Days of December

This is always a month that goes by fast!! So much happening at school and home. So it feels like one big happy blur. This year Nick and the 2nd grade chorus had a concert and near the end there was a really hilarious moment…. They were singing “there’ll be no school tomorrow if it snows” which Nicholas loved, and near the end right before the big finale, in an otherwise silent moment, Nick blurted out “one more time!!” You can see his own shock at what he’d done in the pics below! 

Lukas also had a 6th grade band concert but I don’t have any good pics from that one. As a Sax he’s in the middle of the third row which we could not get in photograph. They did great. 

As we transition to more indoor time and activities,

There was lots of drawing and writing, and it’s always so cute to see their various personalities and strengths shine through all this. 

The annual visit by the Londonderry Fire company, Santa & the Grinch, was super fun too! 

Random thing - one of my favorite ways to use our 100-lb beef bundle is with the stock bones. I use the Shalane Flannagan Long Run Mineral broth recipe and it’s so amazing. We eat rice, soup and or quinoa at least once a week so I go through it pretty fast. At another stage of life there was something else called liquid gold, but now this is it for me! 

Baileys first snow!!! 

December 23:  this year we were supposed to go to Waldorf to eat ham and enjoy some quality family time, celebrating an early Christmas with the Estevez crew.  However, Jacob had a fever and we had to cancel our travel. Then later that day, the power went out. There had been warnings of 40mph wind gusts and sub-zero wind chills. It got cold in here quick. We got out the candles, made the most of the leftover cardboard and flashlights, and I fried chicken by candlelight in the 4 o’clock hour. There were new headlights wrapped in the kids stockings already, so we gave out some early gifts. It was sort of wildly fun at first but then boring and we were thankful the kids went to bed early easily under some extra blankets and fleece. On Christmas Eve when we awoke, it was in the low 50s in the house, so we huddled near the propane fireplace and were thankful to have a little battery life left on the devices. The electric company was projecting more than 24 hours until restoration so we got a dog friendly hotel and packed up our Christmas outfits. Here we were able to enjoy showers and powered up our devices. Lots of funny moments here. We developed a plan that if the power wasn’t back on we still wanted to open presents at home, so several of Mikes friends offered their gas powered generators, he wenr to borrow one and we were going to buy a space heater.  And then, just as we were about to leave for church, we got word that the job was done and power was on back at home!! We went to church, thoroughly enjoyed church that is (see next post!!) and then went to Mangia Mangia for a very lovely dinner. When we got home it was still chilly but home never felt so sweet!!!