December 2016

This month started out just like any other month. We were busy with all the normal things, like playing with friends, school, housework, and playing dress-ups.

 We had some friends over to decorate gingerbread cookies. It was so much fun, we love hanging out with our Haught friends.

 Erik decided to mix things up a little for us, lest things be too normal. His asthma flared up and he got to spend two nights in the hospital trying to get it under control. Poor kid, it was definitely not fun, but he was a trooper!

 After we got Erik home life returned to normal again, or at least as much as it ever is this close to Christmas. Erik and Sharli got on a kick making "shops" in the play room. They love having someone come buy their stuff from them. 

 December 23 brought Maren's first birthday. We didn't do anything too big for it, but I did make her a pumpkin cheesecake to celebrate. We all thought it was pretty yummy!

 On Christmas Eve Erik got to participate in the Glenwood community Christmas Pageant. He was Joseph, and did a great job. It's amazing to see how much he's grown and changed in the last few years. The first year he was in the program he was so scared and shy he was barely able to take part. This year he had lines to deliver (and he remembered them all) and stage directions to follow, and he did great!

 Christmas morning we woke up to a light layer of snow on the ground. The kids were THRILLED! They had been sure that Christmas couldn't come without snow, and they weren't disappointed. Snow makes everything look so pretty!

 We did all the normal Christmas morning stuff, and the kids just ate it all up. There was some disappointment over Santa not bringing exactly what they had asked for, but they soon got over it.

 After breakfast and presents, we bundled up to go enjoy the snow before it melted away. It was so much fun to watch the kids play. 

 With the all the rain and snow we'd had that week, the creek was coming down from having flooded the highest we'd seen it for the whole time we had lived there. We had to walk over and see what was going on with that. The amounts of soil that had been washed away in the last week was mind boggling.

The day after Christmas we loaded the kids in the car and headed over to Safford for a surprise. We took them to lunch, the we went to the movie theater for our kids to enjoy their first ever movie theater experience. We watched Disney's Moana, and the kids loved it. To the see the awe on their faces when they realized that the wall they were looking at turned into a giant movie screen was so much fun. After the show we took them for donuts and did some shopping. It was a wonderful day together as a family, and we had so much fun!

2016 was a great year for our family. Here's hoping 2017 will be just as amazing!