the Graham Cracker House

Vowing not to back track too much- here is a quick look at the last of 2012:

December was slightly crazy for us.   On the positive side- I knew it would  be full, I knew I would be working full time with a 3 month old baby. I knew Bjorn wouldn't get much work off. I knew I had a lot of night shifts to do. I knew the holidays could be toned down as to not stress out me or our little family.  And I knew at the end of all of it I would be rewarded with a wonderous ski vacation with my family.

With  that in mind I did 85% of my Christmas Shopping while on Maternity leave in the fall, and another 12% the first week of December. I had 1 present to get when it came down to "crunch time" Pretty proud of myself.  I even saved on shipping by bringing all the WA family presents up with me in November.

We kept it low-key and didn't plan any parties.   The only one we attended was our ward party (the first week of December) where we were asked to be Mary, Joseph, and Jesus.  We just stood on stage for part of the play/presentation that talked about them. Gabriel was darling in swaddling white blankets. He just held still and looked around at everyone staring at him.  I felt underdressed as the costume department of this whole shin-dig consisted of: me.  And I wasn't prepared for that.  Wished I had my grandma or moms costume wardrobe to come up with something better. Bjorn was hillarious as he had never actually been on stage EVER in his life.  Of course he did great, but he was quite unnerved by the whole situation. (though he did make the angel laugh onstage).  My other favorite part of the play was the Shepherds.  A family with six kids dressed up as 2 Shepherds (the parents) and 6 shgeep (white t-shirts and jeans, black noses, white/pink ears on headbands

okay. This is getting too long.  time to consolidate.

Other "traditional" december activites consisted of going to Temple square to see the lights, checking out the festival of trees, attending athe creche exhibit in Midway (first time for us! It was pretty awesome!) and gingerbread (graham cracker actually) house decorating at a friends party.

A few pictures to exemplify:

 The week of Christmas was a bit hectic with me working every other night.  Christmas day itself was wonderful.  We celebrated Christmas Eve with some family in Sandy, Utah. I was in charge of activity out the nativity. It was pretty hilarious with a bunch of teenagers and older people (no kids this year). Christmas day Gabriel had slept through the night, and we enjoyed present opening with just the 3 of us.  We video chatted with our families, played with toys, ate food, took a nap, then I worked at the hospital that night.

December in a nutshell!