December 2021

 This was your entry for the art contest for National Rural Health Day. They haven't announced the winners yet, but I think you did great anyway. Mostly I just love how much you love where we live.

December 1 was your second COVID shot! Yay! This time we went to a different location of the pharmacy and the experience was 1000x better than the first one.

When we were done, we celebrated with Dilly Bars!

And when you got home, there was an early Christmas present from the Tolivers waiting on you! You were so excited for this Lego Harry Potter advent calendar. Later when Dad came down after work you excitedly asked, "Do you want to see my advantage calendar?!?"

The timing was kind of perfect seeing as you were already wearing your HP t-shirt and handmade time turner, Deathly Hallows necklace, and DA badge that day.

Mother-Daughter tradition of watching The Nutcracker.

And to make it a little more special, we got to have chocolates during intermission.

Year of the Pie December edition was key lime pie!

Yum!

Spirit week at school! Monochromatic Monday.

T-shirt Tuesday. Thankfully Mrs. Brown took a picture of us in the library that day because I forgot before school!

Dress Warm Wednesday.

Gingerbread house! You did this all on your own this year!

Orca Thursday!

And finally Pajama Day Friday.

Your class made elves earlier in the month and Mrs. Currier kept things interesting by moving them around the classroom so some of them were in different places every morning when you got to school. When we brought him home you wanted to keep up the fun so you started giving Carlos a new activity each morning. Here he is eating ice cream.

Clay creations you made in art class and wrapped for Christmas. They are beautiful!

And with Mrs. Currier you made this crystal ornament, a combo science/art project....

....and this adorable gnome from a pine cone.

Time for Christmas cookies! As you have gotten older it means each year there is less work for me. I think you did ALL of the cutting out shapes this year.

And your decorating skills are excellent, too! I loved that you made a plan for each size of gingerbread and wanted all of the cookies for each particular size to match.

Dad and I decided that given how much school work you do on the computer, you should probably learn to type correctly or it will be harder for you to learn later. You were not thrilled about it at first, but we didn't really give you a choice and now you are doing such a great job you are actually excited about it and every day you tell me what your new WPM is as you keep getting better and better.

Completed advent calendar.

Silly Carlos climbed the tree on Christmas Eve.

Here is a list of all the fun things Carlos did that week (click on the picture to see it bigger).

One of the best parts of your winter break was waking up on the 26th to a blanket of snow! I told you we had to wait until it was light out to go outside and play, but I did agree to go out on the deck for a few minutes as soon as we got up.

You were threatening to throw this snowball at Dad inside the house as he was taking pictures from the open window.

After my 3rd failed attempt, I have given up on trying to upload sledding videos. Once again, we do not own a sled (really, we WILL buy one), so we were sledding on cardboard boxes in the back yard the first day. Later we discovered that the golf course is a great place for playing in the snow so we went out several more times and did some more box sledding and general snow play over there as well.

This area is REALLY unprepared to deal with snow so there was no clearing of the roads in any form. We were completely snowed in for a full week. Not even so much as a mail truck or delivery truck went by. Thankfully we had plenty of food, but it was definitely an eye opener as to what we should expect and prepare for in the future.

As a joint gift for you and I, I bought us a subscription to Adults & Crafts. Each month we will get a craft box full of all the required supplies to do a craft together. This was our first box, metal stamping. I am really excited about it!

While I was hammering metal, you volunteered to take some pictures. Later I found a series of videos of you having fun with the slo mo videos on my phone, which was a fun surprise for me.

 

Finally, ringing in the new year with a bowl of ice cream! Goodbye 2021, we've had our ups and downs, but overall, it's been a good year.