DECEMBER. You slay me.

Our December promised to be chaotic, and boy howdy, did it deliver.

First, I chopped off the hair again.
Am I the only one who always looks crazy-eyed in selfies? So embarrassing.

Much of the madness was intentionally planned. [And by that I mean that we planned it ahead of time, knowing it would probably be insane, not that we planned it to be insane.... fine line, but whatever...] These included our church's Winter Celebration, the Texas Boys' Choir's Christmas concert, "Truth in the Tinsel" daily Advent crafts with the kids, and major road trips to Brady, Austin, Douglass, and Weatherford for three different family Christmases and two family weddings.

However, thrown into that mix were several unplanned elements - such as Ice-pocalypse 2013 early in the month, during which time we were basically stranded at home for nearly five days. We cleaned out the fridge and the wood pile, we had lots of fun sledding on the fairway and playing ice hockey on the frozen driveway, and I accomplished most of my Christmas shopping from the comfort of Amazon.com.

You've seen most of the pictures in the Ice Day post, but I couldn't resist a few more...

And everyone thought I was crazy for buying
that plastic hockey set at the Dollar Spot last July...

I wouldn't have minded our forced isolation so much if it wasn't directly followed by quarantine: Wednesday morning, the roads were finally clear enough for me to take Luke into the doctor's office, where he scored a positive strep test... and thus the kids missed both days of preschool that week, and I began to wonder if this was a Testing from the Lord....

On the plus side, we used the at-home time to catch up on our "Truth in the Tinsel" crafts.
All told, we made it through Day 8. That's victory, my friends.

By the end of the second week in December,
we'd completed every holiday tradition you can do at home.
Not necessarily with smiles on our faces.

However, we made it through that week, and the kids were both well enough for us to attend Southside's Winter Celebration on Saturday night. We enjoyed dinner and fellowship with our church family and were entertained by the antics of Taylor Mason. The show really was great - but watching my four-year-old slowly get in the groove of watching a comedian-ventriloquist was even better. I'm not sure Luke ever quite understood what was going on - and I know he missed most of the jokes - but I have never seen him giggle and laugh so much as he did that night. Another bonus from the evening: over dinner, Sarah confided in one of our adult friends that she had asked Santa to bring her a pink guitar. Thankfully, the friend was good enough to bring me in on the conversation - the request was complete news to me! (Time to make plans for some late-night Wal-marting....)

Then that Monday evening, we saw a performance of a completely different nature: the Texas Boys Choir. Although there were no funny puppets or silly faces, the kids seemed to enjoy the concert more than we anticipated they would; I think it helped that the boys came down the aisles and sang next to us several different times during the evening. When that happened, Luke and Sarah would gaze at them (usually with a finger or two in their mouths) as if mesmerized. I myself was a bit mesmerized - especially when I saw boys in the choir who were no more than a year older than Luke! It was a beautiful performance, and a lovely way to celebrate the Nativity.

The next day, the kids had just a half day of preschool (i.e. my last three hours to rush around and finish all my Christmas errands) and then we met P and his three staff members for our annual Christmas lunch. I tell you what, there's nothing like a couple of grandmothers to know exactly what kinds of gifts to give to little ones; although there is never any need for those sweet ladies to bring gifts for the kids, they always do - and they are always spot on.

In the interest of honesty here, I should note that this lunch was the beginning of a minor breakdown for me - you knew it was bound to happen sometime..... I had worked so hard (and sacrificed precious "me time") to pick up the kids just a little bit early from preschool and fight traffic and parking lot puddles to get to the restaurant, knowing that the staff only had an hour for their lunches. Then I managed to get all the kids and all the staff gifts inside and seated at a table, only to realize I'd left my phone in the car. Which wouldn't have been an issue, except that P and the ladies didn't show up. And didn't show up. And didn't. show. up. I finally left the kids at our table and borrowed the phone at the bar (!) to call P, promptly got my own voicemail because I'd given the bartender my own number, and then when I finally reached him, confirmed that we'd gone to the wrong restaurant. See? A breakdown was bound to happen. It was all I could do not to cry in front of the bartender. (Thankfully, I'm probably not the only crazy person she's served...) We made it to the CORRECT restaurant eventually, and just in time for our food, which P had skillfully ordered for us. And because the kids had fun new toys to play with, we actually enjoyed some adult conversation (and yummy food) for what was left of the lunch hour.

All was well until later that afternoon when Luke sweetly let me know that I'd forgotten to send lunches with them to preschool, and that he'd had to sit there while everyone else ate. I don't know how to adequately explain how much I wanted to curl up and die with guilt over the vision of my children sitting quietly hungry while surrounded by their feasting friends. I know I'm not a bad mom, but it's moments like those that really make me wonder.... What a day, my friends!

But thanks be to God, there were only a few moments like that this December. And look! We survived!

Bet you can't wait to hear about all those trips and weddings and flu pills that happened during the latter half of the month! To be continued....