Oh December, you tricky little month.

I am absolutely exhausted from this month already.  Where's the Christmas season of leisure?  Of casually sipping cocoa by a fire?  Of cozily wrapping gifts while soft Christmas music tinkles in the background?  Oh wait--- that only happens in the movies, right?

I'm not complaining.

I swear.

It's just funny how the harder we try to make things "perfect" the less perfect it all gets, until I'm screaming at the kids to stop sucking frosting out of the bag, and to stop dumping blue sprinkles on the floor, and for heaven's sake just let ME hurry and do the cookie decorating already, and I'm gonna take away all the presents under the tree if you two don't stop fighting right this second! and no, Mike, let's not try to deliver our Christmas goodies at 9:00 at night while the kids are screaming bloody murder, and turn down that awful Feliz Navidad song that plays zillions of times per day on the Christmas radio station, and ugh!

Bah-humbug.

But...

we have done some celebrating this season and done some fun things.

For instance, we found these cuties at the Stake Nativity display... what a beautiful event.

 We assisted Mike who channeled his inner Clark Griswold and put up lights on our house.

 We got snow!

Well, for about two seconds until it melted.

But yay!  Joyous snow!

 We watched the children sing at our ward party.

Ohh, that ward party.

I was helping with the food, and Mike was being a wise man (see below) and consequently our children were kind of running around parent-less.

At one point Dylan snuck onto the stage, flung the curtain open and yelled "Ta-da!" Luckily this was during Mike's part of the program, but it was still embarrassing... so embarrassing in fact, that I was too scared to go up on the stage to retrieve him.

 Oh and then Kate got a big old fever and at one point I really truly didn't know where Blake was... 

but don't the men look awesome as the Three Wise Men?

 I helped out at Kate's class party.

She is lucky to have such a wonderful teacher and class.

Here she is with her friends, Jaiden and Grayson.

 And then, Pajama Day!

Here's Kate and her friend, Madisyn before school.

Silly girls.

So, we're getting down to the wire; Kate is out of school starting today, and very few Christmas gifts have been purchased, none have been wrapped, but ohhhhh well.

I'm determined to slooooow down and enjoy a little bit more of this season.

We are healthy, together, blessed beyond comprehension, and I need to just take a deep cleansing breath and chill.