I guess I only blog once a month...

After Thanksgiving I decided to finally bite the bullet and make myself a Christmas tree skirt. I've been wanting to for a few years, and I'm glad I finally did it. All it took was two yards of felt, a truckload of hot glue, hours of cutting out petals, and several burned fingers. Success! Nate says it's too fancy for our Charlie Brown tree.

Nate installed an emulator on our computer so I can play old Super Nintendo games on our TV with our PS3 remotes from my bed. It's awesome. I took a picture of myself playing Super Mario World and sent it to my brother to make him jealous. It worked.

Sometimes Gray insists that this is how his name is spelled. During those times there is no convincing him that it is backwards.

The evolution of Brother Hugs.

On the 4th Nate and I went to see A Christmas Carol at the Hale Center Theatre with some people from his second job. (He does the accounting for a dentist neighbor friend of ours--his Best Friend Jon.) The theater was smaller than I remembered. Also, loud. Also, smokey.

I guess I caught him off guard?

I suck at selfies.

But I had to try again because I liked my outfit and my hair. Too bad this picture is blurry.

Is that Tom Selleck over there? No? Just a 4-year-old with a smoothie mustache? Okay.

I took a Saturday morning off and went Christmas shopping all by myself. It was delightful. And then I saw this while I was at Target, and my delight when right through the roof.

Thanks for posing for a picture, Buddy!

Colin was proud of his block tower and demanded a picture.

Some kind of entrance to the fort they were making. It was difficult for me to get through.

I started working on a jean quilt for my dear friend Mary (aka my nanny) for her 18th birthday/Christmas. Whilst cutting up the jeans, I made myself this sweet pocket apron to wear over my sweatpants/yoga pants so I can still have pockets when I'm wandering the house trying to clean stuff up. Nate says it looks ridiculous, but it is so handy I don't even care.

I let the kids invite some friends over to make gingerbread houses on the 10th. Jude was supposed to be taking a nap, but he was not okay with missing the fun. I think next time I will buy candy that tastes good, instead of just candy that is red and green and goes with the theme. It was gross.

Then Kate lost her first tooth! She was stoked, and also a little wild-eyed about the whole experience. She was trying to wait to see Aunt Hannah so Hannah could pull it out for her. (Kate was hoping to get some extra money that way, having seen how Colin has been bribed in the past.) But it just fell out on its own while she was chewing up some Crasins in the backyard.

On the 11th Kate's ballet class performed at the new old folk's home in Mapleton. That place is nice! I was kind of hoping my mom would end up there, and then feeling bad about wanting to put her in a home, even though it was an awesome place. The girls performed an abbreviated version of the nutcracker, and it was adorable. And crowded. The room was definitely not big enough for the group. We were sitting way on the side and practically out the door. Which was good when the boys started misbehaving.... Anyway, at the end of it all the people running the place scooped ice cream for everyone. Nice!

This is what the naughty toddler did near the end of Kate's performance. He was much happier playing on the ottoman than he was watching the girls.

The kids didn't want Ethan to leave. They tried to block the door.