108 months

Thanksgiving morning the kids were up bright and early and ready for the Christmas countdown to start, seeing Santa at the end of the Macy's Parade officially kicked off the season. We hung around in our jammies all morning and watched the parade while we played Animal Crossing. We did some cooking in the kitchen for dinner and fed the kids some lunch before we all got dressed up and headed over to Mimi and Jeff's for Thanksgiving dinner patio style. The kids entertained us with their baby toy band, made us all turkey headbands (the girls figured out they could wear them as belts), colored us pictures and snacked like snacks were going out of style. It was nice to spend time with family and share a holiday with those we haven't with in a while, the food was delish and by the end of the night we all had a turkey coma!

Friday we recovered from the week of fun we had and just hung out at the house and took it easy. The kids received a special package from FedEx, it was a box from the North Pole with a special delivery from Santa, their elves had arrived and they were excited to see them. Just like everyone else at the time they had to quarantine for the first week, the kids didn't mind as they were able to carry them around the house and take them on outings, for all they cared they could have stayed in the containers. Saturday the guys went fishing and the mommy's took the kids on an adventure to Lion Country Safari, of course the elves came too!  Their cousins had been earlier in quarantine and were excited to go again and show the girls the animals. We enjoyed our 1.5 hour ride through the zoo seeing all of the animals up close and personal (we saw quite a few of them poop to which the kids squealed and giggled), we got a little too close to an ostrich that ended up pecking on the car window, of course after we drove by it there was the sign that said "Danger, do not allow the animals to get close to your car"! We stopped at Wendy's for lunch on the way home, I think all but J fell asleep in the car on the ride home, the peace and quiet, after listening to them talk non-stop for almost two hours was refreshing! We arrived back to the daddy's pulling up with fresh fish for dinner, everyone had had a great day on their adventures!

Sunday after breakfast we had to say our goodbyes, there were many tears shed after the great week we all had. We made plans while we were there to go back for New Years, we have been throwing such great quarantine parties that a NYE party was requested, we can't say no when the only kids they see are each other. The ride home was quiet, everyone was tired, full from non-stop eating and just needed to decompress and regroup for the last couple of weeks left in the year. Monday, December 1st the girls woke up to Rainbow, their reindeer pet, and advent calendars from their elf. We had minimal Christmas decorations and no tree, they needed something to put them (and us) in the holiday spirit. 

The girls did some modeling in sister match outfits and fell in love with their new holiday nightgowns and hoodies which are both oh so soft! J is always wanting to model and was happy to get a chance in front of the camera. She enjoyed putting together her new Lego house she got for her birthday and started reading the new books she got. They were ecstatic the morning they woke up to the small glitter filled Christmas tree their elf brought them, it was a total girl tree full of rainbows, unicorns and sweet treats. They were giggling about how next year it would get glitter all over our new house and how mom would hate it, it might become a patio tree! Having the small tree changed our mood and put us more into the holiday spirit, they were missing their inflatables and big tree, next year we will go big!

The girls finished up their last couple of weeks of eLearning, it was a little bitter sweet it was coming to an end, but it was time for them to go back to the classroom and their friends in the new year. J's teacher planned some fun holiday themed "live" activities the week before Christmas break. The girls had fun drawing the Grinch, listening to Christmas stories, sharing their holiday sweaters they decorated and wrote about and doing some Christmas themed math lessons. While most will complain about eLearning we had such a great experience the first 18 weeks of school, J LOVED her teacher and was sad to have to say goodbye, she was hoping she would be going back in person but she wasn't and got assigned another teacher. We did visit school the last week to bring their teachers gifts and were able to meet their new teachers. J (and BH) would be joining a class that was assembled in November when a bunch of the other eLearners went back, the teacher was new to the school and her and I hit it off right away, after being very involved in their learning the last 10 months I needed someone who would keep me abreast to what they were learning/doing. She was excited to have J join her class and told her she had heard nothing but great things (and seen her great work) from her eLearning teacher. J finished the quarter with straight A's again, she has really loved and is excelling in the more advanced math. We had our couple of last fun Fridays and tried to make them fun for the kids. We had picnic lunches and played at the park, they decorated Gingerbread houses and made Christmas cookies. I wish they were always out at noon on Fridays and that we had some weekday time to do fun things!

The last day of eLearning was a little nostalgic, it had been 10 months of us being together 24/7 and five months of BH being like my third child. While I wasn't going to miss the crazy of keeping up with their work being done or who needed to be on a live call I was going to miss the chatter and chaos that had filled our house for almost the last year. After starting the morning with some fun "holiday work" they said goodbye to their teacher on a live call mid-morning, they were a little sad this chapter was coming to an end, they loved their teacher an hated she wasn't going back with them. They read their 20 minute independent reading, playing some learning computer games and we said goodbye to eLearning and put their computers away! Later that night we had family dinner to celebrate Christmas together. We had promised the girls a fancy dinner out but it ended up being too cold to sit outside so we went to BH's house for a home cooked steakhouse quality meal and to exchange gifts. Daddy cooked two tomahawk steaks which the girls all put down, it was a wonderful evening with friends who are more to use like family having spent so much time together these last months. 

The couple of days between school being out and Christmas we spent prepping for the holiday. We made chocolate chip cookies in our tiny condo and went to G&G's house to make a batch of rice pudding, no way I was burning that on the electric stove! We BBQed, the girls went in the pool and we just hung out, it was nice to not have anything to do! We spent a quiet Christmas Eve morning/afternoon at the condo, daddy got McDonalds for lunch and then we got ourselves showered/dressed up and packed to head over to G&G's house, we had planned to stay the night so that the girls woke up to a real tree and house in the morning! We had a wonderful evening celebrating together, you wouldn't have known we were in the middle of a pandemic still. The girls overtook Grandpa's office and computer to track Santa, they were constantly in there seeing where he was and how close he was getting to us, they even got to talk to a NORAD elf to get a real time update! We opened gifts, the girls got way too much, they loved their ice cream truck and diner they got for their American Girl dolls, they hadn't been playing with them and said they needed things for them to do, now they better play with their very expensive dolls! Grandma made a delicious prime rib for dinner and of course we all ate too much food! After dessert we set out cookies for Santa and finally around 9:30pm they said they needed to go to bed, they noticed that Santa was approaching close to the east coast of the US, why is there not a tracker to make them want to go to bed every night? 

Here are the pictures from the month, Thanksgiving and Christmas.