What a great month of December we had! Having my Mom here is a huge blessing and makes my life so much easier! We had some sickness along the way, but despite that we still spent lots of time with our family.
To kick off the Christmas season, we went to the lighting of the oak tree, at a park right north of our house. I don't know how many times I've mentioned this, but I LOVE our location. We are so close to whatever you may ever need. There is a website called "walkscore" and it rates cities based on how walkable everything is. Downtown Austin got a good score, but our particular neighborhood, also was rated with a great score, big green dot on the map right on top of us. So cool!
Anyway, here we are by the lighted tree. They worked on it for days, but every single branch had lights on it. Amazing! It was kind of crowded and kind of late for our kids, but being so close, my Mom took Emerson home and put him down, while me, PJ, Ophelia and the Haydens enjoyed a carriage ride. Ophelia climbed on a sidewalk wall, just like the other kids were doing, but was not as coordinated and fell off and scraped her arm pretty bad. There were lots of tears! But she'll survive!
Ooo, it's getting colder! Shall we call this winter? Here is my Mom "walking" Emerson in the backyard. All bundled up, because it was only 45 degrees or so. Burrr!
Getting all the Christmas shopping done! Here is Emerson with a mistletoe hairband. Who can resist giving kisses to this little man?
Ophelia sure can't resist! Those sweet open-mouth kisses are the best! Baby breath and all!
We waited till the last moment to buy a Christmas tree. I was just not sure where to put it and what kind I wanted. So one day, randomly, me and my Mom found this tree, which was the last tree in the store, the display one. We all love it there, on our wide window sill. Christmas cards on the background and room for all the presents underneath.
Family time is always crazy, but fun, with three little munchkins running/crawling around. They get so energized and excited to see each other. And it's so fun to see them interact, hug and kiss each other, and play together. Love Winston's Christmas outfit!
Emerson is able to pull himself up to anything now. It is exciting and scary at the same time. Walking days are not far off! He also can say "Hi!". Whenever my Mom sits down to Skype with my Dad, he quickly crawls over, sits in her lap, listens to them talk, and says "Hi!" to Dedushka over and over!
Having my Mom here for New Years was so awesome! I have not felt the true spirit of New Years ever since I left Latvia. New Years is such a big deal there, probably the biggest holiday of the year, with lots of family time, traditional movies, new years TV programs and special performances, traditional salads and black bread, fireworks, and champagne. We drank non-alcoholic Martinelli's, of course, but the tradition continued with watching "The Irony of Fate" while making all these delicious salads. I made black bread in the bread maker and my Mom made a cake. Ignore Emerson's sock on the table...it's not part of a tradition...
Mmm! Makes my mouth water, looking at this picture!
Here is a video of the kids enjoying our New Years festivities. Russian New Years TV programming in the background.
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