the christmas season

It's pretty much a given in our home that December is a month of insanity and it's a true Christmas miracle that I make it through without a major breakdown. We had 7 dance performances along with 3 birthdays in a 3 week span, last minute Christmas orders for Bookshelf Tees and of course all of the other crazy Christmas preparations. Early on in the month I made a list with the kids of things that we needed to do to get into the Christmas spirit. We read our books for our book advent, decorated a gingerbread house, baked cookies, delivered cinnamon rolls to neighbors, got hot chocolate and looked at Christmas lights, went to Zoolights and to Winterhaven twice. All in all, I think we had a great December amidst the crazy. I'm hoping when my kids look back on their childhood that it was full of happy memories and not memories of their mom on the brink of losing her mind, haha.

a. Seeing The Nutcracker at The Chandler Center for the Arts with mom, Sierra and Amber. I love this tradition and I hope we can keep it up!
b. Snow machine in front of one of the houses at Winterhaven Festival of Lights.
c. Zoey as a reindeer after one of her many dance performances.
d. Des and Zoey before our ward's Christmas program.
e. Zoey and me before her Zoolights performance. Had to snap a happy moment because that day was straight up the worst. Between lost car keys, Ted not being able to attend and help me with the kids and getting a flat tire after the performance. It wasn't cool, haha.
f. With family at Winterhaven.
g. After singing in Zach's ward on Christmas Eve.
h. Christmas evening before we went to Temple Lights.
i. I will miss Zoey being a reindeer! This was her second year doing this part in the Christmas show and those little tails are so cute.