Our Very Happy Holidays!

Whew, it seems like the month of December is always the fastest moving month of the year. We all had a great Christmas and I wanted to get it all down before I forget.

On the day after Thanksgiving, a very special visitor arrived at our house. Our Elf on the Shelf showed up on OUR shelf with a book explaining his presence. You see, Santa sends these elves out to keep track of children during the day. Each night he reports back to Santa and shows up in a different spot in the morning. The kids named our elf Sparkle and we had such a good time getting up in the mornings and looking for him. He sure did hide in some funny places! After a week or two, even NOAH would get up and the morning and say "Where Spah-kle?" Sadly, Sparkle had to report back to the North Pole until the day after Thanksgiving 2009. We all REALLY missed him for a couple of days after he left.

Also on the day after Thanksgiving, we had our second annual Christmas Tree Hunt. We drove to Sparta, found our perfect tree, cut it down and brought it home. We got a great tree this year and enjoyed our time together looking for it.

In early December, we had our hospital stay with Noah. It just so happened that we stayed on a Friday night and my first 5k was on Saturday. Aaron and I both stayed at the hospital and I was able to get up in the morning before Noah woke up and get to the race right around the corner. Cortney, my faithful running buddy and friend, and I finished and were pretty happy with ourselves! (Please pardon my appearance -- after a night sharing a hospital TODDLER bed with Noah (getting NO sleep) and a 3 mile run, I was just ick.)



Later in the month, the kids had a Christmas program at school. They sang songs and had a little party. They also got to visit with Santa while there. They BOTH loved him and let him know they wanted a train for Christmas (whew!).

Grace and I took a girl's day out trip with my mom and my SIL, Melissa to see the Nutcracker. Grace was soooo excited. Well, during the first act anyway. She fell asleep during the second act, but when it was over, we bought her her very own Nutcracker and she loved that. I, of course, forgot my camera, but am hoping my sweet sister-in-law will send me hers. She got some great ones!

On Christmas eve, we went to open gifts with my parents. We had a great dinner and had lots of fun visiting with Nana, Papa, Uncle Andy and Aunt Melissa. We all got some wonderful gifts too!

Christmas day we did our own family exchange and Aaron was able to hook us up via webcam with his family. It was such a neat experience, but I was a little camera shy. Being broadcast across the country in my pjs was a little intimidating. :)

On New Years Eve, I did another run with some friends. It was through the Christmas Light display at a local park and it was pretty neat! This one was 3.5 miles and I struggled through the hills because I had been pretty slack in my training since the last race. But, I made it through. I've signed up for a training class starting later this month and am planning to continue running into 2009!

All in all, we had a great holiday season and hope our friends and family can say the same!
Happy New Year!