December

December was so crazy I didn't have time to post much. So, here is my summary of the month of December:

Went to the Festival of Lights at the Forestry Farm, which I always love.  Don't love that my PHD won't stop the car so I can take a nice picture because he doesn't want to hold up the people behind us. See what I mean:

I think he actually sped up for the last one.

We saw Santa!  We even caught him on video this year, at our friends', Maryann and David, acreage.  When I watched the video back, I noticed that while the kids are jumping up and down, screaming, "Santa, Santa!" and I was yelling, "I want diamonds, Santa!", Boy 2 accidentally twisted the handle off one of Maryann's drawers and was surreptitiously trying to screw it back on before anyone noticed. Right in front of Santa.  Poor kid was probably stressed right out!  Boy 1 enjoyed the party by doing this all night:

Rock on!!

We went to the kids' annual school Christmas concert, which I also love. The principal dressed up as Santa  and sang a cute song with the Kindergartners then forgot to take the wireless mike off when he was backstage.  You could hear, "Ho, Ho, Ho!  Awesome!"  while the hand bell choir was trying to impress the crowd.  It made me imagine what would happen if I forgot I had a mike on and wore it all day. It would be like that Jim Carey movie the Truman Show.  But even more embarrassing with bad parenting examples sprinkled throughout.  Not "Awesome!".

I had two weeks off at Christmas to coincide with the boys' school vacation.  They spent the first day saying, "I'm bored" and punching each other until I said, "The next person that says "I'm bored" gets a ten minute timeout."   It actually worked.  They started finding interesting ways to amuse themselves.  For example, they decided their beds were waaaay too uncomfortable and that a sleepover in the furnace room would be great fun.  I thought the cold cement floor might be more uncomfortable than their beds but I guess that's why moms don't know anything. Here's another example of something Boy 2 did to amuse himself:

I am not sure how to describe that.

Meanwhile, I ran around like a crazy person.  My "to-do" list for the month was three pages long.  Here's PHD's list:

He was probably overwhelmed, too.  To be fair, he did complete everything on his list.

We ate out twice in one week, which is unusual for us.  Can you guess where we ate?

I made cute little paper quilled gift tags:

Most of them ended up in the giant pile of ripped up wrapping paper. Don't tell anyone but I pulled them all out again and I will " re-purpose" them next year! 

I also made lots of jewelry for gifts then a bunch for myself because I felt left out.

Boy 2 helped model for me:

Boy 2 also helped me wrap presents.  The haircut seems incongruous with present wrapping but it is cute!

I spent lots of time trying to get the boys the most perfect presents then took them all away when Boy 2 got himself into baaad trouble. I overheard Boy 1 telling him, "You better pull it together, tomorrow is Christmas Eve!"

They did end up receiving presents, these were their favorites:

My family came over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  It seems the tradition has become to bring our body weights in food and presents to the festivities. So, now I am on a diet, again.  Starting tomorrow.  Or the next day...

Happy New Year everyone!  May 2011 be filled with great health, wealth and joy!!