december was full of so many great things... most of which i didn't take great pictures of. but that seems to be the story of my life lately. perhaps a new years resolution should be to get back on the picture taking wagon.
december 1st fell on a friday this year, which was perfect. it meant we could go get our tree and stay up late decorating it that night. chet and holden are at fun ages for things like that now. they love pulling out the ornaments and remembering where we got them, or who made them. i remember loving that part of christmas when i was little, too. i had my favorite ornaments that i liked to hang on the tree, and now my boys do too! taddy also had fun decorating - he loves doing anything that his big brothers are doing. we put on christmas music and made the house all festive. and then, when the boys weren't looking, i snuck their first gifts of the season under the tree. they were super thrilled when they spotted them. you see, we switched things up this year and, instead of giving our boys christmas jammies and books on christmas eve, we gave them a 'December 1st box' that had their new pajamas, an advent calendar, an ornament to put on our tree, and a treat. it was really fun to kick of the month that way, so i bet it will be a tradition that sticks.
for the record, we didn't kill our tree nearly as much as we did last year. we managed to remember to water it now and then. yay for us!
matt's work has 2 christmas parties every year - one for families with kids, and one for just adults:
our boys love the PCL kids party. they always get spoiled. this year it was a zoo theme. they had a balloon artist that put on a cute show, carnival games, lots of food, and a santa who delivered toys to each of the kids. no one cried on santa's lap this year.
my mom came into town for a few days so matt and i could make a little getaway out of his adult work party. the party was at a swanky hotel in south pasadena, called the langham. one of matt's coworkers won a 1-night stay at the hotel and generously gave it to us, so we even got to stay there and feel all fancy. matt got a new suit and i got a pretty dress and, if i don't say so myself, we looked real nice! it was fun to be fancy for a night. ...even if i was hiding an ugly knee brace under my dress. GAHHH!
here's the story:
a couple days before the party, my mom and i were walking the boys home from school, when i tripped on the tiniest uneven edge of the sidewalk. this is a sidewalk i have walked down countless times, and i have never even made note of this tiny lip. but, this time, i somehow tripped on it and fell on my left knee before i could catch myself. i don't know if it was the act of jarring my knee when i tripped, or hitting my knee when i fell, but it was excruciating. i couldn't move! so i laid in fetal position on the side of a busy road for quite sometime, until some strangers pulled over and offered to drive me home. i laid in the trunk of their SUV while my mom hustled the boys the rest of the way home. (i feel so lucky that my mom was there! what would we have done without her!?) i couldn't move, let alone walk. and i was beside myself. not only had i been looking forward to getting away with matt that weekend, but i honestly didn't know how i was going to be a mom if i couldn't move! and being active it so important to my mental health. i went to urgent care and they basically told me it would take time. they gave me pain killers, and we found me some crutches, and i hobbled around on those for the next day or 2. slowly i could get around without crutches, and was able to go to the party without them. a few weeks of limping later, i went to a physical therapist and they gave me some exercises to work on. i have been so diligent at doing them. i am dying to get back to my normal movement. i kid you not, i run every day. (well, until this injury!) i need that time to myself before i take on motherhood. so having to go a couple weeks without that, killed me. talk about tears! i was able to walk on my treadmill (slowly at first, and faster and more inclined over time) and that helped. but just these past few days i have been able to run again! it is hobbly, and slower then i would like, but it is running and it feels so good!
our boys were both part of their school choir this fall, so we got to go watch them sing in their christmas concert. it was really cute. we were very proud of them - especially holden, because this was his first big concert. i was worried he might not want to get up on stage when we got to the auditorium (because that is what i would have done when i was his age!) but he didn't even bat an eye.
holden also had a smaller christmas concert with all the kindergartners at his school. shh.. don't tell chet, but i think i liked it even more then the big choir concert! the kindergartners were so cute, and they had actions to all the songs.
throughout the month, we did lots of little christmas activities. matt and the boys hung lights on our house, we made a gingerbread house, checked out lights around the city, saw fake snow at the americana (which tad hated! haha), we also sledded down fake snow a couple times, and made homemade christmas cards to send to all our relatives. (tank even participated in the card making, by stamping his paw print in them!). tad also learned jingle bells and sang it non stop.. unless you asked him to sing it.
school finished up on the 21st, and we headed to arizona that night. we spent 6 days at my parents house. one of my favorite parts was piling into the back of parent's truck with lots of blankets, and blasting christmas music as we drove around looking at christmas lights in the neighborhood on christmas eve. it was chilly, but so fun! some of the other highlights were:
1. working out each morning at the gym in my parents retirement community. it was fun to exercise with matt, and equally as fun to see some of the frailest old men still pumping that iron!
2. matt and snuck off on some dates. (always a highlight)
3. matt and i got to take chet and holden out on their own dates with us. they both picked to go to an arcade, so we got to hit up 'fat cats' 2 days in a row.
it needs to be noted that all 3 of our children got head injuries while at my parents house! it was ridiculous. the first night there, chet fell out of bed and hit his head on the night table. he had a bruise on his eyelid. the next day tad basically dove off of my parents kitchen island and got a giant fat lip. then holden tripped while walking through a parking lot, wrapped up in a towel, and cut open his chin. but, even with all those injuries, everyone was still merry(ish!).
christmas morning was fun, too! chet and holden have been dyyyying to own something electronic. and my parents surprised them each with their very own tablet. if that was all they got this year, they would have been just fine with that! they were so thrilled. (i am a major tyrant when it comes to screen time, but we are figuring out a good routine.) matt and i gave the boys a day at disney for their gift from us. but, since we were in arizona when we gave it to them, we ended up giving them a countdown to disney (along with some disney gear). we will be going on january 20th, once all the tourists are back at school and the parks die down.
(our pictures from holden's date are pretty lame, and we forgot to take pictures on chet's date... oops.)
new years eve was pretty low key. we went to the beach in the afternoon and stayed to watch the final sunset of the year. it was a deep-meaning activity that i knew our boys wouldn't really get, but whatevs. this was the beachiest year of our lives so far, so it seemed fitting to finish it off there. we took blankets and hot chocolate, and it was cute. tad had lots of fun smashing this huge sandcastle creation that some stranger had made (i felt a little bad!), we saw 2 proposals, and were serenaded by the beat of some hippie drum band the ENTIRE time we were there. when we got home from the beach, we played some games as a family. we put the boys down before midnight, and matt and i accidentally fell asleep before midnight too. laaaame. perhaps next year will be a more happenin' new years eve!
we live really close to the rose parade route. like, really close. last year and this year, we have been lucky enough to walk 10 minutes to the parade route and magically find a front row spot to sit just as the parade begins. it's nuts, because people camp out all night for spots. but we have just been lucky to steal spots on the road as they close off roads that intersect the parade route. we wouldn't say we are huge parade lovers (like, if we had to drive any amount of distance, or pay for parking, we would not go to this parade!) but we figure we should probably take advantage of how close we are to it. and honestly, it is super neat to see. the floats are gorgeous and SO enormous, the marching bands are from all over the world and are amazing, and the crowd is wild. plus, there are vendors that sell the tastiest bacon-wraped hot dogs!
and now some miscellaneous pictures, to finish things off.
december 1st fell on a friday this year, which was perfect. it meant we could go get our tree and stay up late decorating it that night. chet and holden are at fun ages for things like that now. they love pulling out the ornaments and remembering where we got them, or who made them. i remember loving that part of christmas when i was little, too. i had my favorite ornaments that i liked to hang on the tree, and now my boys do too! taddy also had fun decorating - he loves doing anything that his big brothers are doing. we put on christmas music and made the house all festive. and then, when the boys weren't looking, i snuck their first gifts of the season under the tree. they were super thrilled when they spotted them. you see, we switched things up this year and, instead of giving our boys christmas jammies and books on christmas eve, we gave them a 'December 1st box' that had their new pajamas, an advent calendar, an ornament to put on our tree, and a treat. it was really fun to kick of the month that way, so i bet it will be a tradition that sticks.
google photos put these 2 pictures together for us, and we thought it was kinda neat to see..
for the record, we didn't kill our tree nearly as much as we did last year. we managed to remember to water it now and then. yay for us!
matt's work has 2 christmas parties every year - one for families with kids, and one for just adults:
our boys love the PCL kids party. they always get spoiled. this year it was a zoo theme. they had a balloon artist that put on a cute show, carnival games, lots of food, and a santa who delivered toys to each of the kids. no one cried on santa's lap this year.
my mom came into town for a few days so matt and i could make a little getaway out of his adult work party. the party was at a swanky hotel in south pasadena, called the langham. one of matt's coworkers won a 1-night stay at the hotel and generously gave it to us, so we even got to stay there and feel all fancy. matt got a new suit and i got a pretty dress and, if i don't say so myself, we looked real nice! it was fun to be fancy for a night. ...even if i was hiding an ugly knee brace under my dress. GAHHH!
here's the story:
a couple days before the party, my mom and i were walking the boys home from school, when i tripped on the tiniest uneven edge of the sidewalk. this is a sidewalk i have walked down countless times, and i have never even made note of this tiny lip. but, this time, i somehow tripped on it and fell on my left knee before i could catch myself. i don't know if it was the act of jarring my knee when i tripped, or hitting my knee when i fell, but it was excruciating. i couldn't move! so i laid in fetal position on the side of a busy road for quite sometime, until some strangers pulled over and offered to drive me home. i laid in the trunk of their SUV while my mom hustled the boys the rest of the way home. (i feel so lucky that my mom was there! what would we have done without her!?) i couldn't move, let alone walk. and i was beside myself. not only had i been looking forward to getting away with matt that weekend, but i honestly didn't know how i was going to be a mom if i couldn't move! and being active it so important to my mental health. i went to urgent care and they basically told me it would take time. they gave me pain killers, and we found me some crutches, and i hobbled around on those for the next day or 2. slowly i could get around without crutches, and was able to go to the party without them. a few weeks of limping later, i went to a physical therapist and they gave me some exercises to work on. i have been so diligent at doing them. i am dying to get back to my normal movement. i kid you not, i run every day. (well, until this injury!) i need that time to myself before i take on motherhood. so having to go a couple weeks without that, killed me. talk about tears! i was able to walk on my treadmill (slowly at first, and faster and more inclined over time) and that helped. but just these past few days i have been able to run again! it is hobbly, and slower then i would like, but it is running and it feels so good!
my mom helped the boys prepare a puppet show - complete with tickets and snacks - for when we got back from the christmas party.
our boys were both part of their school choir this fall, so we got to go watch them sing in their christmas concert. it was really cute. we were very proud of them - especially holden, because this was his first big concert. i was worried he might not want to get up on stage when we got to the auditorium (because that is what i would have done when i was his age!) but he didn't even bat an eye.
holden also had a smaller christmas concert with all the kindergartners at his school. shh.. don't tell chet, but i think i liked it even more then the big choir concert! the kindergartners were so cute, and they had actions to all the songs.
throughout the month, we did lots of little christmas activities. matt and the boys hung lights on our house, we made a gingerbread house, checked out lights around the city, saw fake snow at the americana (which tad hated! haha), we also sledded down fake snow a couple times, and made homemade christmas cards to send to all our relatives. (tank even participated in the card making, by stamping his paw print in them!). tad also learned jingle bells and sang it non stop.. unless you asked him to sing it.
school finished up on the 21st, and we headed to arizona that night. we spent 6 days at my parents house. one of my favorite parts was piling into the back of parent's truck with lots of blankets, and blasting christmas music as we drove around looking at christmas lights in the neighborhood on christmas eve. it was chilly, but so fun! some of the other highlights were:
1. working out each morning at the gym in my parents retirement community. it was fun to exercise with matt, and equally as fun to see some of the frailest old men still pumping that iron!
2. matt and snuck off on some dates. (always a highlight)
3. matt and i got to take chet and holden out on their own dates with us. they both picked to go to an arcade, so we got to hit up 'fat cats' 2 days in a row.
it needs to be noted that all 3 of our children got head injuries while at my parents house! it was ridiculous. the first night there, chet fell out of bed and hit his head on the night table. he had a bruise on his eyelid. the next day tad basically dove off of my parents kitchen island and got a giant fat lip. then holden tripped while walking through a parking lot, wrapped up in a towel, and cut open his chin. but, even with all those injuries, everyone was still merry(ish!).
christmas morning was fun, too! chet and holden have been dyyyying to own something electronic. and my parents surprised them each with their very own tablet. if that was all they got this year, they would have been just fine with that! they were so thrilled. (i am a major tyrant when it comes to screen time, but we are figuring out a good routine.) matt and i gave the boys a day at disney for their gift from us. but, since we were in arizona when we gave it to them, we ended up giving them a countdown to disney (along with some disney gear). we will be going on january 20th, once all the tourists are back at school and the parks die down.
new years eve was pretty low key. we went to the beach in the afternoon and stayed to watch the final sunset of the year. it was a deep-meaning activity that i knew our boys wouldn't really get, but whatevs. this was the beachiest year of our lives so far, so it seemed fitting to finish it off there. we took blankets and hot chocolate, and it was cute. tad had lots of fun smashing this huge sandcastle creation that some stranger had made (i felt a little bad!), we saw 2 proposals, and were serenaded by the beat of some hippie drum band the ENTIRE time we were there. when we got home from the beach, we played some games as a family. we put the boys down before midnight, and matt and i accidentally fell asleep before midnight too. laaaame. perhaps next year will be a more happenin' new years eve!
we live really close to the rose parade route. like, really close. last year and this year, we have been lucky enough to walk 10 minutes to the parade route and magically find a front row spot to sit just as the parade begins. it's nuts, because people camp out all night for spots. but we have just been lucky to steal spots on the road as they close off roads that intersect the parade route. we wouldn't say we are huge parade lovers (like, if we had to drive any amount of distance, or pay for parking, we would not go to this parade!) but we figure we should probably take advantage of how close we are to it. and honestly, it is super neat to see. the floats are gorgeous and SO enormous, the marching bands are from all over the world and are amazing, and the crowd is wild. plus, there are vendors that sell the tastiest bacon-wraped hot dogs!
and now some miscellaneous pictures, to finish things off.
