Busy busy busy

It's that time of year where busy is just the way it is. I try to scale back but making fun, wholesome, happy memories with my kids is my all time favorite thing about motherhood. So I tend to go a little overboard this time of year.

I made an advent calender with an a little activity for every day for the month of December. Each activity has some sort of spiritual element + something fun. Like today we went to A Walk Through Bethlehem, which really just a display of over 300 nativities, but we had a great time. And miraculously the kids did wonderfully. Somehow we got in and out without them touching anything! Then I took the girls to see Yuma Community Theater's production of, "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever!".  It was really cute. It's based on a little book, I highly recommend. It's a super fast easy read with a great Christmas message.

Nathan's fake smile is one of the worst fake smiles ever. But the only way to get a real smile is to say poop or something, and that just wasn't happening at the church thing! Olivia is wearing the skirt I made her two and a half years ago (Thanks again Geneva!) and Abigail is wearing a headband I crocheted. I decided to deactivate my facebook account for the month of December. I waned to be able to have less distractions. Instead I replaced checking facebook with crocheting. All. The. Time.

I'm not very good, but I did make this bow:

And this crown for my cat. 

Well, I didn't start out making a crown for my cat. I just wanted to see if I could follow a pattern. This is actually a crown for a little stuffed bear. But when I finished it and the cat hopped on my lap, it just clicked.

I've been all sorts of crafty lately. It's been good for my soul, and bad for my laundry pile.

Cake I made for my nieces birthday.

Thanksgiving shirts I made for all the Opie grandkids, that were at dinner. One sister-in-law wasn't there with her baby, so he didn't get a shirt. But I made 9 cute turkey shirts, and the kids loved them. I just thought it would be fun, and it was. I don't think I have many years left where my kids will be excited to be matching, so I figured I better capitalize on that cuteness while I can.

Making a giant mess... er, gingerbread cookes.

Plus keeping up with this 10 month old gets more challenging every day. She just goes around trying to see what she can get into. At least she has the best smile, and super sweet disposition to make up for her "curiousness".  And my big kids are actually pretty helpful, at least some of the time. They love to play with her and make her laugh, so it is easier than when my big girls were this age.

Well now that I've found yet another thing to do besides fold my laundry, it's almost 10:00PM so I can go to bed now and put it off another day.