December Holiday Dump

The month of December has completely flown by and since I haven't had the opportunity to do any updates, I'll do one big posting to capture our December memories! We had a lot of holiday fun with family and friends! To start off the month, we put up our Christmas decorations and I ordered a new advent calendar for the kids! They loved opening a new drawer everyday to find candy and a special little note! Toby, our elf also made his grand appearance!

My dad also stopped over and dropped off 6 bins of my mom's Christmas decorations. It was so fun going through the bins and seeing all of the decorations from my childhood! My mom was very crafty and made almost all of the decorations. It was very nostalgic and brought back many happy memories of my mom!

 These houses were my absolute favorites growing up! I used to lay on the floor by the Christmas tree and pretend it was a real village. My mom hand painted all of these. Leah loved them. 

During the month, we also decorated ginger bread houses and cookies. 

We went and saw Santa on two separate occasions - once at the mall and the other at Bass Pro Shop!

I celebrated my 36th birthday! Rob and the kids sure made it special! They came and surprised me at work (minus Leah) and brought my flowers, balloons and candy! When I got home, the whole kitchen was decorated! We were ready to celebrate! We had cake and I opened my presents. My favorite gift was a new crock pot that I can control from my iphone! We went to dinner and had a great time!

Leah had a winter dance at school and just had a blast! She eats these things up! She loves running around with her friends and dancing! There was a DJ and lots of fun!

Leah also happened to lose her very first tooth that day too!! She accidentally swallowed it, so she wrote the tooth fairy a note to explain what happened!

In mid-December we had some holiday fun planned with neighbors and friends. We rented a trolley that took us on a holiday lights tour through Naperville. It was SO fun and the kids had a great time. Everyone met at our house for pizza and treats and then we went on the 1 hour trolley ride. It was so much fun that we already reserved it for 2016!

Leah had her classroom holiday party at school. I wasn't able to attend to be a parent-helper, but one of my mom friends emailed me pictures from their day. It was pajama day and they played games and did some crafts. It sure looked like fun!

During December, I also had my annual holiday dinner with my girlfriends. We've been doing it every year for at least the past 7-8 years, maybe longer! I look forward to it every year. This time we went to Sullivan's in downtown Naperville. Usually, we do a grab bag gift, but this year we decided that we would each bring $25 to dinner, along with a charity that we are passionate about. We ended up pooling our money and selecting three charities to donate to, each receiving $100. It was nice to give back instead of doing gifts for ourselves. 

For more holiday fun, we took the kids to go see Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer musical at the Rosemont Theater. It was pretty cute and Leah and Mason seemed to enjoy it!

We also celebrated my Dad's 65th birthday! We threw a party for him at Gelsosomo's in Lemont. I am hoping to do a separate post on his party, so I won't post the pictures here, but it sure was fun!

Rob had the week leading up to Christmas off. On Monday, he took the kids on the train to his office for a kid's holiday party. I had to work and did not join in on the festivities. 

On the 23rd it was Rob's birthday. I did have the day off and kept the kids home from daycare. We gave Rob his birthday presents in the morning. We got him a "Man Crate" that was filled with sriracha items and also a Pollyanna (craft beer) gift basket that had beer, glasses and tickets for a brewery tour. He seemed to like his gifts. For the day, we went to Dave and Busters and played games all afternoon. Later, we went to a restaurant called Talley's in Clarendon Hills. 

Before heading to dinner, we stopped at the cemetery to see my mom. 

Near my mom's headstone there is one of a little baby that passed away 13 years ago. Every time we go to the cemetery, Leah wants to stop and see her. She wanted to leave one of her baby dolls for her so she had something for Christmas. I posted this on Facebook and it is SUCH a small world. One of my mom's friends from high school (who now lives in Arizona) commented on my picture and let me know this was her niece! I had no idea. 

Overall, December was a fun, busy month! I wish I had more time to post on each one of our fun times, but this big photo dump will have to do for now! I will do posts to update how we spent Christmas and New Years!