The 12 Dates of Christmas (Part II)

What a holiday season it has been! I can't believe tomorrow is Christmas (and I REALLY can't believe my shopping is done and holiday cards are out.) Below is the second half of my alleged
"12 Dates of Christmas."

Date #7: Christmas Tree Shopping! Ok, so we actually have a perfectly sized artificial tree at home. But still, the girls and I still had fun perusing trees, purchasing  a nice big wreath, and then having an excuse to make some fancy hot chocolate at home (since we had spent all of 12 minutes in the cold.). Later that day, I attended the Exultate holiday concert (but I won't consider that a Christmas date since I went by myself.) Still, I look forward to it every holiday season. It was a beautiful concert and a wonderful musical experience.

Date #8: Cookie Baking Date! With Azure's help, we made a LOT of cookies last week. We distributed them to Cece's dance teachers, the childcare providers at the gym, our mail carrier. and the garbage man. I'm extremely proud that we didn't eat them all ourselves. And I'm very proud of Rosie for not bopping Cece on the head with that rolling pin.

Date #9: Lady Date! Our monthly lady date was a small one, but a good one. One snowy romantic evening last week, Emily and I went to Bonfire on Grand Avenue. It was fantastic. We chatted and caught up with each other, shared food, and enjoyed the falling snow outside. Can't wait to get the next ladies night on the books!

Date #10: Bestie Palooza! Sarah and Will hiked all they way from Chicago to pay our little old selves a visit this past weekend. We stayed BUSY! There was a trip to Good Times Park, a play date with other littles,  a maternity photo shoot, dinner out with kids (Chipotle), dinner without kids (Crave. Thank you Joe for watching the kids!) We also attempted to play in the snow and succeeded in eating all of the yummy food while catching up. Thank you so much for visiting us!

Date #11: Children's Museum at the MOA. I'm thrilled that there's another Children's Museum location where I can use my membership card (and is extremely close to our house!) They have a very cool storybook exhibit there right now which Cece keeps talking about returning to.

Date #12: Look at Christmas Lights! The girls and I managed a drive through our neighborhood to look at Christmas lights. I had wanted to do this with Christmas tunes and hot chocolate. Christmas tunes we had, however, we had just been at the gym, so they happily settled for protein shakes as their beverage instead of hot chocolate and were plenty content. For a whole 20 minutes ; )

Well, as you can see, it's Christmas Eve and I'm off to bed so that Santa has a chance to get here. I wish you joy and peace as well as fun and good food with family and friends tomorrow!

Merry Christmas!