What's New Link up: December 2018 Recap

Happy New Year!!!!

Eventually (tomorrow probably), I plan to share 2018 highlights in general. Today, however, I'm linking up with Kristen today to chat about what's new and share my December in a nutshell! Go check out her post and everyone else's and send her some love and sunshine at the start of this new year. :)

Every year, December is our busiest month, closely followed by September. This year was the busiest yet (though I see next year being even worse with two children in school). I had a mix of personal fun events and children's events and family events and work was busy and WOW. Luckily, we really slowed down and I was off from Dec 21 until today which is my first day back at work. The downtime (relatively speaking) at home was a blessing and we spent a lot of time as a family just hanging out, which was wonderful.

We got our Christmas tree the first weekend in December (Dec 1) and it is still up, so I really need to take it down tomorrow/Saturday because it is SO dry now. The first full week of December was busy, we had parent/teacher interviews with Molly's teacher, which went well, and then we had Molly's first ever piano recital, which was so well done! She did a great job playing her three Christmas songs and we were proud of her confidence. The other children all played recognizable songs and it wasn't too long overall so it was nice. :) We also had a first fluke "snow storm" day in which the power went out so we all stayed home - it was weird and unexpected.

The following week, I got to go hear Louise Penny speak about her newest book with 600 other people in Halifax with my mom! It was a great event - she spoke a lot about her career as a writer, her relationship with her late husband, and Three Pines and Gamache. It was perfect. We got to meet her (again) and got a picture with her and get her latest book signed. It was so fun and really special. I am a huge fan so I was overjoyed at meeting her again, especially on the last stop of her tour and in my city! :)

Unfortunately, the rest of that week involved all of my immediate family members coming down with a stomach bug (luckily I dodged it but I got very little sleep caring for sick kiddos), but we all recovered quickly. Molly had her school Christmas concert which Brian actually had to miss because he was sooo sick. Her concert was awesome this year and my in-laws (retired full-time teachers) said that it was the best they'd ever seen. There was one hilarious kid who was way more into his class's song than his classmates and his enthusiasm brought me tears of laughter so that was fun :) It was great!

Later that week I was privileged enough to attend a songwriter's circle put on by my work for free with my dad. It was a great night out with some well-known local/national singer-songwriters and some great stories and laughter. As you can imagine, I was exhausted after that week and took the next week a bit slower :)

We wrapped up all of our extra-curricular activities and slowed down a bit for the holidays - although I was still doing Christmas shopping on DECEMBER 23 this year and that was unnecessarily stressful - will do better in 2019!!!! We had a postal strike here this fall so I ordered less online and that contributed to this last-minute stress. Anyway, it all got done, we all got sufficiently spoiled, our house is full of new toys/puzzles/gadgets and we have eaten more treats in the past two weeks than we probably did the rest of 2018...so there's that. We got to see almost all of our friends and all of our family except some of my aunts, uncles, and cousins and my brother who lives out west. We had lots of fun days at home in our pyjamas and some evenings out with friends. The break was wonderful and special this year and I tried my best to soak it all up.

My girls both got Lego sets from Santa and us and some other sets too. They are hooked on Lego!! I also made them Harry Potter robes and Brian 3d printed them wands that light up so they can dress up :) It was so fun! My mother in law made them beautiful mermaid blankets which they love, and we got some puzzles and board games. Brian bought me a surprise gift - a new HP netbook which will make blogging & online activities a bit more fun in 2019 :) 

For New Year's Eve we had one of our favourite couples over for some board games and appetizers for supper and it was great. We get a great view of fireworks in the horizon off our deck and that was fun at midnight even though it was freezing out! The next day was a tough one after being up late with our friends having heated debated about weird topics but we alternated some adult naps with parenting and it was all good ;) Brian spent the majority of the last 4 days of the break working on a 1000 piece Hogwarts puzzle that "Sirius Black" left for all of us for Christmas <--- my older daughter was super stressed and puzzled about that little joke. Haha.

We are heading into the new year rejuvenated and ready to get back into a routine. I am dying to declutter again and I will slowly pick away at it. I am also doing the Dedicate 30 Day Challenge with Yoga with Adriene. 

I'll be back tomorrow like I said with my highlights of 2018 :) And back to chat about the books I've been reading lately next Tuesday for Show us Your Books!!!!

What's new with you? Anyone do anything fun over the holidays?!