December Favorites

My favorite Project Life pictures for December:

 

Kyle reading his new Little Blue Truck Christmas book. The last page has blinking lights which he really loves.

The last Mileage Club at school before the holiday break had a jingle bell theme and kids were encouraged to wear jingle bells, Santa hats, antlers and that kind of thing. When I dropped Tyler off at school that morning I was amazed to see how many kids showed up with the appropriate attire. Santa hats everywhere!

Kyle Bear doesn't like to get his hands dirty, so when we went to the park recently he decided to try and make a leaf pile (hands free) by kicking the leaves together.

More silliness:  Kyle using my Cathe workout DVDs as ramps for his Hot Wheels to drive over.

Dropping Tyler off for school in the morning. It was a 2-hour delay that day because of icy roads and we showed up a little early for the 10:45 drop off time, so we sat in the car and took pictures to pass the time.

My two best boys in front of the Christmas tree.

Christmas day outtakes.

Coco Bear drinking Christmas tree water. That silly cat lives for December and her favorite gourmet water.

 

Sweet ignorance. This is me before starting Ripped With Hiit. I was SO excited! And then the first workout I tried was the Plyo Hiit. Good God, I almost died. One armed burpees?! Luckily that was the hardest one in the bunch and actually the Lift it Hit it workouts were quite enjoyable.

Have you ever seen the Youtube video pets interrupting Yoga? That's Coco Bear's middle name.

 

Favorite outfits for December. Love the Ooh La La sweater I got on clearance at Old Navy.

Resolutions Revisited

At the beginning of the year I made two semi-vague resolutions. One was to read more and the other was to run more. I had a goal to read at least 2 books a month and double my running from one day a week to two days a week. Now that the year is almost over I can say that I was somewhat successful with both resolutions, but I probably could have done better.

 

In terms of books, this is what I read this year:

 

I started out the year really well, finishing nine books by the end of February. Then in March I read Gone With the Wind, and strangely it affected me so deeply that I wasn't able to pick up another book for several months. After that, the rest of the year kind of fizzled out. Sadly nothing compares to Margaret Mitchell.

 

As far as running goes, it was much easier for me to keep up with that resolution. I ran a total of 315 miles this year, up from last year's total of 200. I also improved my time in the See Spot Run 5K and participated in a new run - The Turkey Trot. I twisted Tyler's arm into finishing the Fitness for Kids Marathon and ran multiple miles with him out on the high school track.

 



So while I did run more miles this year than last, I didn't really get any better at it. My endurance still isn't all that spectacular and I didn't improve my speed much either. I guess that means I have plenty to work on in 2015.

Anniversary/Christmas 2014

Anniversary:

Having a wedding anniversary days before Christmas can be a tiny bit stressful with all the other things going on, but it's also nice to be able to call up a sitter and take a break from all the holiday madness.

It was our 4th wedding anniversary this year, which has the traditional gift of fruit and/or flowers so Rick and I gifted each other accordingly. It was an unseasonably warm day at 50 degrees, so I was able to wear a dress with only a light cardigan. We went out to the spa for massages earlier in the day and then went to the theater to see Interstellar and then to Taj Palace for the most delicious Indian food on the planet.

Christmas:

This is what our tree looked like on Christmas morning. See the kitty in the background sitting on the window ledge in the kitchen.

Kyle got a set of small plush Sesame Street characters from Santa.

Monopoly Mega for Tyler.

And what would Christmas be without some new Legos.

Kyle was so good at opening presents this year that he was constantly opening other people's things. He would just randomly grab a package from under the tree and start opening.

Both of the boys ended up with a lot of cool stuff: Board games, Hot Wheels, a marble run, books and more.

In the past I've tried to make roast beef for Christmas dinner, but I'm not that good at cooking a roast so this year we decided to get a ham from Costco. The ham was easy enough, but it was all the sides that took some time.  We finally sat down to eat around 7:00 and then topped the evening off with a tasty raspberry mousse cake (also from Costco). The most time consuming part of the day was the never ending task of trying to get the kids to bed.

 

Lego City Advent Calendar 2014 Days 19-24

Week 4 of Tyler's advent calendar:

 

Day 19: A table with a beverage bottle, two glasses and a turkey (with removable drumsticks).

Day 20: A barrel with a shovel and an ax along with whatever those other two round things are. Seats?

Day 21: A present and a stocking.

Day 22: A Christmas tree.

 

Day 23: A tricycle.

 

Day 24: Santa with a sack and a chocolate chip cookie.

Merry Christmas!

Lego City Advent Calendar 2014 Days 13-18

Week 3 of Tyler's Lego Calendar:

 

Day 13: A robber with a flashlight and a bag of loot.

Day 14: A one person sled which the robber is using as a getaway vehicle.

Day 15: A dog and a plate of bones.

Day 16: A police snowmobile.

Day 17: A sled that hitches to the back of the police snowmobile.



Day 18: Another policeman. This one with a mug and handcuffs.

Holiday Traditions

Going out of town for Thanksgiving put us about a week behind on some of our usual Christmas traditions such as getting our tree, which we normally do the weekend after Thanksgiving. This year we went the first weekend of December to pick out our tree in the Wenatchee forest area. 

 

 

There was a little bit of snow on the ground this year, but nothing too bad. The temperature was in the high 30's, so we were all bundled up pretty good. It took us nearly an hour of looking around to find a good tree, but thankfully at least we found something before it got dark. And after 2 years of failed attempts to get the tree home in perfect condition, I'm happy to say it was a success this year. We finally figured out how to tie the tree up properly so that it didn't slap itself silly all the way home.

Now the tree is all decorated with presents and kitties underneath.

And outside the boys worked together to put lights on the house.

Pretty!

Alexander make his appearance and has been keeping an eye on the boys.

We also decorated a gingerbread house from Costco, which I love! It came already assembled so we could get straight to the fun part....decorating!!

And we pulled out our collection of Christmas books and have been reading them before bedtime. This year I bought 2 new books to add to the collection: Little Blue Truck's Christmas and How the Grinch stole Christmas.

Tyler has his Lego advent calendar of course, but Kyle has a chocolate advent calendar from Boehm's.

Lego City Advent Calendar 2014 Days 7-12

Continuing on with week 2 of Tyler's Lego advent calendar:

 

 Day 7: A shop window.

 

On the inside are some festive decorations.

Day 8: A girl with ice skates.

Day 9: An old fashioned style cart/wagon with a loaf of bread.

Tyler figured it obviously belonged to the woman with the croissant from Day 5.

Day 10: A snowball catapult.

Day 11: An officer ready to sing Christmas carols with his megaphone.

Day 12:  A remote control duck, which the boy from Day 1 is taking out for a test drive.