December is my favorite month of the year.  (Other than June and July)  We had a very busy month.  The girls and I saw A Christmas Carol where Diyln and Jake played various characters in the play.

We got to be in the Arlington Christmas parade this year.  We had the honor of driving Ms. Mason, Arlington's superintendent.  Cami and Ava sat in the back and threw candy.

These were some of the veteran's which the parade honored.

Santa and Mrs. Clause made an appearance.

Here we are waiting for the green light to go.

We were towards the front of the parade so we got to park and circle back around to catch the last bit.

This girl and her dog are quite a pair!

We had the Christmas party for Elia's soccer team at our house.  We ended up with about 13-13 year olds!  YIKES!  I made little gift bags for all the girls.

I also made a photo booth which was a lot of fun for the girls.

They ate pizza outside on the patio with the fire pit going.  They only caught one plate on fire.  HA!

Then they came inside for games.

Our cardinal friend visited us almost every day.

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Ava's soccer team had their party at Incredible Pizza.

I was able to go to the very end of Ava's Christmas party at school.

                   


Then the teachers had their Christmas party once all the kids left for the day.  We even got to play games!  So fun!

We spend many days shopping!

Nana broke her back, and were were worried about what would happen for Christmas with the family.  However, we decided to have our party at her rehabilitation place.

I love these next 2 pictures.  Aunt Nancy found a tape of Granny Rich reading the Christmas story out of the bible.  I took these pictures when Nana realized it was her own mom reading on the tape.

Of course, we had more games!

Poor dad!  Notice he only has one answer on his whole page.

We decorated Christmas cookies!

And a picture of another visit from our cardinal.

And more Christmas cookie decorating.

We saw many deer in the park next to our house.

We made a trip to Bass Pro at the pyramid.

Elia would not visit with Santa.  So sad!

Elia and I spent a lot of time coloring.

On Christmas Eve, we had to go to Kroger to get some things.  While we were there we ran into Santa.  Elia was mortified that I asked for a picture.

On the morning of Christmas Eve we went to waffle house to visit with Ms. Wanda, our favorite school custodian!

That afternoon we went to Grammy and Papas.

Papa read the Christmas story out of the bible.

Grammy had a lot of fun games for the kids!

The kids took turns opening presents!

Ava loves the tradition of giving Jelly Bellys to Papa every year.

The kids loved this game.  Each kid was assigned a letter of the alphabet.  Grammy dumped tons of one dollar bills on the floor.  The kids had to find all the dollars with their letter on it.  Each kid ended up finding 25 dollar bills with their letter.

Miley got some Christmas Eve loving.

The girls got a basketball goal.

I tried to have a Christmas photo shoot with Miley.  She was not having it.

Then we all went to bed, and the next day Santa came!

Ava was the first to get up.

She loves her new baby.  She named him Matthew.

Elia woke up about an hour later.

Miley was so excited about her present.

The girls dumped out their stockings.

Then we opened gifts from each other.

That afternoon we went to see Nana.  Ava had to bring Matthew along.

Then we went to the Carters for Christmas that night.

The next day, Ava went to Lauren's birthday party at Incredible Pizza.

More pictures of Matthew.  He truly is kind of creepy because he looks so real.

Another picture of Elia and Miley.

We were big party people on New Years Eve.  We sat at home in our pajamas and colored.  

The girls love their patagonia from their grandparents.

Our poor cardinal flew straight into the window and knocked himself silly.  It was so sad to hear and see him bang into the window and go flying backwards on the patio with feathers flying.

Kevin found a box and some gloves and moved him into the box.

Before we left for church, he was able to fly off.  I was relieved he was ok.  Hopefully, he will keep coming back to visit.

This past year has been a challenging but good year.  Here's to hoping 2016 brings many more memories!