the tree, put on the door draft protector (our front door is the worst), edited our family picture and ordered Christmas cards, made D’s candy bar bouquet for Nutcracker in 2 weeks, made up gift bags for my presidency and presidents, helped the girls buy their sibling gifts, and have been wrapping every present as it arrives. So many years Christmas stress gets the better of me, but not this year, anxiety. Not this year. 

Tonight we went to the DC branch Christmas party - they invited all the stake leaders as a last farewell and that was really sweet and good to see them. We only stayed for an hour because we had planned to go to the Christmas light boat parade at the National harbor anyway, and the stake center was on our way. We got to National Harbor and then, oopsie, I got the wrong location. The boat parade is really at the DC wharf. So I’m not really fully on top of December after all. 😂 But national harbor is beautiful and we made Delaney’s dreams come true when we let her climb all over the awakening guy. 

So now I’m blogging on a bench enjoying the ambiance while the girls play because we’ve got 2 hours of parking paid for. All’s well that ends well.