december daily - day one

warning - picture heavy post!!

wow. it's really here. december. and didn't old man winter come in with a bang today, being the first day of december. i woke up to 62 degree temperatures, to ending the day around 400pm, with 32 degree temps and a wicked snow storm happening. only in syracuse, i suppose.

so - i've wanted to follow along with ali e and her december daily albums for years now, and just can't ever seem to make the time. i stock up on supplies. and there they sit. so i figured, this year, i'd blog about it. we've done a lot of festive stuff so far this season, and i need a place to document it all... so join me. and hopefully we can both get in the spirit.

this year, i explained to the hubby, i needed a joyful holiday season. it's not about gifts, parties, or cookie swaps to me. all those things require time that i'm not always willing to give, but often do so out of obligation. this year, it's about the number three. him, her and i. that's it. i want to continue building tradition. joyful, simple, tradition. so here's how it looks so far:




there's been lots of teaching...

 and lots of hands on baking, all while getting dressed up to do so:

she insists we wear our aprons every time

We then braved the first cold, cold night after Thanksgiving, and headed to Clinton Square for the tree lighting. this was an awesome time for each of us!

summoning more snowflakes. it began to snow the minute we parked our car downtown.

dear sweet stranger who OFFERED to take a picture of us? i love you more than words. joyful.

saturday, we headed out to get the tree. was not an easy task. we ventured out to phoenix, following signs to a tree farm that we could never find, driving into a miserable snowstorm. ended up back in camillus in front of the town hall, buying from a cute little tree lot like you'd see in a movie. we love the camillus optimists club for sponsoring this tree lot and offered a Frasier fir for only 45 bucks. best christmas tree ever.

this was the one she chose.

and it's perfect.

we also put one up in her room...

pink. what else?

and then of course we HAD to have one in the play room... with the cutest lil pom-pom garland ever that i found at christmas tree shops...

the play room tree, complete with a little village and train tracks.

and somewhere along they way? this guy showed up. we don't know how he got into the house this year, but he's here for the season. watching. listening, and flying back to the north pole each night to report back to santa. i am sad to say? santa's not heard a good report yet. oi vey, what a rough week momma has had!

if you don't know the story of The Elf on a Shelf, go google it. you must get an Elf! We named him Eddie May.

And this week marks about the 9th week Kennedy has been in school. we had her conference about a week ago. her teacher said she is soaking things up like a sponge. she said she would begin to start breaking the kids into groups after thanksgiving, to work on reading skills and continue site word work. they need to know 30 before they can advance to 1st grade. Kennedy knows 24 of them. the teacher has only taught 10 so far. today was library day. she came home with this:

and read every single word. without assistance. this is an enormous first. one that had me in tears and one i will never, for a moment forget. the sound of her reading was as smooth as honey and even sweeter. it's all she does these days, read, write and ask how to spell things. phonetically, she is spot on with every single thing she tries to write. i want to scoop her teacher up and swing her around. it's amazing.

and that my friends, is how i kicked off december. not too shabby. and i am praying the joyfulness remains. because it's the little things like this, that make all the rotten things not so stinky.

peace and be good. see you tomorrow. where do you think Eddie will end up tonight?