Adventures in Anne's Everyday Life: December 2020

Monday, December 28, 2020

Christmas celebrations

This year I had to work Christmas, and the 2 days following so we celebrated early.

First a Christmas dinner at my parents with my sister and her husband.

Christmas Eve day we had Doug's parents over for lunch and presents.

Mama got her her first doll. And she ended up loving this Feliz Navidad singing and dancing cactus that was from G & G V to big brother.

Hoping this helps to jump some of his jiggles out!

Christmas Eve we went to the traditional church service at my parent's church. It was nice. It ended up being very healing for me as well, as this summer I had written a letter to someone that I had wronged as a teenager, and I saw her after service and we talked a bit. I asked, "did you get my letter? I'm sorry" and she said "you are forgiven!" It was one of those things where I could've just let it lie, but I had felt the Holy Spirit prompting me, so I had to obey! It is really an amazing feeling to be on the receiving end of grace and forgiveness. It is very humbling.

The next day was Christmas and I had a pretty slow day at work.

The next 2 days I was supposed to work, but it's been so slow at the hospital I actually got called off both days!

So Saturday we went over to Doug's parents to sled in their yard and see his brother.

snowball fight shield

She liked being held by grandpa more than sledding.

Sunday we went to church and had a pretty relaxing low-key day. Doug saw a movie with his brother and my parents came over for dinner (after they had also seen the same movie!) And now it's back to reality :) But it was a very nice break and wonderful to have those extra days with my family.

Monday, December 21, 2020

sweets and Elf party

Made cookies for the neighbors and delivered them.

Then made some candycane peppermint bark. SO GOOD.

Made the same recipe without the mint extract and added peanuts at the end and OMG delicious.

We have a new member of our family, "robot vacuum". Thank you for the early Christmas present Santa! We debated if we needed this as we already have a couple vacuums, but this thing has been good so far. It has a timer, so everyday at 2pm it comes out and just does it's thing for about 1.5 hours before it goes back to it's base to re-charge. It just goes randomly, so it does miss spots sometimes, and it has gotten stuck several times in the same spot (which makes me wish it was "smarter" to remember and avoid those spots) like my brother said he has one that "maps" the house and then makes the same route every time, but this one seems good. It's the Eufy I saw some blog girl has and recommended. I chose one without a wi-fi and app and all those tech options.

This was after cleaning today, (and mind you, it cleaned yesterday too, so it seems like we do need daily vacuuming!) I still use our other vacuum for the carpets, this isn't great on those, but it has been good for our hard floors which do get dusty and crumby quite often.

Nice! I wonder how long it will last with daily 1.5 hour vacuuming?? But it works well for now. '

This weekend we had a little Elf party. Our friend usually hosts one every December and invites tons of friends. With Covid, and quarantining to see her in-laws over Christmas, she didn't host. So we had a little one with just us and two other families. I made a vegan 7 layer bean dip, white chicken chili, cornbread muffins, Rachel made a cheese tray, and Liz made a yummy spring salad with fruit and pecans.

The elves decorated and gorged on sugar cookies.