Welcome to DECEMBER!

I've been absent - have you noticed? No? Well, that's ok... I didn't expect you to hang around and wait on me to post something that wasn't important to you! But I'm here today - so if you feel like sticking around and reading then I'm happy to host you!

This has been the scene around here for the past few days. In about 9 days our little neck of the woods accumulated 26" of snow!! The kids thought it was amazing... I thought it was just cold! This weather has, however, forced me into doing some things that I'd been putting off - like organizing my cabinets or straightening the basement! I even got my Christmas stuff out BEFORE December 1st - which is a first!

Last year I introduced 2 new things to our Holiday traditions. I didn't know if they'd take or not - but it was worth a shot. One was BOOKS! I gathered up all of the Christmas stories that I could - one for each day of December until Christmas and I wrapped them and placed them in a basket. Then each night we'd get one book to unwrap and we'd read it together as a family. When the books were gone then it would be Christmas. I figured the kids liked this last year but I wasn't sure if they liked it enough to continue it. Then on Monday, M came home from school and asked me if I'd already gotten all the Christmas books together to wrap because if not, she was ready to look for them! So... this tradition will continue and we'll start reading our books tonight!

Another project that I introduced last year was this service board. There is a family service project on it for each day of December until Christmas. The magnets have numbers on them - so again, another countdown. We turn a card over each morning and then perform the service that is on it that day. I thought the kids really liked this last year and it was a GREAT way to help keep our focus about this season where it should be - on family and Christ. I was super excited to put the board up again and I was keeping my fingers crossed that there was no grumbling. I thumbed through the projects that we did last year and decided on 5 that needed to be replaced with something different. One of the ideas that I replaced was "walk your neighbor's dog". I didn't feel like this was something that L could be involved in and I wanted the projects to be something that even he could do - so this little activity got the boot! When the kids got home from school on Monday and saw that I had the board up and ready for today N looked at me and said "Oh, I loved the service board! Do you wanna know what my favorite project was? It was walking our neighbor's dog... oh, I hope we get to do that again!" UGH... that was a killer... good thing I have one up there on picking your own special project so that he can still go walk the dog!!

So that's it... Welcome to December! It's a crazy month, but hopefully one that's full of fun memories and family and friends. I have only 1 wedding cake to do this month and Tim gets to deliver it because I will be out of town... in Baltimore/D.C! (no, it's not going to be all fun... I'm going on a job with my dad and sisters - so there will be some work involved!) But aside from that... let the wrapping of presents and the baking of goodies begin!!