December: catch-up

Ok, so I blinked and we've gone from Thanksgiving to now after Christmas. There has been a whirlwind of activity with our family and it seems I haven't made time to talk about it... what, with all the doing of it. I can't even begin to list all the happenings. Just the highlights, perhaps?

Earlier this month Elijah had several special events in his life...

1) He got to sing 3 Christmas songs with his Sunday School class in "big church". He was great! Especially the part where he spotted me in the crowd and shouted "Hey Mom! I just love John Deere tractors! Oh look... Grandma and Grandma! Hey Grandmas!" It was such a proud moment for me.

2) I was the party mom for his pre-K class Christmas party. Oh boy, what a time. We made picture frame crafts, ate Rudolph and frosty donuts, sang songs, and played a trivia game.
{here's Elijah in his classroom}

{and with some of his classmates}

3) He got to go to his very first concert. One of the big churches here in town does a huge Christmas production on a Friday night. We went on a "date" together - out to eat w/my parents and grandparents - he even opened the door for me, my little gentleman. The concert was beautiful. They had a full orchestra, children's choir, adult choir, soloists, duets, all sorts of other special music, and his favorite part - the organist. (why?) We really had a special time together that night.

4) His school Christmas program happened. It was a long ordeal for such young kids - over an hour. He was one of the shepherds in the nativity. His class did 5 or 6 songs I think. It was really cute. Again, he saw me in the crowd and shouted "Hey Mom, I love you! Are you going to take my picture or what!?"

5) He got a haircut.

6) He's been doing a lot of baking with my Mom, my Grandma and me. There must have been 50 dozen cookies - no joking. He's a wonderful helper too, very good in the kitchen.

I'm cutting a wisdom tooth. How stupid... and painful.

Zeke got a buzz haircut and now looks so grown up! He's really thinning out - tall and lean now in stead of my chubby round baby.

For most of December its been unseasonably warm here. So nice, in fact, that I haven't even gotten my heavy coat out yet. Elijah has been doing a lot of "putzing" around with my Dad at their house. You know, the usual. Firewood, feeding birds, raking stuff, fixing stuff, pushing wheelbarrows, burning brush piles, cleaning gutters and such.

Speaking of gutters... my 4-year-old normally very cautious son decided to climb a latter up to my parents' roof the other weekend. My dad was up there, but way on the other side of the house. When my mom discovered him he was straddling the ridge vent just hanging out by himself. It's a doggone good thing I wasn't there because a few words might have escaped my mouth that I would later have regretted.

I've taken these past few weeks off from photography (business-wise) and it's been so nice to focus more of my time on family. I had almost forgotten what it was like to have weekends free and not to edit until the wee hours of the night. But I'll be getting back into the swing of things soon. I have a newborn session this week - can't wait to get my hands on her!! I'm going to try to take off until late February with a few small exceptions.

Ragon (my foster-sister) got engaged to Chris last week. There aren't any plans for the wedding yet - I think they're saying sometime in 2013. He's a nice guy though and they are both over the moon, so that's the important thing.

I'll talk about Christmas Eve/Day later. That's a whole post in itself.