I'm realizing as I get ready to write this post that a lot of these pictures could (and probably should) have been included in my Christmas post, but oh well. Where do you draw the line between the two? Isn't just about all of December about Christmas?
I started out the month by joining three friends to complete a 10K for St. Jude! We raised our money, did absolutely NO training, and showed up ready to walk. Or at least that's what I was ready to do. I had absolutely no intentions of doing anything other than walking, until the took off running and left me! I jogged to keep up but I was not prepared for that! They didn't run the whole time - thank the Lord! - and I somehow managed to A) keep up with them and B) not die, so I call it a success!
Ready to go!
Somewhere along the route...
And, finally, past the finish line!
The kids and I joined friends one evening on a trip to see the Christmas lights at the zoo. It was cold but we had fun!
A few days later we joined most of the town to watch the Christmas parade. Our church serves chili and cinnamon rolls beforehand so it's like dinner and an event! :)
We had our annual Christmas dinner with the Cooks and Earls where I introduced them to a staple snack from my childhood - Chicken In A Biscuit crackers with potted meat (yes, you read that correctly) and squeeze cheese. Gotta be honest, I didn't know if I would be able to stomach it as an adult. Matt refused to try it but everyone else was brave.
Final verdict? Not as awful as it sounds. Not like scrumptiously delicious by any means, but something you could eat if you had to.
As I mentioned in my Christmas post, my brother's kids received a new puppy - miniature dachshund - for Christmas. My parents kept Stella for a week before they received her, and we even got to babysit her for a little while one night!
This year, we had two cuties in the Christmas program at school and we had 50% actual participation in singing the songs. Katie Wynn rocked it out and Thomas took her job from last year of just standing there.
There's a new hospital being built in our town and we got to sign the beam that will be placed on top. So cool to know our signatures will always be up there!
These kiddos were excited to be out of school after their Christmas parties wrapped up!
To wrap up this post, here are a bunch of snapshots from our two weeks at home together!
I love that they both popped a foot in these pictures! That's all them - I didn't tell them to do it at all. Such little models! :)
Now, onward to 2018!