December Part 8: New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve 2019 was a fairly quiet, family affair. We started the festivities by making muddy buddies. 

And eating nachos for dinner. 

We donned our festive hats and played games together. 

And since I was having PRK eye surgery on January 2nd, I got to spend the last week in December wearing glasses. 

As per the norm, we had an early countdown with our kids

and then sent them to bed. 

Cal and Cassidy were here to help us ring in the actual new year a few hours later. We had tons of snacks and played games until just before midnight. Then we found a countdown, cheered, 

 And went to bed. What can I say? We're all getting old. 

I gave up putting a ton of hopes and optimism at the beginning of a new year back in 2012, but I will confess I was a little more excited about what 2020 would bring than I had been on other New Year's Eves. If only we would have know just how crazy 2020 was going to be... 

(Actually, no. I would still let these starry eyed 2020 hopefuls keep their joy. No need to ruin it with letting them know what was coming. )

December 2019 Part 7: In Between and the Every Day

I don't know what this list is for, but I love it. Who would like to cater this for us?

Well, in December, we read together. 

We played with our dog (okay, let's be honest, Cal played with our dog). 

We made our beds. 

We considered gifts for loved ones (and dismissed some because Brian doesn't like chocolate). 

We chuckled over school projects that our kids brought home. 

And props at Skyler's birthday party (well done Shayne!)

I suffered from a toothache. (I started clenching my jaw after losing Dad). 

We took funny pictures. 

And we read books. 

We took some naps. 

And we got sick. 

Fairly sick. 

We ALL got sick. Brian and I were especially sick during one weekend where we had some pretty big plans. We were going to go to the Dicken's ball, but we were sick. We were supposed to take Rachel and Michael to go see Seussical the Musical (the replacement tickets to Matilda that we had to cancel back in June due to Dad's death). We considered rescheduling Seussical, but I decided that I just needed to be done with that particular set of tickets, so we asked Nana and Papa if they could take Michael and Danny, since Rachel was still sick. They all had a wonderful time, and I was so glad that Michael could have an evening like that with his grandparents. 

We got our new 2019 ornament on the tree (Making a collage with Cal and Cassidy's picture since Cal was living with us). 

We enjoyed having a dog. 

We got to see two different school's Christmas programs. Thankfully, they weren't at the same time or even on the same day. 

Gabe got a little grouchy waiting for Michael's to start. 

He enjoyed reading after in the office after the program while I checked Michael out of school. 

We napped. 

Brian and I went to see Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and we had a welcome party at the theater. 

We added twinkling lights to our nativity, and it really added a little extra something. 

We snuggled. 

We had bad hairdays. 

We worked at work. We worked at home. We did stuff on our phone. 

Someone took up modeling. 

We laughed. We wore War helmets

Cassidy went to Little Women with me, and Brian and Cal were so happy they didn't have to go. 

We took passport pictures and applied for the kids' passports. Because we were going to go to Canada in July 2020. Turns out, the kids faces were prophetic about how that would end up going. 

Gabe really struggled with the "Neutral expression" instruction. 

The lady who helped us with our applications said they looked so upset and sad. It made me wonder if there was a little more flexibility with the facial expressions. 

We started our first big wood project without Dad, and it was so hard. I couldn't handle being out there to help Brian, so I left him to it on his own way too much. But we made it through, and I went out in January to help. You can look forward to that finished project soon.