December has been.....

...busy. The girls' last day of school was earlier than planned due to a snowstorm, which meant Christmas vacation started earlier than I had planned, which meant all kinds of things got bumped around the schedule, from class parties and teacher gifts to playdates to delivering Christmas goodies to grocery shopping... I could go on, but "busy" will suffice.

...sick. Maddy started us out at the beginning of break with a tummy virus that has to be the most frustratingly slow-moving virus in the world. A week after she got it, CJ went down, and a few days after he fell to it, it was my turn. Just in time for Christmas! It translated into much less baking than I usually do, and feeling generally icky over Christmas Eve/Christmas Day.

...snowy. We headed up to my parent's on Christmas Day after having our Christmas morning, and a snowstorm hit not long after we left our town. We were snowed OUT of our home, and ended up staying an extra day at my parent's. When we came home, we were greeted by 14" inches of snow. Yeah. It was gross. I am not a snow-lover! I kept telling myself it could have been worse-- New Jersey had 20" in some places. We have built two snowmen and are just waiting for the thaw now.

...blessed. In spite of schedules, sickness and snowstorms, we have been so blessed. We are so thankful to be together as a family, especially when so many of our good friends have spent the holidays separated due to deployments. CJ's schedule has been less than holiday-ideal, but he has still been home each night. Even though being sick wasn't exactly what we had in mind for Christmas, we both agreed that any of our deployed friends would have traded their Christmases away from their families for a sick one with their families.

Here is our family pajama photo from Christmas Eve. We set a family record for being in pajamas earlier than any Christmas Eve before. It wasn't much past four in the afternoon!