December Festivities

Our first Christmas in Arizona. We thought we knew what to expect and in most ways we were spot on: sunny days and no coats. Wonderful. But in some ways we were totally wrong. For example we used to think people were crazy for owning coats and having fireplaces in their homes, but more than once this December I have been grateful for a cozy fire. Arizona is really unlike anywhere I have ever been and its been fun to learn this new climate. 

 Every morning we woke up to 30-40 degree weather which made for cold runs and cold scooter rides. 

 But by after noon we were wearing this...

Taken December 5th

 Once the sun went down it would get chilly again and we would all huddle around bonfires and hot chocolate. Heres that part that I loved though. As cold as it got, it never got freezing and it never snowed. We were able to play outside ever day, carol at night without getting wet socks, didn't have to scrap car windows, and didn't have to shovel walks. It didn't take long for us to be sold on this Arizona winter. That being said here's my complaint.. We were told that we would have 70 degree winter days but this was Arizona's coldest and wettest December in 10 years. Instead of 70s we had most days in the 40s and 50s. Not freezing true, but not 70. Feel bad for us.

Here is the golf course one frosty morning. It was so beautiful.

Everyone in our neighborhood decorated their house putting our house to shame. People had music playing, lights synced to music, those blow out things, projectors and decorated cacti. I guess when its warm all the time, you have time to go all out with the lights.  I wish I would have remembered to take more pictures of our neighbors houses because they were magnificent. Not elegant at all, just completely awesome. Just for a taste, our neighbors, Roy and Phylisis played Celine Dion's  Christmas album all month long on repeat from 6pm-10pm. Is there a way to be more awesome? 

 Avondale had a Christmas kick off on Main Street. It resembled a carnival and what I liked about it was that they geared everything towards little kids. They had crafts, Santa, rides, carni booths, snow, and of course snow cones. What Christmas party is complete without snow cones.

 Like everywhere else, there was a Santa to meet at every party and on every corner, but we decided to go meet Santa at the Library. I initially went to kill some time, but we certainly picked the right day to go to the library. There was hot cocoa, story time, Frosty, the Grinch, crafts, cookies, and of course Santa. The best part was that Santa had time to talk to all the kids AND gave everyone a free book. It was so much for Kelsey. Madison not so much...

 In December we introduced Madison to the walker and she LOVED it. The second we showed her she knew what to do. She was sift at first but quickly learned how to get her self out of tight binds and situations. It is hilarious to watch her now. She is deadly with this thing. Get out of her way.

Kelsey and I went caroling with some ward members and then had doughnuts and hot cocoa at a park afterwards. Kelsey loved it. She is in the very front of the pack with the red bow. She wanted to knock and then would sing her heart out even if she didn't know the words. That girl loves her music.

December brings the manditory movie watching list: Elf, White Christmas,  Muppets, Rudolph, Home Alone, and Wonderful Life.

This actually happened because Edie accidentally locked them out so we had a movie day!

 Lots of books were read by the tree...

and many gifts were wrapped. 

 I think my favorite thing about December this year was that Kelsey could enjoy doing crafts with me. At first I thought I would be ambitious enough to do a craft a day but than things started happening so although that didn't happen we still did lots of fun things.

 I actually learned a lot crafting with Kels. She crafts to enjoy what she's doing. She doesn't expect anything to look a certain way and certainly doesn't expect herself to be perfect. She just sees a color and uses it or sees a jewel and knows that it belongs. Bigger is better and more is best. She was so happy when she was creating because she was creating to be happy. I had so much fun doing all these crafts. There was no right way, no too much, and definitely no messing up. It was really the highlight of my days.

Don't be fooled. Kelsey did not do a single one of these projects. She was actually napping when I did all these with Hannah. We just couldn't stop. It was so much fun. If only we had ribbon than they would look perfect (inside joke!)

We also did a couple of secret Santas and neighbor gifts. The neighbor gifts were a disaster (like tasted really bad)  but Kelsey had fun decorating them (so they looked really cute)

As the days passed and the Christmas festivities kept happening, it started to feel more and more like Christmas. We had a few cloudy and even rainy days which helped to bring the Christmas spirit and we soon learned that not having snow opened up the possibilities of activities. Its amazing what you can do when you don't always have to worry about how cold it will be.
December was different for sure, but I am completely convinced that a snowless warm Christmas is the way to go.

This was one of the first times that Madison stood up all by herself! YAY!

Side note sort of related.... when its not too hot and not too cold the golfers come by the truck load. Our collection is ever increasing. 

Sick

After my birthday, we had many Christmas related things lined to pass the time as we waited for Hannah to arrive. The first of them was a cookie party in the Bunns backyard. Well as luck would have it, the day of the party was the coldest day of the year. We knew it would be chilly but we live in Arizona so we didn't think it would be too bad.

The kids started decorating cookies and I noticed that Kelsey wasn't eating a single thing. She had a plate of cookies in front of her and nothing was going into her mouth? Very weird. I didn't think much of it and kept mingling in the kitchen. Occasionally Kelsey would come in the house and say she was cold or want to be held and I would stand her by the oven or tell her she just needed to run around. Let the record show that I am not proud of these moments. Finally after about 2 hours, Kelsey slowly comes walking into the kitchen where the moms were chatting with huge crocodile tears. "Mom. I'm just so cold. " I felt TERRIBLE! She was shaking all over and her hands were just ice. We gathered up our stuff, wrapped a sobbing Kelsey in blankets,  got the heater running and headed home. All the other moms were so kind to me saying it happens, but I felt so bad. Kelsey tried to tell me but I just wasn't listening. Once we were home, we got Kelsey in a warm bath, put on some nice warm clothes, covered her in blankets and let her watch a show. While she was watching a show, she fell asleep (which has never happened ever) and I knew something was off (yes is took me this long to realize something was off) Well the poor girl had a temperature of 102. She was so sweaty and so shaky and kept saying she was so cold. I just felt terrible.

See! She doesn't look sick!

The rest of the day was dedicated to Kelsey. The one advantage of having Kelsey sick was that I got to spend a lot of time with just Madison and once they were both asleep I got so much done!  It was actually really fun aside from the whole sick child thing.

Madison was not sick. This face was just too much though!

 So one thing I'm not proud of was taking Kelsey to the grocery store. I felt so bad because she was literally shaking and fell asleep in the cart, but we had NOTHING! I mean nothing. No eggs, crackers, cereal, bread, fruit, milk, veggies, nothing. I gave her medicine right before we went and it worked for a bit so she was talking and happy but then it started to wear off. It was just so sad.

Luckily Kelsey is a kid and bounced back in a day or two, but then it hit Madison. She woke up completely fine and slowly by the end of the morning, she was slowing down. She wouldn't cry (which, if you know Madison is VERY weird.)or crawl or walk or anything. Surprise! she too had a 102 temperature and was down for the count. I obviously felt terrible that she was sick, but she was so cuddly that I couldn't help but love it just a little bit. We all just snuggled and cuddled all day long.

Don't let those cute pants fool ya. This was the last time she moved at all before she started acting sick too

So the end of the story is pretty obvious. Kelsey sick Wednesday, Madison sick Thursday, Cami sick Friday. Luckily I didn't get the fever but I was so achy. Its no fun being sick but I'm convinced there is nothing worse than being a sick mom. No one in the house really cares that you don't feel well and  still expects you to be in true form even though you can barely pull up your sweatpants  let a lone flip a quesadilla. Being a sick mom only means that you now have to do your job while sick and achy. AND the worst part is that there are no advantages. None. you don't want to cuddle, you can't sit and watch TV all day and no one brings you hot soup (mostly because no one can reach the soup!!) Also you don't bounce back because you can't rest consequently meaning you stay sick FOREVER!!! It took me like a week to recover where as the girls were up and going in a day. Mom life is hard.  Can I get an AMEN!

Without being too dramatic there were some major blessings with this little round of whatever.
1. No one was messy. Just fevers and aches
2 Ethan never got sick which was HUGE considering it was the busy time at work
3 We all got sick close enough to the weekend that Ethan could help us out over the weekend. The second he walked in the door Friday he pushed me to bed and had the house running like a machine until Monday morning. I didn't do a thing. Bless that man
4We all got sick the week before Christmas
5 Being sick for a few days with Ethan home meant I got a lot of time to just rest and read. I read the whole Selection series and totally loved it.

One of the times I emerged from my room I was this. The girls are in great hands

Its no fun being down, but on of my goals for 2016 is being as positive as Ethan is so in the spirit of resolutions, this does of illness wasn't too bad all things considered.

This video cracks me up. Madison is still a little sick but Kelsey is back to her full strength. Kids are just so stinkin resilient. What is their secret?!

Happy Birthday to Me

I have a December birthday. Despite what people say, its not that bad. I actually love it. Everyone is just in a better mood around my birthday. That being said, yes I do have to share my birthday with Christmas parties and Christmas things and during school I always had a final or some paper due on my birthday,  but I don't mind. I love my birthday.

I get so excited for my birthday that the first part of the month doesn't really feel like Christmas because I am getting into birthday mode. Once my birthday is over than I feel like I can start celebrating Christmas. Its a weird system but I think thats what helps me separate my birthday and Christmas.

This year, being in Arizona we thought we would do something so awesome and non Christmas related that it was going to feel like summer. Well, we are creatures of habit so by the time my birthday came we ended up going ice skating. In our defense there were very few non Christmas related things to do because again, my birthday is in December. Its true what they say, you can take the girl out of the Christmas looking season, but you can't take the Christmas looking season out of the girl. They do say that.

This is the sign I woke up to! I am one lucky lady

So like I said, this year Ethan and I went ice skating and to a place called Chelsea's kitchen for dinner. Aunt Kay watched the girls so it was a really fun night out. Chelsea's kitchen was phenomenal. We got the appetizer nachos that ended up being bigger than our faces and shared a fancy shrimp thing with kale salad. The cool part was that we got to sit outside. It was a bit chilly on the patio but they had space heaters and a fire place so it was very comfortable.
 

After dinner we went "ice skating." I don't know what we were thinking. We live in Arizona and paid 5 dollars to go to an OUTDOOR skating rink on a night where the temperature only dropped to 47 degrees. It was one of the best things I have ever done
.

The skating rink was like a bunch of plastic tables taped together. You know when you step on an ice rink and kind of slide? Yeah, that didn't happen. You could full on walk.  They weren't even cold!! It was hilarious. To make it even better was the fact that it was like 10 by 25.

There was a guy who showed up about the same time we did. He mentioned he was from Iowa and was excited to go ice skating. He literally stepped onto the "ice", paused, and turned around and walked off. It was hilarious! It should have been a disaster but it was just too pathetic and funny not to be!

Sunday was my actual birthday and after church Aunt Kay came over for dinner, we opened a few gifts, watched a birthday movie that the girls made for me, and made peppermint ice cream. I had tons of texts, messages, calls, and letter. I purposely didn't go to the mail box for a few days so that I could get my birthday cards on my birthday. It was such a fun day!

Christmas Lights

 The Saturday after Thanksgiving was a beautiful day. It was busy with work and Christmas prep and in the spirit of honesty, it was really rough. Madison was on one, Ethan had a bunch of work to do, and I left so sorry for myself. Luckily I married a saint and instead of getting frustrated, Ethan went out to the store and brought home Christmas lights for the house. My feelings were pretty irrational, but he is so unassuming that he just showed kindness.
When he got home with the lights, we all went outside and set them up and then afterwards, we put the girls in front of the TV, and Ethan and I rode the scooter up and down the street. Our neighbors thought we were silly because we passed their house a dozen or so times, but it was so much fun. We couldn't leave the girls so we had to keep the house in sight, but it was still fun all the same. I'm so grateful for Ethan and his kindness.

 oh yay... Kelsey got to sneak in a scooter ride too.