Gearing up for Christmas

I can't possibly explain how busy this past fall and winter were for me. I had just recovered from some of the crazy commitments that I had during the fall, only to discover that I would lose my ability to practice as a PA if I didn't acquire 50 hours of medical training in the last month of the year. Fifty hours is a lot. A WHOLE lot. It costs a lot of money to go somewhere and have fifty hours taught to you. It costs nothing to do them online, but it's extremely time consuming and tedious. Needless to say, once looking at our financial status, I chose to do my CME online. I spent practically every waking moment that my children were sleeping finishing that CME. I kind of felt as if all the Christmas happenings at the time were secondary to my quest to achieve those 50 hours, so it was VERY hard to get into the Christmas spirit this year. Despite that, I was able to enjoy some of the moments that led up to the Christmas season. (By the way, I did finish that CME on the 17th of December, just before we left for Colorado.)

This is the first year that Maura has gotten to participate in a Christmas program. Her preschool had a Christmas program on the last day of classes before Christmas. She was so excited about singing in the program and practiced all her songs at home. She was so cute all dressed up on the day of the program. Mom offered to keep Tristan so that I could actually concentrate and I took her up on it! I went to watch the adorable program of all the preschoolers singing, ate breakfast with my girl, and watched her hang out with Santa. What an enjoyable morning! Maura filed in with all the rest of the preschoolers and immediately sat down. That should have been my first sign that things were not going to go well!

Her Santa mask was broken when it was handed out to her and she was very concerned about it!

Never mind that she didn't utter a single word of the song for the entire time she was up there!! At least she stayed up on stage and played her bells with gusto. I loved watching my girl up there, despite the fact that she chose to be non-participatory!!

At the beginning of December, our library invited a children's singer, Jim Gill, to give a concert. They sang Jim's songs at every single library time leading up to the concert and promoted it heavily. We all decide to go hear Jim Gill sing. Even Aunt Lorie and Alexandra come to hear the music.

He was really funny and entertaining and the kids had a ball dancing and singing along. We love our library for the wonderful events they put on.

We somehow managed to put our Christmas tree up sometime around the first week in December. I knew that we really needed to get it up if we wanted to enjoy it before our trip. That night, I tried with all I had to get some photos of the kids under the tree that would be suitable for Christmas cards. And tried...and tried...and tried. I finally got a few cute individual shots of the kids and called it a night. Cute Maura!
Now, why can't they look cute and smile at the same time?? It took two different photo sessions before I was able to get a photo for our Christmas card--and even then Tristan had some diaper cream on his chin. At that point, I cared not!!