We've had some fun times leading up to Christmas. We attended the last half of our city's Christmas parade this year. They also had a really great fireworks show set to Christmas music. This was the first year we made an effort to get in line to see Santa. Our kids have never sat in Santa's lap before this year. I said this out loud while we were waiting in line, and the family in front of us turned around at once with horrible looks on their faces. I laughed so much and tried to assure them we weren't awful parents. I guess I never knew how 'important' it is! After the Santa experience, we swung by Starbucks Drive-Thru to get some kid temperature hot chocolate to warm up.
| Kid-temp was still too hot for our boys |
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The Christmas celebration this year for my office was unexpected. Our doctors had us meet up at a big mall and handed each of us a nice bit of money. Our assignment was to spend a certain amount on ourselves (not our family, etc) and then a certain amount as a gift for one of our co-workers. We drew names for who we were to buy for and had a little less than 2 hours to complete our mission. It was honestly a little stressful for this bargain/sale shopper, but it was really fun. I bought some things for myself at full-price (!!) that I have really enjoyed, and my person (Andrea) seemed to like the comfy house shoes I chose for her. I do have to admit that in a small moment of stress, I called John Mark to ask him what I should buy for myself. :) After our time was up, we met back at The Cheesecake Factory for a really nice meal and cheesecake compliments of our docs. I work for some great people!
| Our whole office. I really appreciate each one of them. |
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| My dear office mate, Pearlene. |
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Both boys had their class Christmas parties on the same day. For Curtis it was a PJ day. Wesley had two PJ days the week before Christmas - one for his Polar Express field trip, and one on the last day of school.
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| Curtis in his robot jammies ready for school! |
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| Curtis' class with their books from their book exchange game. Curtis got Frozen. :) |
| They had grapes and strawberries on a stick and warm cocoa with marshmallows. |
| The boys of Wesley's class playing their gift exchange game |
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| They also made a reindeer light bulb ornament and had some fun party foods. |
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We also attended a Christmas party at John Mark's dissertation supervisor's home. His wife went all out with food. We met some members of the PhD program. Wesley had a pretty amazing cough that night, so we didn't stay long. We also didn't take any pictures.














