The Holidays are Upon Us

Last night we managed to get everyone dressed and out the door to go to a holiday concert that my mother-in-law sang in. Her chorale was singing with a band and doing a variety of holiday songs. It was a very nice concert and the kids seemed to enjoy it. Well, John actually managed to sit through almost half of it before getting the wiggles. And Kara sat for about 5 minutes before the concert even started and then was on the move the rest of the time. Fortunately, it was held at Fairfax High School, so there was plenty of room to wander the halls around the auditorium during the concert with all the other 2 year olds who were just not going to sit through the show! Matt and I took shifts and the kids made a fair number of new friends.

As I was taking Kara down to go for a walk I was reminded of a very eventful trip we took 3 years ago to Austin, TX to see my sister-in-law's doctoral graduation ceremony, when John was just 2 years old. The trip getting to Austin involved flying into Chicago on a very snowy, stormy night. We were on the first plane for 9 hours, then had a terrifying cab ride for another hour, ate dinner at midnight, slept on the airport floor, and made the rest of the trip to Austin the following morning. WITH A 2 YEAR OLD. All in all, it took us 24 hours to get there. The next day was the actual graduation ceremony. I'm not sure why we thought that John would sit through the event. Of course, he didn't. Not for one minute. I spent the entire ceremony out in the hallway, again with the other kids and their parents. It was okay, but I was a little bummed to have come all that way to have missed the whole thing. But, I digress....

So we did the holiday concert, saw another Santa, and got dressed up in nice clothes for a fun evening out. We drove home through some neighborhoods nearby to see holiday lights. It was a good evening. John and I baked cookies yesterday and Kara helped frost and decorate them. It was actually the first time I had ever made frosting, so it was an experience all the way around! We've been enjoying getting more and more holiday cards in the mail each day. And the kids are certainly enjoying their advent calendars this year. It's been a good season so far and I'm looking forward to all the holiday joy the coming week is going to bring for us.