December flew by! In addition to the fashion show, we packed a bunch of other things in:
DIY snacks @ Girl Scouts:
Visiting Santa at the Mall:
Caroling with Girl Scouts at Senior housing in Massena. Stella missed out on this because she was invited to join Miss Sue and Bri on the Polar Express. It is very unusual for the girls to not be together, and this was a good opportunity for them to have some time apart.
With Stella out of town, Claire was invited over to the Austin's to make cookies. She came home with a Gingerbread House too!
Stella arrived home from the Polar Express very late but in the morning the girls had a happy reunion and Stella gave Claire some treats she brought back for her.
We celebrated Christmas parties at the VFW and with our AWANA friends.
This year for advent we bought the girls #OOTD LOL Doll calendars. This Outfit of the Day treat box came with a Jet Set Cutie LOL doll and each day the girls were surprised by a new item for her. I'll be the first to admit these are not our favorite toys for the girls and this was an indulgent gift, but we knew the girls would love them and this was a fun way to count down to Christmas.
Making holiday treats for classmates:
We were blessed with family guests this Christmas and while we didn't capture any pictures of the whole crew, it was definitely a real treat to have all the cousins gathered at Mom and Dad's for a day. Sadly, our sweet Claire Bear came down with the stomach flu and it began. The Christmas when everyone was sick. Grammie and Pa and the Perrin's came to our house on Christmas Eve and one by one each of us came down with the stomach flu. It was a rough week to say the least. Fortunately it was mostly just a 24-hour illness, and the girls were able to sneak in a little bit of fun together.
We decided not to go to the Christmas Eve Service because some of us were sick. It was sad to miss out but was a good decision because we were able to all be together, and we didn't share our germs with others!
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| Santa hung our stockings with care! |
With Christmas and sickness behind us, the girls and I ventured out to a Girl Scout Shut-In. This was a fun way to spend some time together during the Christmas break. Especially because the girls have two full weeks off from school! At the shut-in we did some dancing for the Dancer badge, decorated cookies, made rice sacks and the girls played lots and lots of games.
While we were at our sleepover, daddy went and found us some new wheels. We are so, so sad our Mini Cooper died. Ironically this happened when I was in Albany for a work meeting. Thankfully the Deshanes are so good to us and helped Randy out until I made it back into town. And then Papa let us borrow his truck for a week to give us a chance to make some decisions. In the end we purchased a pre-owned Jeep Compass we hope will last us a while longer than our Mini did.
December has been an absolute whirl-wind. We are looking forward to hopefully having a quieter January/February!
