December (pre Legoland and Christmas)

 December was a pretty full month of completing schoolwork, wrapping presents, and in general getting ready for the big day at the end of the month.  These are just a few pictures from the the not super Christmas specific activities.

 For the last couple of years, Mitzi has made a collage for our parents of their 13 grandchildren.  Last year we lucked out and had excellent pictures from the boys soccer season.  This year...not so much.  On December 8th (the day before her soft deadline to get pictures to her), we attended Mass to celebrate The Immaculate Conception.  As the kids were looking dandy, I thought I would get some pictures of them.  It just didn't turn out as well as I hoped...

 They weren't horrible, but not great, either.  Molly got one cute one that you see at the end of her birthday post.  Will did give a solid attempt at a nice picture...and Dom was in a bad mood.

 And here was my attempt with John:

 You see the dilemma?  Though, he did perk up almost immediately, just not still...so the picture turned out blurry.  With a sauce pan coming out of his head.  Luckily, Mitzi is a pro and hunted down solid pictures of all of my children.  Though, Will's probably would have worked, now that I look at it.  Ah well.

 In a side story, of sorts, we returned from Thanksgiving and I immediately got to work on the annual calendar.  At which time I not only realized that we had fewer pictures this year to pick from (not really a bad thing), but that pictures taken with our digital camera are so much better than pictures from the phone (kind of a bad thing...as the phone is so easy).  As such, I have resolved to try and take more pictures with my camera.  If for no other reason, than they will look way better in the calendar for 2018 (put in any order requests before December 1, 2017)

On December 9th, Barnes and Noble held a "Yuletide Ball" inspired by the Ball in the 4th Harry Potter.  It also happened to be a cooler evening, so the boys got to break out their Hogwarts' House scarves.  It was a little underwhelming, but the kids had a good time.  Especially when they swept the trivia games.  It helped we had just listened to the 4th book on our trip back from Oklahoma...

 Oh, and they loved this center!

 Pretty good, huh?

John was not impressed:

Actually, my plan had been we would go to Barnes and Noble and then head over to Destin Commons to see the big Christmas Tree.  But, John never woke up after falling asleep on the drive to the bookstore.  And it was early enough in December, surely we would get back over to see the tree.  Nope.  The month went by and we never made it back...ah well.  Somehow, Jesus was still born!

The rest of the weekend was spent getting more in the holiday spirit.  It helped that it was 'only' in the 60s and even got down into the 40s.

The kids waiting for the parade to pass.  They got a lot of candy.  Too much candy.  I'm throwing away candy this week.

At the city festival that evening.  For the first time ever, three of our children talked to "Santa Claus".  No pictures, because, they know it wasn't the real Santa Claus and just stood to talk to him.  But, he did give them a nice goodie bag...with more candy.

And finally, we picked out a Christmas tree.  We actually dressed the part this year.  Oh, we are going to miss Florida, I think...

In other events, Eric and I attended his Christmas party, which was held on a boat.  Just happened to be one of the coldest nights in December.  Of course, it was.  We had a wonderful time sitting at a table that just happened to have two other homeschooling families.  We got a picture, but decided to forego the $10 surcharge (okay, the cheapskate wife voted to forego the $10 surcharge).  Obviously, we'd be able to get as good of a picture on Christmas Eve...that economical plan was hatched a little under a week before the plague hit our home...so, yeah, no fancy Christmas Eve pictures this year.  It was our early Christmas gift to our ailing children.

Next up: Legoland!! (or, The Vacation that actually felt like a Vacation!  (anyone who has ever traveled with children know what I'm talking about...or they don't because they have not had a real vacation in over a decade))