December 1st!

December 1st comes with a lot of fun and excitement and this year it also came with A LOT OF SNOW! The prediction was 8-12 inches. I don't know what the final count was but I think that was a pretty good estimate! The only bummer for the kids was that since school is already virtual there was no possibility of a snow day but their teacher gave them a heads up on that before the snow even started falling so they dealt with it pretty well. Our elf arrived (renamed Sir Jingles the 3rd, Duke of the North Pole) and brought nutcrackers for the kids with him! We started our advent calendars too, the kids are working on our traditional one and I have my own special one I'm working on (see below). During their lunch break, the kids wanted to see if Griffin would like the snow (and he had been meowing to get out anyway!) so they brought him outside for a little bit. He immediately ran under a bush and stayed there until they could get him out. They they ran around in the snow for about 5 minutes before they decided they were done! They didn't go out again until the evening when Pat decided to start tackling the driveway with the snowblower. The snow was so thick and high that the battery on the snowblower ran out about halfway through. The kids spent the time building a slide against a tree in our front yard so they could do some sledding. We had so much fun playing, we didn't end up coming inside until after 9. 

I pull this picture out every December 1st because it makes us all laugh so much:)

I stayed about late November 30 to put together this tea advent calendar! Jamie sent me a link to one so I have her to thank for the idea and then I put my own spin on it. Pat helped me assemble them so I wouldn't know which tea bags were in which days. Once I scrounged through my tea box and the cupboards I came up with about 12 different kinds of tea so I should have two of each for the month! 

The old classic. I had to check the blog but I made these little felt envelopes back in 2008!

Paige has been hoping for a nutcracker of her very own for a year or two now! 

Bundled up and ready for a snow adventure!

I made them stop for a picture while they were trying to figure out how to get Griffin out of the bush

Running and diving

Snow Angel