It has been a wild and busy December!

Ember is loving school per usual. She plays with her friends, loves the swings and comes to visit mom and the accounting staff at the end of most days.

It is, often, the best part of the day of course.

Mostly I think she’s in it for the cookies and snacks we always make sure to have ready for her.

She talks up a storm, calling our cat Marvin by his new name MoMo, and loves to shake her finger and tell him “No, No, MoMo!” She knows all of the names of her classmates at school and had a blast this holiday season.

Although she was pretty unsure of Santa this year, she was a trooper for all of our holiday gatherings – with Kevin’s family on the Sunday before Christmas, just grandparents on Christmas Eve and then our newest tradition of having everyone come up to our house on Christmas Day as we have decided not to leave home on the 25th.

Earlier in the month, GiGi and I baked the Christmas cookies my grandmother used to make from scratch every year – for over 30 years my mom and grandmother would get together for a wild cookie adventure and she and I have enjoyed the past couple of years that we did it together. We also never get ANY complaints about the from scratch cookies we hand out at the holidays!

My cousin Evelyn and her husband Eugene were here for Christmas this year and rented a cabin for the whole family to spend the weekend between Christmas and New Year’s together in the Smoky Mountains. We had a blast and Ember loved spending time with their sweet pup Izzy.

While Ember enjoyed Christmas this year more than last, she still slept late every day of the break and didn’t tear into gifts with wild abandon. She would be coaxed into opening one and then say “no” when asked if she wanted to open another.

Our Christmas at home didn’t finish until the next evening when she finally walked over to tree and pointed to her last two gifts and said she wanted to open them.

She had fun visiting with all the family and friends but by the end of the break I think everyone was ready to go back to work and school!

Books are still her favorite although she does enjoy the magnadoodle we got her for Christmas for drawing as well. And, of course, the baby shark song book that plays shark themed songs over and over.

It’s been a fun and BUSY month but we’ve had a blast. Happy New Year to all of our friends and family!!