Welcome, December

We always enjoy it when Juana and Ito are here for our traditions.  With Thanksgiving over, it was time to hit up the tree lot.  Unfortunately they were in the process of setting up for the grand opening the next day, but the kids still enjoyed getting out and starting off the season.

For Juana and Ito's anniversary, we met up with Rob and Sharon in Pasadena for a celebratory dinner.  We had our family photo shoot before and time to spare before dinner so we enjoyed perusing Barnes and Noble.  Cole was especially pleased with the animal fart book and it's realistic noises.  The giraffe is nasty!

 I love my friendship with Liz for so many reasons.  But one is her tolerance for my religious difference and her willingness to shares hers with me.  We had the chance to attend the baptism for two of her children and it was really cool to witness something important to her.  I'm grateful for tolerance and unconditional love especially in regards to religion because it seems more and more difficult to come by.

 I have done this tree assignment two other times and was impressed with the difference of Andi's process versus the two boys.  Andi was eager to get started and could care less if anyone helped.  She was proud of her work and had a vision from the very beginning.  I love seeing the differences between my children.

 Hockey practice in the evening on monday nights eventually wore me out.  I was grateful when we reached the last one and even more grateful that we had a good time.

 Some families have the tradition of opening Christmas pj's on Christmas Eve.  I liked the idea of that tradition but was never thrilled with the logistics.  Mikel and I realized  it would be fun that when he joined our family again, he could bring their Christmas pj's and that way the kids would have them all month long.  The kids were over the moon as was I.