Two Plus One: December in the Odell house

The infrequency of my posts makes me sad. I know you have all been anxiously awaiting an update on our day to day lives here in Fort Collins, Co.

December and all that comes with it is in full swing in our house. We've been decorating, playing, movie watching, and adventing (yup, just made that one up). Somehow, in the midsts of all of this celebrating and fun I still manage to be in a bad mood most of every day and the boys are the whiniest they've been in months. Behind all of the decorations and special crafts I've been doing with the boys each day there is a very tired mamma and a couple of tired boys. I've always wanted more than anything to give the boys (and ultimately myself) the coziest, most fun filled Christmas in the whole world but I'm coming to realize that dream can not be a reality.
The boys are loving the activities we've been doing for advent this year. However, I think next year all of our advent activities will be simple things that the boys love to do but that we rarely do together. Play with cars, build a train track together, paint a picture, read all day, etc. Ultimately my boys just want to be with me, they don't care what we do! I know that they would have a lot more fun if I weren't rushing around trying to create a special moment for them. Special moments abound when I stop holding so tightly to my vision for each day. Today for example, we made a felt Christmas tree with felt ornaments. We went to the store this morning (all of us enduring Anni's blood curdling screams for 15 minutes - she still hates her carseat), came home, I nursed Anni, made the boys lunch, put Anni down for her nap, and was finally able to cut everything out for the boys. They played with it for 3 minutes maybe. I have to laugh because it was so hard getting everyone out the door and the end result was not as magical as I was hoping!

Here are some sweet pics of our days lately:

A little impromptu lunch in the back of the car after our home depot run

Special ornaments for the tree! I could not for the life of me get sam to look at the camera lol

Sweet Annibel, just because :)

Every year we go to the lights at the Gardens on Spring creek and every year it is FREEZING. We pretty much just speed walk through all of the displays and take some pictures by the lights. Anni was nice and warm in Jeff's jacket :)