monday before Christmas

first, my camera has finally died :( Very Very sad.

If it had not I would have posted a picture of Miss H this morning. She was the stay puff marshmallow girl in her winter garb. It's a chilly walk in the dark to the bus stop for her. She did have a big smile on her face and striped Christmas socks on though :)

I would have also taken a picture of the cute peppermint pinwheel cookies I brought to Michelle's yesterday for her cookie exchange. I had a great time visiting with everyone and eating some delicious foods!! My fav was Mindy's baked brie.

I might have taken the last photo of the kids by the water delivering goodies to Julie, or maybe little b running around with Toto, seriously the cutest dog, at Donna's. Last night was our take Christmas treats around night. The hardest hardest part is deciding to whom to deliver. We have so many sweet and awesome neighbors and good friends at church that I seriously could have made up 50 plates. Instead we did our neighbors right next door, and then I let the kids choose two other neighbors. They chose John's family and Julia/Webb's family. Then we did my VT route, and Big's HT route. With one last gift for the seminary teacher, because anyone who is willing to teach at 6:30 am every day deserves pumpkin bread!

We started our deliveries at 5:45. It was a bit of a rocky start with H crying and complaining for the first 45 minutes and a bunch of jostling for space and "he's touching me" and "someone farted!" followed by a chorus of "Ethan!!!" I have to admit I was gritting my teeth and almost willing to abandon the efforts and was growing weary of explaining the joy of giving. Then we stopped at the Everetts. Dear Noni wasn't home but Michael and Donna let us in and we had a lovely visit. She is so sweet and kind and the kids settled down, were charming and entertaining and happy. After that stop our car was full of Christmas carols and laughter. It was a real blessing for me. I guess the lesson is keep being nice until everyone is nice.

We got home from the last drop off around 9:20 and plopped into bed. I was pooped. I had gotten up at 5:30am to start baking and spent the day cooking, and visiting and cleaning up between times. It was a good day though :)