December Happenings

I love December. 

Yes, it helps that December is home to Christmas, Matt's birthday, and my birthday too... but in general, I love this whole month.  It is so festive and full of spirit with Christmas songs playing, cookies being baked in extremely high quantities, twinkling lights lining the streets, fun holiday cards hanging on the fridge... I wish we didn't have to wait a whole year for December!

While I am not the best decorator ever, I certainly enjoy getting our house ready for Christmas.  Yes, we have a fake Christmas tree.  Please don't judge.  I promise we'll get a real one when we have a bigger house someday.  And yes, we are not the best outdoor light hangers in the neighborhood.  But so what!  When you come in our house (with thanks to yummy candles and not a Christmas tree), you smell the fresh scent of pine trees and can see the fun Christmas spirit all around.  :)

Sadly, December is also the month that seems to fly by the fastest.  Birthday parties, holiday parties, school obligations, work obligations, family time, friend time... suddenly it's the middle of December and I barely remember how it happened!  Thankfully, we already have some fun memories from the month... our last month without a little baby Benjamin in tow!  (woah.)

After celebrating Matt's birthday, we were lucky enough to help our good friend Andrew celebrate his 30th birthday the following night.  His gorgeous (and extremely crafty!) wife planned a surprise party for him based on a Halloween costume idea he had wanted to try but didn't get around to this year.  If you look closely in the pictures, you'll notice that we're a gang of "Jeanies"!  But to keep the play on words even more fun as we all hung out in outfits of denim, Arabian music was playing (and yes, some Aladdin tunes as well), magical lamps adorned the tables, and fancy hats were provided by our host.  It was a great time!  (Nevermind that Matt and I had to take a several hour leave of absence to visit the ER... we eventually did come back and finish up the celebrations!)

This past weekend, we had the pleasure of hosting our Supper Group Christmas party.  We are seriously so lucky to have these friends in Denver, and it was really nice to have one final party at our house before its littered with baby gear. 
 

Wrapping gifts for the Ethiopian family that the guys brought Thanksgiving dinner to last month:

And last night, Matt took me on a date night to the Zoo lights at the Denver Zoo and dinner at Bones.  It was a chilly night, but it was SO fun to peruse the zoo (they do an awesome job!), see some animals (the ones that weren't sleeping or hiding out in their warming shacks, or whatever it is that keeps them warm), listen to carolers, and drink some hot chocolate.  And our dinner at Bones was awesome - Matt practically licked his bowl clean.  If you ever visit, be sure to try their steamed buns appetizer.  Delicious!

 

This sign reminded us of Lincoln... we may need to get this framed:

  that's a hippo behind matt:

Post dinner at Bones:

That's it for now!  It's my last week at school with my (mostly) awesome students!  It's definitely bittersweet.  A post to come on how much I love them and how great these past few weeks have been.  There's a lot of fun stuff to share :)