December so far

December is always a busy month. Luckily we got our Christmas decorations up and almost all our Christmas shopping done before December even started, so it’s been a little less crazy than it could have been. 

We started off the month with a photo shoot to get a family picture for our Christmas cards. For having the camera on a timer in our living room it turned out pretty decent. 

 

A recently renewed activity that the kids are loving (at least until the last thread on the stroller seat breaks) is pushing each other around in the doll stroller. Ryan especially loves to push Annie and Rachel, but he enjoys being pushed, too. 

 

 

 

 

Our desert rats froze for the week of cold weather where it was getting down near freezing every night. It was cold enough that we had to cover our tomatoes, and even went out and got new Christmas lights to drape over the tomatoes to add a little warmth. It worked and they’re still alive and producing tons of tomatoes. And this week the highs are back up in the mid-seventies, so we’ve got a little while longer to enjoy the fresh garden tomatoes before the cold kills them off. 

But as I was saying, our desert rat kids were very cold. We bundled up and Ryan rather enjoyed having his hood on often. Even when I thought he should be roasting when it was nice and warm mid-day, inside our toasty house. But fashion trumps practicality sometimes, and both Ryan and Annie enjoyed many days of hats.

 

 

At the beginning of last week I set off to make treats for friends, visiting and home teaching families, and neighbors. I made fudge, candied pecans, divinity, and caramel. Unfortunately taking care of kids does not mix well with candy making which requires constant vigilance to get it to cook just the right amount, no more, no less. I had two pretty big caramel fails. One was hard as a rock, but came out of the pan in one big square pretty easily (on the left below). The other had to be pried out of the pan under hot water and turned into a work of art. Or something. 

 

All that time in the kitchen turned it into quite the disaster area. Then when I was making bread before attempting Operation Cleanup, the flour exploded when I was trying to mix a new batch of flour. All over me, my shoes, the floor, the sink and counter. At least it was before I started the big cleanup. 

That picture doesn’t catch half of the mess. But by the end of the day the kitchen was much recovered and was well on its way to being clean again. 

We’ve also been planning and cleaning and preparing for the big Christmas hullabaloo here in Tucson. All of my family and Jacob’s family will be here in Tucson over Christmas break. It’ll be tons of fun to have all the kids' cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents here for a while. It’ll be the first time since 2009, I think, that all of Jacob's family will be together, since his parents, and his sister Sharon have been on missions. Sharon gets home this week. Christmas is a time for family and we'll have lots of that going on. :)