December

Now we have our December happenings, excluding Christmas and Tatum's birthday. Once again, in no particular order.

Brennan and I participated in and successfully completed my sister's "December project" which was to run a half mile outside every day except Sundays from December 1 until Christmas day. And the first day had to be in shorts and a tshirt. Here I am about to head out on the freezing cold first day.

We went to the Children's museum with friends. We love that place and miss it so much!

We headed to Mt. Vernon for their Christmas celebration, Magical Night. One of the rooms was decorated in Frozen garb. And boy do we love Frozen.

Riding a trolley like Daniel Tiger was the biggest treat of that night. Especially because grandma rode too.

We helped Grandma and Papa decorate their Christmas tree since we didn't get one this year. :(

We had a final play date with our dear friends Hayley, Kate and Millie. Tatum hasn't seen her in over a month and still mentions her at least once a day. I sure hope she can make some new little friends here.

We dressed up like a princess and conked out on mom's lap. Such an unheard of occurance which makes it sort of a treat for mom.

Tatum goes through spurts of just wanting to sit on the bathroom counter while I get ready and watch everything I do and ask me about it. She always wants to do all the same things I'm doing and here she is putting on some make up.

We got to have lots of fun with cardboard boxes. Moving is the worst.

We met a new friend, Ryker. So fun to see Jesse again after all these years and meeting her sweet little man.

More Children's museum fun. This girl loves any excuse to dress up as anything.

Amid all the moving chaos and stress we tried to still fit in some Christmas traditions and fun. We watched the Muppet Christmas Carol (my favorite) one night and had some hot chocolate.

Daniel Tiger helped us get through many a long packing day.

Declan was his usual destructive self, making packing even more of a joy.

We saw Santa few times. The first one is a picture of a picture from our visit at Von Maur. The second one is in Mt. Vernon. Mrs. Claus had already handed over traumatized Declan.

There was a real life camel at the live nativity in Mt. Vernon!

The creche display is always a favorite. It's fun to go hear my mom play her harp and then act out the nativity. My dad was nice enough to take the kids afterward so Brennan and I could go see the Hunger Games movie.

More fun with Jesse and the Lights and the Rices.

Brennan took this lovely picture the day before we officially got out of our house. We were all a little worn out I guess.

There was a house in town with a pretty impressive light display.

Our storage unit. Looks a little full. :)

Goodbye Deerfield house. It certainly treated us well but we were ready for something new. Such a blessing and a miracle that we got it sold before we left.

I absolutely love when these two play with each other and kind of act like they love each other. Makes me so darn happy.

We tried to get in as much fun with my really really really good friend Camille and her Collin before they left for Utah. We were gone by the time they got back. :( These two boys were just on the cusp of really being able to play together. So sad that we aren't there so they can be best little buds.

Camille is always so sweet to indulge Tatum and Tatum just eats it up.

Apparently he was hungry. Oh wait, he is always hungry.

We got to go to Collin's first birthday party! Everyone was a big fan of baby June who was also in attendance.

Look at those boys. Ahhhh, makes me sad!

I was so lucky to become friends with Camille this last year. She is seriously the best and we have so much fun together! Lucky for me she will still be living in Iowa when we get back!