I'm thinking this should be pretty short because most of December was already covered. I spent the bulk of the month doing this:
- Learning to Sew
- Finishing Jam
- Making Other Homemade Gifts
- Baking for our Goodie Plates
And Sean was busy with this:
- Portland Ensign Choir & Orchestra
While Ethan was busy with this:
- Preschool
And as a family we had fun with:
- Christmas Ships
- Christmas in Oregon
- Ice Skating
But still, here's some stuff I may have missed, mostly in order...
* Family Pictures!! We have not had professional family pictures since Ethan was just a baby, so we jumped at the chance to have semi-professional pics taken for free early in December. A friend in the ward posted on Facebook that she would have the backdrop/lighting up for her girls' Christmas pictures so if anyone wanted to come by, she would leave it up for a few hours in the afternoon. We just got a handful of pictures, but these were our favorites.
* Ward Christmas Dinner and Festival of Nativities: Sean's choir sang a selection from their upcoming concert at the Festival of Nativities so Ethan and I were on our own for the ward dinner. We had fun and sat with friends, but still missed Daddy. In fact, we only stayed for the program part and skipped out early when "Santa" came.
Then we rushed over to a different stake center to meet up with Sean and look through the Festival of Nativities. My friend, Cassidy, was in charge of the center section of the gym and came up with the tiers you see in the top left picture. She put a lot of work into that display and did such a good job. 
And, just like last year, Ethan's favorite was the "Please Touch" room for kids - so nice for him to be able to play after all the "Please Do NOT Touch" signs on the displays in the gym. And the wooden blocks are fun in the room for Joseph's Workshop.
* Getting/Decorating the Christmas Tree: Last year we did the whole local-tree-farm, cut-down-your-own-fresh-from-the-Pacific-Northwest-tree thing. We had fun, enjoyed the experience and paid a little more than I would have liked. This year, we were hurting a little more in our finances and went with a more budget-friendly option - the Fred Meyer garden center! AND we had a coupon. I think we paid half of what we paid last year!
And guess what? It looked just as beautiful as the tree we cut down last year. Not trying to diss on everyone who does that, it just doesn't always work out for us!
My attempt at a lower-lighting picture to get the soft glow of the lights....* New ornaments: Every year we add new ornaments to our collection and last year and this year were no exception. Last year I finally posted a little selection of our ornaments and the story behind them, so I thought I'd follow up on that with some of our more recent additions.
#1 From my mom, for my love of holiday baking. #2 For Ethan, because he got a letter from Santa this year. #3 Rose Bowl, baby!! #4 Because it's a little blonde angel playing a violin and it just so happens that in our house there is a blonde angel that plays the violin!! #5 Ethan's ornament last year, because what little boy doesn't love Lightning McQueen and Mater?! #6 From my in-laws, because Ethan is the Southworth family frog. :) #7 From my mom last year, because I like to bake.
* 2011 Primary Class: Our last Sunday together, I took a class picture. Kinda bummed because I was missing three of my regular students! I can't believe how fast this last year went in terms of my Primary class. They were a great group. 
And now I am onto my THIRD class of 10-11 year olds. This is the only calling I've had since we moved into this ward {well, other than my in-addition-to calling as an activity days leader} and, I admit, I wouldn't mind a change... But, at the same time, I also have SIX younger siblings of kids that were in my class in 2010, so that's kinda fun. Plus, several of them are our friends' children and have supposedly been looking forward to being in my class. So I'll just keep on truckin'! Oh, these were their little goodie bags for Christmas - nothing too exciting, just a couple cutie oranges, hot chocolate and apple cider packets in addition to the candy cane antlers!
* First Annual Southworth Sing-Along!!: So, one of our favorite parts of visiting Sean's family at Christmas-time is when we're there for Christmas Eve, we're able to participate with their annual sing-along. Sean plays the piano, Loren plays guitar or banjo, I break out my violin {see previously mentioned angelic blonde violinist ornament comment} and everyone else sings along. We love it! Our own little Christmas carol jam session! Since we weren't in SoCal for Christmas this year, we decided to try our own little carols-at-the-spinet {name that Christmas song!} party.
Totally last minute, we invited (I think) 10 families from the ward to a sort-of open house for Christmas carols. We had hot chocolate, homemade eggnog (courtesy of Sean and his dad's recipe) and some goodies. And then we warned everyone of our small house and limited space and suggested people dropping by at different times so it wasn't overcrowded. Ha!! They all took that to mean "don't come right at 7pm" and by 7:45pm our house was jumpin'! At least one person from 8 of the 10 (or so) families we invited came and we had 32 guests (not including our little family of 3) show-up. Of course, no one wanted to leave once they got here because we were having so much fun! So, next year I will just do a reminder of our small house and leave it at that!! Sean played piano and then everyone just about died of shock when I pulled out my violin and started tuning it up. Apparently no one up here knew I played!! I guess I had kept that secret well {though some would probably call that burying my talent and compare it to the parable of the talents - hmm.....} and by the end of the night there were promises from all the wives of the Bishopric that there would be a sacrament performance in my future. Well, so far so good... knock on wood! The oldest Coleman daughter even had her Dad make a special trip back to their house so she could get her violin and music. Her Christmas music had parts, so she played 2nd violin, I played 1st violin and Sean was on piano - all harmonizing! We will definitely be doing it again this year.
* Ethan's Overdue Hair-cut: We had decided to leave it a little long last time, but I can only stand it like that for so long! I like his hair short and more wash-and-wear/sleep-and-go. There's way too much bed-head when his hair's long!
Before
After* Ethan lost his Bumblebee car down the side of the couch, beyond just the cushions: And it's retrieval yielded many lost treasures!
#1: Broken CD Coleman kids brought over and were playing with while we watched a Ducks game in November or December 2011.#2: Toy helicopter. Not sure how long it had been missing.
#3: Chick Hicks car, the original. Pretty sure this had been missing since before we moved in January 2010. It was replaced a while ago, so now he has two!
#4: Magnet for magnetic construction book.
#5: Marker lid that had been missing for several months.
#6: Sideways Transformer car that had been missing since August 2011.
#7: Cargo rack from Ghostbusters toy car. I think this had been missing for about a year.
#8: Sword for "Dragon Castle" knight.
#9: Megatron's weapon.
#10: The Bumblebee Transformer car we had original gone digging for!
We had no idea that our couch was such a black hole for small toys! And did we find any lost change?? Of course not!
* Movies-of-the-month: We didn't have any actual date nights, but we were able to see TWO brand-new movies!! We had been waiting on these and I was anxious to see both! First, we saw Mission: Impossible, Ghost Protocol with my mom and Christine.
[http://www.onlinemovieshut.com/online-movies/mission-impossible-4-ghost-protocol-poster]The next day we saw an afternoon showing of Sherlock Holmes, Game of Shadows with just Christine.
[http://www.filmofilia.com/sherlock-holmes-2-character-posters-holmes-watson-50220/]Oh my heavens, they were both SO GOOD!!! I couldn't even pick a favorite between the two. I would go see either one again in the theater AND will buy them when they come out on DVD/Blu-Ray. Thank you, Mom, for giving me a love of action movies!! :)
* New Year's Eve: I had pink eye! Ugh! But I was already using drops and it was mostly gone. So I went to the party anyway and was just really, really careful. We partied it up at the Tellez house with most of our friends and had a great time eating, laughing, playing games, counting down to midnight and watching the neighbors' fireworks!
* Random Ethan Picture: And finally, the real reason you read these monthly recaps, a picture of Ethan sleeping in a funny position!! Ha ha!! :)
Well, this post was a lot longer than I thought it was going to be! Apparently I had missed blogging about a lot of little events. Looking back at our month, it's no wonder I was so tired in January!!
* New Year's Eve: I had pink eye! Ugh! But I was already using drops and it was mostly gone. So I went to the party anyway and was just really, really careful. We partied it up at the Tellez house with most of our friends and had a great time eating, laughing, playing games, counting down to midnight and watching the neighbors' fireworks!
* Random Ethan Picture: And finally, the real reason you read these monthly recaps, a picture of Ethan sleeping in a funny position!! Ha ha!! :)
Well, this post was a lot longer than I thought it was going to be! Apparently I had missed blogging about a lot of little events. Looking back at our month, it's no wonder I was so tired in January!!
