A Northern Belle in Boots: Cute Pic Post -- December 2014

December was rough. The men of this house traded sickness around and around and thusly, we spent the first three weeks fighting all sorts of different symptoms. Each of them spent a period of a few days miserable and feverish and thusly hopped up on medicine. (Thankfully, I never got sick!) The worst of it was Graham who had a particularly bad night one night, screaming his head off, and urgent care gave antibiotic for ears that looked "maybe a little red." Once that finished, it was time for Christmas, so it was a bit hard to truly feel in The Spirit, but Christmas Eve and Day came whether we were ready or not and both were very good!

My favorite thing that was different this year was that Seth took Christmas Eve Day off. It meant we could spend more time together as a family and the whole day felt more like a holiday than just some regular day. Between the two of us, we cooked and baked up a storm! All sorts of goodies for the Christmas Eve. dinner (Seth's parents come over) and for Christmas Day (I make the Jesus Birthday cake) as well as plenty of things we just wanted around (me--No Bake Chocolate cookies, Seth-pralines). It was awesome. I'm hoping he'll make that a tradition--taking that day off.

Anyways, I'm sorta glad to have December over with. Despite all the sickness, I managed to get a few cute pictures I wanted to share. Enjoy!

Seth always does the tree and this year had some legitimate help!

Graham is seriously into looking through books. I don't remember if this is something Austin did at this age, but he'll often just go get a book and start paging through on his own. Love it!

One of our first broken ornaments. And I'm positive it won't be our last. (Austin actually broke my Cabbage Patch ornament as we were putting Christmas away, and I bawled like a baby bc of all it stood for... the Cabbage Patch place was on my Atlanta bucket list before we moved.) I didn't even see this one happen, Austin just called me into the family room from the office and given the tone of his voice, I knew to hurry. This is what I saw when I got there. It sucks as it was a gift from Anne Marie, but the biggest hassle was trying to get it cleaned up before little feet or paws stepped on it! They're always so desiring to help, and, well, I had my hands full trying to get this taken care of.

OMG, you guys! I MET JEN HATMAKER!

And she snuggled right up to me after signing my books. I die.

Sweet Boy...

Y'all. One of the frustrating things about living away from where you grew up is not finding the things you're used to in the grocery store. I had a hankering for my mom's French onion soup, and needed this to make it. I checked and called everywhere and no one had it. But Amazon did! :-)

I love snuggles, but hate that it's sickness that brings them.

Graham loves puzzles just like Daddy does!

"Thank Heaven for Little Boys"

Graham and I were in Tom Thumb and he shouts "Gramps!" I looked around thinking that maybe David was actually in the store (one of his offices isn't too far away, so it's plausible), but then Graham started pointing up toward the ceiling where this big poster was hanging. There's a pretty strong resemblance, I think, and I find it adorable Graham noticed!

I love Fazoli's, but there's none in DFW.
Why are they selling the gift cards here!?

Sick Graham pictures...

Still a ham for the camera if he sees it.

Now we have two "Popples" around the house!

Boys are gonna be boys.

Seth went to his work party and I got an evening to myself with this classic!

After one particularly bad night, when Graham refused to stop screaming, Seth and he passed out on the couch. I found them this way the next morning. If it hadn't been so horrible, I might find this picture funny. Our time at urgent care was mostly horrible--we were there two hours and most of the time he was flailing and screaming his head off. So much so that he actually knocked a poster off the wall. But there were also calm moments scattered within. Love.