December

Michelangelo and Rapheal

December....the most wonderful time of the year.  Well this December didn't disappoint.  It flew by with school, and decorating, and shopping, and planning, and really decent weather, oh and silly little boys.    Here is a review of December minus Christmas.

Lego advent calendars were enjoyed every morning.

Rex at this Christmas program (its kinda hard to see him hes the 4th kid in the back on the left)

Will and Beth

One big thing that happened this month happened at Will's work.  They had shift picks for next year which determine Will's shift for all of 2015.  He had put in that he preferred days, and we were all hoping for days but in the end he got nights.  I was more than a little devastated by this news.  I was just sure after already working the night shift for a whole year and all the sacrifices that means for us as a family he would get to be back on the day shift next year.  But for whatever reason it didn't work out that way.  Its still not what any of us wish it was but we will just have to make the best of it and make it work.  I feel like we have already learned a lot for this last year and are totally used to the routine at this point.  So we will just make the most of the time we do get to have as a family and be thankful for all the good things in our lives and not dwell on the negative.  Most days of the week the boys and I are out most of the morning taking Rex to school, doing errands, and going to mops.  He really does wake up at the best time of the day for us to all be home.  

Something fun I did this month was not cook much!  Several moms from my MOPs group and I started a freezer meal club in November.  So once a month we get together and each bring 4 freezer meals that we made.  Then we all trade and we all go home with 4 meals.  We are getting to try new foods and have one night a week I have a really easy dinner.  So I had a few of t hose meals from November in the freezer plus all of the ones from December and then I just often freeze food when I cook because it makes more than we can eat.  After Thanksgiving I decided I would see if we could make it to Christmas without me cooking any new meals.  I did still have to make some sides and salads and things to go with our main courses.  It worked out great, in fact I still didn't even use all the meals I had frozen up.  You would think I saved a ton in groceries but we still needed stuff for all our breakfast, lunch, and dinner sides, plus I still had to cook 5 meals for the freezer swap club, and some extra holiday baking too.  So I think we kinda came out like a normal month but it was nice to not have to worry about so much about dinner planning during such a busy month.

Grant playing with the nativity sets

Way of Lights:

Rex feeding the animals carrots

We are really spoiled to live 15 minutes away from probably one of the best light displays in the entire metro east area, and its free, and they have kids activities inside, and they are free!

Rex and Will doing a craft

Grant:

du-na-nu-na-nu-na....Grant-man

Grant absolutely loves his new Batcave he got early from Grandma Cindy at our Thanksgiving Christmas time

One day when Rex was at preschool Grant and I went to the mall and rode every escalator we could find!  and also elevators.

 Rex:

We've had a helmet for a long time but now the transformation is complete!
Rex in his new Darth Vader Jammies

Being silly at bedtime

OK so I cant really remember much of December being that its now middle January and I haven't gotten this posted yet!  Glad I took some pics!