a week in review

Happy Sunday! It's a great morning when I've already showered, made two dozen jam thumbprint cookies, had a spectacular cup of coffee (thank you single-serving French press!) done laundry, and napped the baby all by 9am. I can hear Biscuit waking up now though, so my productiveness is surely going to decrease. Ok, he's crying.... sigh.

jam thumprints are my favorite

[...Twelve hours later.]

My ability to write a blog and simultaneously take care of my increasingly-mobile baby while he is awake is pretty much impossible. He wants to touch and grab and get into everything he can reach. And he can reach a lot of stuff--like coffee table and couch surfaces. And he's not even crawling efficiently yet. Babyproofing our apartment is an immediate necessity for the sudden moment when he is a speed-crawler. I've heard from parent friends that the transition from tentative crawling to full-on Daytona 500 crawling is overnight. Hope it's not tomorrow--I'm not ready!

 This week was full of Christmas gatherings. I love when the week leading up to Christmas provides me with pre-holiday warm-up events. Feels like the great parts of the holiday get extended that way. On Tuesday our church life group had a little Christmas potluck with a viewing of A Christmas Story (and some flipping amazing peppermint mocha cupcakes my friend Cassie made.) On Wednesday we had a little Christmas party for the youth at church with a Christmas Karaoke competition and Christmas trivia jeopardy-style and everything. Thursday was a girls night for life group ladies where we had a little Mary Kay facial party and then decorated sugar cookies. Roger was with me and getting tired so I rushed through my decorating and just did the white frosting with sprinkles thrown willy-nilly on the lot. I think I need to do a redo and make sugar cookies with my boys at work or something so I can really feel that I partook in that most iconic Christmas pastime.

pathetic.

Friday we had a church staff/leadership Christmas party at our pastor's house, and it was pretty fantastic. Great meal, lots of desserts, pie with fresh whipped cream, apple cider, conversation, people passing around my baby and giving me a break, a rousing game of Outburst (guys against gals - we lost by one measly point!) and a white elephant gift exchange that left us with two really nice gifts--when does that ever happen in white elephant!? We got some really nice candles and a gift basket with an assortment of tapenades and bruschetta. We really dodged a bullet too, we could have been the ones stuck with the fart piano and the hot-dog warmer.

Saturday was a slower-paced day. We slept-in, did some cleaning, went to a birthday party for Everett, my favorite 6-year-old, and used a gift card to go out for dinner. Dave dressed like the unibomber (I can't control his wardrobe choices. I've had to learn to accept) and Roger wore his Green Bay jammies handed down from cousin Steven.

 And then today after church I took Roger with me to a Christmas cookie exchange party. My friend Gabby snapped some prrrrrretty cute pictures there of Roger and I.

How did I get such an insanely cute child!?

I hope you've had a wonderful week too! Christmas is so near! Take time to enjoy it and make it a time to appreciate what you have and how good God is for all He has given us. On top of sending His only Son to us as a tiny, sweet baby, to grow up to conquer sin and death for us who don't deserve it, God also provides for our daily needs and puts love in our lives. I am so thankful.