December So Far...

December didn`t start the way we`d planned.  I was so, so sick for a week, and 

I only got to drive myself somewhere one time.  I had strep throat and a 103 

fever and for the first day and a half, I could barely move, walk, or hold Brady. 

I took a nap when he napped five of the seven days, so I felt like I got nothing 

done for a week!  The boys missed their gymnastics classes (but they can thankfully 

attend makeup classes later on) and we had to postpone two get togethers with 

friends.  Thankfully my parents were able to help out on the toughest days, and I 

kept telling myself that if we were going to be sick in December (Tyler and Dan had 

bad coughs too) I was thankful it happened in the beginning.  There are six parties 

and get togethers on our calendar this week, the following week is Brady`s birthday, 

and a few days after that is Christmas!  I`m so thankful to finally have energy to get 

ready for all the fun events coming up.  Waking up to the most beautiful snow this 

weekend was so nice too! 

Before I got sick and once I started feeling better, it was so fun to decorate sugar 

cookies with Tyler, take pictures of the boys in front of our tree, draw holiday pictures 

with Tyler, and play outside in the snow!  :-)

Getting Ready for Christmas

I thought we`d put our Christmas tree up the Tuesday before Thanksgiving this year. 

I used to wait until the day after Thanksgiving but since Tyler would be home all day  

on Wednesday, I knew he`d be great at helping me decorate.  I also thought it would make 

Black Friday much calmer and less stressful because we`d have less to do.  Well on Monday 

night, Tyler decided we should put up the tree, and that ended up being perfect.  I decided

to change almost every single framed photo we had on display to a holiday picture.  It`s 

only the second time I`ve changed out so many (the last time was in 2014!) and it`s time 

consuming. We love having our middle floor fully decorated, and Tyler was so cute putting 

the angel on the top of the tree (with Dan`s help of course!)  He and I took a special trip

to Michaels so he could pick out some decorations for his room. He found a basketball 

playing Santa ornament, which he accidentally broke, but I was able to use a glue gun to 

fix it.  Then our football playing Santa broke in the bag on the way home.  

Of course Tyler had a funny quote about our broken ornaments... 

"So the basketball player lost a leg, and the football player lost an arm. What a bad day for them."

He also kept calling the ornaments, instruments.  He said,  "I think Brady's being really good with the instruments so far."

Thankfully Brady has been really good with the tree so far.  He`s only broken one ornament 

(one I didn`t like too much anyway!) and he`s only managed to slightly twist the tree a few 

times. He loves to point to the ornaments on the bottom of the tree that have pictures of 

Tyler, and he loves to point to an ornament that has a picture of me and Dan with Tyler. 

He wishes he could reach Tyler`s truck ornament, but thankfully it`s too high!

Brady has been dancing to a song that plays before one of his Ben and Holly`s Little Kingdom 

episodes and we love watching him!!  He tends to look at us, smile, then start dancing.  :-)