December Catch Up

Hey, all! Long time, no post. Let me take a second to catch you all up to speed on the seemingly fastest moving month of the year. Here's December... Hein style. 

Pretty much us on most nights... rocking hair that's missed regular haircuts. (#salonsremainclosed) and in our cozies, enjoying lazy evenings as a family. 

Here are some pictures of our home decorated for the holidays. We'll start with the kid rooms. 

Always love the girls festive, little space. 

And Donovan's too. 

Here's the upstairs landing.

And some simple decorations in the master bedroom.

Onto downstairs. The living room is probably the most holly jolly space in the house. 

At least Molly thinks so. 

And like last year, we also had a tree in the family room that is most often referred to as "Gram's room." 

Michael the elf made his usual appearance on the first of the month. The kids were so excited! Michael hides each day in a different place in the house. The kids always look forward to getting up in the morning and trying to be the first to find him. The girls were actually teary-eyed on Christmas Eve knowing that he had to return to the North Pole. Thanks for making this month so much fun, Michael!

Early in the month, Donovan and I made a surprise visit to Oma Oma's house to drop off some poinsettias. Special afternoons like this are such a gift to me. She continues to be the hostess with the most-ess even at 98. 

We love you so much Oma!

In other news of the month, Taylor had her very first dentist appointment. 

She was very brave.

And extraordinarily excited to try out "Mr, Thirsty" who she had heard so much about from her brother and sister. 

Saint Nicholas 2020 was a smaller party than usual. But that didn't stop us from having the best time ever with our family! As always, we are so thankful that Oma Oma continues this tradition as a nod to our Dutch heritage. 

Nothing better than cousin time. Made even better when you have matching jammies!

Grampie read the grandkids a letter that had been left by Saint Nicholas himself.

And then there were the presents!

The evening ended with all of the kiddos spending the night at Oma and Grampie's house and Uncle Jonathan and Jill spending the night at our's. It was such a fun weekend!

There were not one but TWO Oma and Grampie sleepovers during the holiday season! And yes, Emmerson is holding up fake dog poop. This has become a Hein family thing lately to hide this fake poop that Dad resurfaced from his teenage memory bin. Is your family weird like that, too? Just us... Okay, good to know. 

Oma always have something fun to bake and do with the kiddos. 

Here is Taylor saluting Oma, letting her know that she is more than ready to take on some baking responsibility.

Some cute bedtime pictures of the kids. I have so many of these on my phone from the month. I just can't help it. The Christmas trees in their room illuminated their angelic sleepy faces, so each night at final tuck in, I couldn't resist taking a picture or two or... 100.

Christmas break finally arrived! We spent the first day of it making all sorts of slime together. 

Emmerson had so much fun creating a winter wonderland under the Christmas tree with all of her horse stables. 

Lots and lots of baking!

Our sweet neighbors dropped off these amazing plaster gingerbread houses for the kids to paint. They had so much fun and spent so much time designing their houses with paint. 

And the quarantine crew as I called them way back when are still going strong. They have been playing together outside ALL day every day. I told Dustin the other day that I really sense how big the kids are getting this year. Every other year, each morning the kids would ask, "Mom what are we going to do today?" Now the kids wake up and are like, "See ya, Mom!" I can barely get them to come in from meals. It makes me so happy that they have built in besties to play with every day. 

This cracked me up. They were using the wagon and pretending it was Santa's sleigh being pulled by the reindeer... Rudolph leading the way, of course. 

And then there's "the barracks." (If you're reading this, Sara... they have taken the barracks to a whole new level beyond our generation of secret hideout.)  

This one giant bush at the very tippy top of our giant slope has become the new hangout. 

The kids have carved their initials in its branches. They spend so much time hanging out up here and I finally hiked up to see it for myself. 

To give better perspective, that is our house and grass lawn waaaaay down at the bottom of the picture. It's quite the hike up I tell you... but they make it look easy. 

And that my friends, is December so far. Next up, Christmas!