Happy New Year!

Welcome, 2015!  I feel like I can finally come up for air.  Last year was a first for our family: we were sick at both Thanksgiving and Christmas!  The stomach bug hit us in November and was quickly followed by the cough/throat/sinus thing in December.  In between miseries, though, we celebrated in as many ways as we could and still had a fun holiday.

The Christmas tree was decorated in record time with my hard-working helpers!  I didn't even get [too] uptight about three-fourths of the ornaments being placed on the same five branches.  Well, I may have moved a few around after the helpers went to bed.  I'm only human.

Thanks to a wonderful friend, we received a copy of the Jesse Tree advent devotional and a set of ornaments to go with it.  We loved reading a passage together as a family each night and then taking turns hanging up an ornament to represent what we'd read about.  

One of the best things about being a mom is sharing what I love with my own kids and watching them get excited about it too.  In our family, this includes reading and baking: two activities we did in abundance in December. While I don't always enjoy having three four-year-olds in the kitchen with me, I appreciate their enthusiasm...and I know I'll like it a lot more in the near future when it's actually helpful.  Despite the mess and the chaos, though, making Christmas treats with my daughters was a sweet delight!

I could not be more excited that my girls love books as much as I did (and still do).  Every year we add a few to our growing Christmas collection, and then keep them out only for the month of December. This year, because it was cold and rainy and we were all sick, we kicked off the season with a Christmas book hunt (think Easter eggs, but with books).  I schlepped the holiday books down from the attic, hid them all over the house for the girls to find, and then we basically curled up and read for the rest of the day.  So fun!  And as an added bonus, they kept themselves busy the next few days hiding them for each other all over again.  I think it might become an annual tradition.  

After a lazy and laid back Christmas day at home, we loaded up the dent mobile for a trip to - and then across - the great state of Virginia.  Minus the actual time in the car, which was a lot, and still makes my bones ache to think about, we had a fun and relaxing visit with family on both sides of VA.  We even took on ice skating!  Think cold, sore bottoms and you'll have a pretty good idea of how that went.

As she does with most things, Maddie insisted on going against the flow:

Happy New Year!