The Days Before Christmas

The days (and evenings) before Christmas were pretty busy for our family.  Not like busy people busy, but busy for us.

Last Saturday we went to our friend Wendy's Christmas porch party.  We had a fun evening meeting new people.  I think we did a pretty good job for a family of introverts.  :)

We also stopped by the party of family friends, the Dunns (but I didn't take photos... although the photos above are not mine either... I tried to not focus as much on taking photos this season).  It was the first of many late evenings for the kids.

The kids finally wrote their letters to Santa (don't judge us as teachers based on their letters because they did them on their own):

 Here's the list part of Carter's grease covered letter:

 And here are the letters, ready for delivery by Rudy to Santa:

 Ashlynn had her AYSO indoor tournament the Sunday before Christmas (fortunately after church).  Eric coached the team because Ashlynn's head coach was out of state.  Two of the team's best players were not able to play, so we didn't really expect to win; we just hoped for two fun games.  Ashlynn was a bit out of it for the games.  When we got home later, we discovered that she had a fever... no wonder she wasn't playing well!

 Lots of family came to watch Ashlynn play, including: Nana, Papa, Grandpa, Uncle Brian, Carter, and me.  Our friend, and my former student, Kristen, joined us for the games too.

Carter had fun watching from Papa's shoulders (although I later heard that Papa's body suffered from the silliness).

 Ashlynn was a bit nervous about playing against her friend, Julia

Since Ashlynn was suffering from some sort of bug, we just took it easy at home that evening and watched Elf.  Fortunately, it was the one evening of those days that we didn't have plans.  Also fortunately, after a good night's sleep and a hearty breakfast, Ashlynn was feeling like herself again.

On Monday evening, we went to a party at our friends, the Desais', house.  We saw lots of old friends, watched our kids play, and made s'mores.

On Tuesday night we got to hang our with some of our Mayflower friends at the Heatherlys'.

 While I'm at it, here's what our Elf of the Shelf, Rudy, was up to on those days too:

Next up: Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!