We Did ALL THE THINGS in December

You know those blurry few weeks before Christmas that just seem to speed by? As if we don't know when Dec. 25 comes along and yet we're shocked at how fast Christmas came, right?

One of the things that I absolutely love about my community (even though the list of dislike is pretty darn sizable), is the fact that there's always something to do. There's never a week between November and December where nothing is going on.

Those blurry weeks included all kinds of activities, new experiences -- accustomed ones too -- and most likely always in GO mode.

We rang in the new month with an Open House to our local police station. The brand new station was SO needed in our community, one of the Detectives was incredibly nice and showed us around the place. Even into the small cells they have and an interrogation room! The boys saw the drones they use and tried on their equipment. They were fascinated. I was fascinated by how amazing their sausage on a stick was. Whoever grilled those, they were delicious.

The yearly Christmas show at our church is always fun. We didn't know it before, but I finally found out that if you show up to the last show, you'll get a better seat than when you show up to the earlier showings. This year, they had a cranky old neighbor who refused to decorate his house. It was kinda funny, and the songs are ALL good. Worthwhile message too ;)

We attended another open house in our community. This time at the Improvement District for the county. They have free supper for us, so we go. Andrew ate all the shrimp #sorrynotsorry

And we take a stroll out to their light display. That night was very chilly and windy. Jonah and Gary forgot to take jackets!

There was a tour of Bethlehem at a nearby town and I convinced everyone to join me. It was actually a very nice, low-key, production! They had a real live camel, a real live Baby Jesus (although not the original) and a whole town-full of commerce from 0 A.D. and a whole spread of food from back in that time.

I ate 2 servings of olives because yum. They had dried fruit, unleavened bread, honey, almond cookies, and many other things I don't remember. I am starting to sense a pattern where I'll go basically wherever they give me free food.

The kids made bracelets, watched candles being made AND made their own with beeswax, they cracked nuts (Andrew's favorite) and got a little sack full of rocks to play tic-tac-toe with (2 colors of stones). Jonah loved feeding the camel and I enjoyed the food of course. Gary was just there for support. This kind of thing, well he just tolerates it.

Somehow we managed to put up all the Christmas decorations, and make custom cut snowflakes that we dipped into food coloring. I don't know why...snowflakes are white.

But Elena sure had a blast changing her mind which one was her favorite after she made me cut them all. She's actually a pretty good snowflake pattern maker!

We also found time one late Sunday, to attend a church service at a new church called Hosanna Woodlands in Conroe, because I heard that Marcos Witt would be there. His son-in-law and his own daughter are the church leaders.

I didn't think he would be so nice, but he was. He was an angel and let us take a picture with him!

Our own church finally had a thing! Yes, a family thing! They do not put out family events after service very often, but I guess they decided December needed one because why not just cram ALL OF THE EVENTS into December?!

The kids had a .5 second blast going down the ice slide in 80 degree weather. Not worth the line, by the way, in my opinion, but I guess the kids liked it. I wanna know when all these community events will start having grown-up rides for all of us cranky and old and out-of-patience parents?

Andrew and Jonah went down like 500 times. How?

There was a Christmas party at our local skating rink and lucky Jonah won the raffle drawing with the most massive MnM's ever! (just so you know, it's 18 individual packaged MnM's.....) Gary couldn't hang with his wife, the-skater-with-the-biggest-butt-but-can-still-out-skate-you, so he rested a lot. That was a fun night. The kids beg to go back.

Oh, look. Food again. We obviously celebrated the brand new restaurant that we have been waiting for our whole lives to open near us -- Buffalo Wild Wings. Pretty rad.

We OBVIOUSLY found time to craft Christmas houses out of foam craft. Because, why not? We just added it to our collection. It was very trying times, patience trying times to say the least. Everyone's happy when it's over.

The kids got to write letters to Santa, send them to the North Pole, and get responses back from the jolly fella himself!

Oh, and because when we do December and all the things, we also did Gingerbread houses. I know, we're all mad here.

This year, Andrew learned how to wrap presents. He wrapped all of our portraits that hang on the walls. He did a wonderful job. Even begged to buy ribbon and bows to finish the look. Our little tree looked so good this year. It always looks good :)