What the First Half of December Looked Like

 December=Choir concerts for both girls. Yippee!

Unfortunately for ME, both girls concerts were scheduled

ON THE SAME NIGHT.

Seriously?

We had to divide and conquer. 

Andrew went to Caroline's concert and I went to Whit's.

It was FANTASTIC.

She had a solo in one of the songs.

Here's a part of "She Used To Be Mine" from

Waitress, the Musical.

And here's White Winter Hymnal.

I love watching her shine on stage.

Mason and Skyler came out to watch.

It was on a Tuesday night, our normal YW night,

so Glenda and Beyonka came out to watch as well. Fun!

We're still working on plastic bag mats around here.

Slowly but surely.

Ember works with the YSA branch and they 

had an activity where they worked on the mats, too.

I finished it up and put them together to make this one.

Andrew, Caroline, and I worked on a service project for NAI as well.

We put together little gift bags with school supplies for all of the

students in Teacher Brian's class.

The Mangum's had their annual toy drive that we stopped by.

Always fun to catch up with Audrey and Angie.

Reagan's home from Brazil!

I loved hearing all of her adventures for the past year and a half.

She was originally assigned to Brazil, but COVID kept her from

going, so she served in Oregon for most of her mission. With only

five months left, they sent her down to Brazil to finish out her mission.

Grateful for Zoom so we could listen to her homecoming talk.

Drew and I had another date night at the Swarm.

They played the Mexico City Capitanes.

Their mascot is an Axolotl.

Interesting.

It was Latin Heritage night...

 or something like that.

And they had a Mariachi band for the halftime entertainment.

It was AWESOME!

I totally want to go back and watch them again next year!

I'm in the top 3% of Spanish learners in Duolingo.

Pretty awesome.

You'd think I'd be better at speaking Spanish by now.

But I still can't conjugate...

When Caroline decided to quit climbing, we needed 

to find another activity for her to try. I searched high and low

to give her ideas. I think she would be an awesome pole vaulter.

But she wasn't interested.

I was also hoping maybe she'd want to go back to tennis,

but she wanted to try something new.

Ice skating?

Fencing?

High Jump?

She ended up settling on aerial silks.

I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

But she LOVES it.

And she's dang good at it, too.

These are pics from her first month.

She continues to get better each time she goes.

Her teacher is Sabrina at Triad Aerial Arts.

She only teaches private lessons,

which means Care Bear gets lots of 

specialized, focused attention.

This little round contraption is called a Lyra

and C is also learning how to perform on that.

They do A LOT of stretching at the beginning

and C also works on her flexibility at home.

Christmas came early for Caroline this year!!!

After YEARS of asking for a pet, 

I finally gave in.

She is the proud owner of two guinea pigs:

Bumble and Scoot.

They are adorable sisters that we got through a rescue.

They are babies and were born on Nov 5. (I'm pretty sure...)

They are the same color, but Scoot has a little white

mark on her nose that helps us tell them apart.

The girls are smitten!

Andrew and I like them, too.

For the first few days that we had them,

Caroline would ask us to send her pics

while she was at school. So cute.

Whitney sewed them these little pouches that we like

to hold them in so they don't poop on us. :)

Because they poop A LOT.

I'm so glad I waited until I had kids that were old

enough to take care of their own pets.

December also = puzzle table!

Whit and I love to do puzzles in the winter.

This was our first of the season.

For a YW activity, we took cookies to two fire departments

and sang a Christmas song for them. Fun!

Geocaching date on a very pleasant December afternoon.

Christmas parade!

This year December was super mild.

It felt like an extended fall.

I LOVED it!

Miss Erika's dance studio was in the parade.

While we don't have a dancer anymore,

some of our friends dance there.

Giant toy soldier balloon

These were some random-looking balloon people.

I thought this reindeer looked crazy.

We didn't even need jackets!

So nice!

And sunny!

We also headed downtown for the 

Christmas Tree Lighting.

Piper came with us.

She and Caroline wanted to go to the top of

one of the parking garages at the end.

Andrew's heel wasn't up for it, so I took the girls.

Greensboro at night

Such fun girls

Another view of Greensboro at night. :)

There was a cool laser show this year.

It was kinda cheesy, but I still liked watching it.

Can you see the "snow" in the background?

B-train missed his calling.

He could've joined this euphonium ensemble.

One of B's classmates from Ragsdale, Julian, ended up doing

really well on America's Got Talent with a music group

called 1achord. It was SO fun to cheer for them when 

we would watch AGT.

They were one of the headline performers at the Christmas Tree Lighting.

Feeling festive!

There are some new women in our ward who are awesome.

And I feel bad that they moved in during COVID and have

not had many social opportunities.

So I worked with Rebecca to organize a little Christmas

Party at my house. We had about ten friends over to 

visit, eat, and have a white elephant game with used

Christmas Decor. It was fun.

We drove by this car one night.

They were REALLY feeling

the Christmas spirit.