November

I want to get to a point where blogging is part of my life again. I just finished reading My Life in France, by Julia Child, which she co wrote with her grand-nephew at the end of her life. She wrote the book about her time in France, because it was one of the times she was most happy. There was so much detail in the book that I kept wondering, how does she remember what she ate 50 years ago, how does she remember the events so clearly? In the forward, the co-author said they went through years of letters and pictures kept by Julia Child and her husband, that detailed all these memories for her, so she could recall with exact detail what they ate.

I want to be able to remember a lot of the small details of life now, but I am not writing them down, so they will drift away as my children and I get older. I don't write letters to anyone (who does?) and I actually do save my emails (I have like 3000 of them in my inbox), but those don't capture the kind of details I am interested in remembering forever. That is what my blog was doing for me, but life has gotten in the way of recording it. One day I will get back into it, the way I use to love it. When it was a creative outlet.

For now, I will just keep posting pictures of things I don't want to forget. Like the month of November and December. So busy, and so much fun.

Girls Trip 2011- Rosemary Beach, Florida
To start off November, I went on our annual girls trip for the Pittsburgh Girls. This years destination was in my neck of the woods, Rosemary Beach, Florida. This is a small beach town on the gulf of Mexico, with white sand beaches and beach homes that look like a West Indies beach resort. It was a little like heaven. Beautiful!

We rented bikes one day and drove all around the cute little village, and to the beach. This was one of my favorite things we did.

It really was hauntingly beautiful there. I came back dreaming of those white beaches.

I love these girls so much. I had such a fun time, and am counting down the days until I get to see them again!

All the Rosemary Beach pictures were taken by my extremely talented friend, Libby Jones, who is a photographer in the Phoenix area.

Nutcracker

I took the girls to their first Nutcracker performance. We went to a "tea party" before the performance where they had lots of candy and treats for the girls. They also got to meet many of the performers in their costumes. The girls really liked the nutcracker, especially Claire.

Morgan is a photo stinker.

One real treat was when the Sugar Plum Fairy came up to us and said, "Hi, Claire!" She had taught Claire's dance class last summer and had remembered Claire. It made it a little more special to Claire to watch her dance.

We actually ran into several people we knew at the Nutcracker. It was such a neat surprise for us. It's one of the things you take for granted when you live in the same place for a long time- seeing people you know at unexpected places. Being that we have lived in three different states in the last three years, it is a bit of luxury to recognize people you know when you are out and about. It has been fun to finally get to this point here, though we will be moving in the summer and we will have to start this whole thing over again. Oh well.

Christmas

The opening of the Christmas Jammies!

The reading of the Nativity Story!

Cody's favorite gift (well, favorite because he only got two gifts, and the other one was book) was this poster I made for him. It is his pyramid of greatness. I copied the idea from Parks and Rec (the show) but personalized it just for him. He took it to work to hang in his office. He got a good laugh at it. If you want to read the pyramid up close, click here.

My favorite gift, maybe ever in my life, was a Kindle Fire. I love it soooooo much. I had my doubts about whether I could ever betray my love of paper-bound books by going to an e-reader, but the Kindle Fire convinced me. I love being able to get library books just by the click of a button on the computer. LOVE IT!! Plus, I can read it in my bed at night with no lights on. Hot Diggity!