The Hill Family Saga: December...Celebration of our Savior's Birth and more

December marked our first full month of owning our new home and our first Christmas in our new home. It has been wonderful to begin settling down and developing some lasting routines. We have been getting used to living in Louisville and this month we had a chance to get used to living just outside in LaGrange. It is perfect for our little family and we have the access to all the fun things in the bigger city of Louisville.

The beginning of the month Ben and I got to enjoy a night out to attend Ben’s work Christmas party. We got all dressed up and enjoyed a night of yummy food, adult conversation, and a bit of dancing too. This was the first night out at Declan’s bedtime so Declan got a bottle at bedtime for the first time and thankfully he did great. I also had a chance to have a night out to attend a women’s program at church. Lots of good adult time for me this month. J

This month we celebrated Christmas three times: once with my parents and siblings, once with my mom’s siblings and their families, and once with our little family of four. First we had my parents and siblings all over at our house for a Saturday afternoon/overnight. We enjoyed a homemade pizza making dinner with salad, followed by presents and then custard and cake as well as cookie decorating. I made butter cookies and a lofthouse cookie imitation and they were both fabulous (especially without frosting). The kiddos got some books, bath toys, clothes, and a wagon and we didn’t do presents for the rest of us. Next we got together at my Uncle Lee’s with all my mom’s brothers and their families. We were there for about a day and a half full of fun family time. Alethea loved playing with all her cousins! The kiddos came back with lots of goodies from that weekend as well.

Yummy cookies

Decorating

Wagon ride with Aunt Justine

Paper!

Love this expression :-)

My favorite pic from Lee's

Snuggles with Papaw

playing with Granpeggy

Meeting cousin Owen

I think they are gonna be buds someday :-)

This is what happens with cousins have kids :-)

Uncle Lee!

Granpeggy snuggles

Playing Uncle Lee's piano

Snuggles with Mamaw

A lap full

Playing with cousins is exhausting

Last we had our little family Christmas. We started it with going to the Christmas Eve service at church followed by watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas as a family and then Ben and I watched my favorite, The Grinch. Lots of good family time! Then Christmas morning when the kiddos woke up, we immediately went into opening presents. Alethea had fun helping open everyone’s presents. Alethea and Declan both got a kid-sized wooden table as their symbolic gold gift which has worked out great. Alethea also got a new outfit and bubble bath as her symbolic myrrh gift, and a new children’s Bible as her symbolic frankincense gift. Declan got a new outfit for his myrrh gift and a foam book about the creation story for his frankincense gift. Ben got a pass to a zip-line tour in the caverns below Louisville as his gold, winter hat and gloves for his myrrh, and a series of John Maxwell audio books as his frankincense gift. I got new pj pants and 2 running tights as my gold gift, new running socks as my myrrh gift, and a mommy devotional as my frankincense gift. Keeping things simple really helps us to focus on the fact that it’s not about the presents, but rather about the birth of our Savior. We also read the Christmas story as a family out of Alethea’s new Bible.

The loot

Ready to go see what we got

Table that is just their size

Ta-da! She sorted all the presents for us

Showing off what she got

And Declan showing his too

Daddy's loot

Mommy's loot

1st Christmas

All smiles

We also spent about a week in NY with Ben’s family. We began in Penfield visiting with his mom, sister and her family, “big brother” and his family, good buddy Sean and Valissa, Grandpa Bob and his girlfriend, and probably a few more I am missing. We had a good time catching up and spending some good quality time. We also had a small after Christmas celebration with them too as well as rung in the new year. We had an early new years so that Alethea could celebrate too and then the rest of us stayed up for the real thing. New years day we headed over to Syracuse to visit with Ben’s dad, grandma, cousin Stephanie, Aunt Vonnie, and good friends the Bradstreets. We enjoyed lots of relaxation and good company with them as well as a small post Christmas celebration as well. (I was bad about pics this trip, but thankfully Pat got some in Penfield.)

Yummy bow

Snuggles with Grandma

Gnawing on a carrot with Grandma

Span of four generations :-)

Getting Great Grandpa's face

We also went to the Children's museum in Rochester

Cheering on Alethea and his cousins on the train

We enjoyed some yummy biscuits and eggs, plus I made sausage and bacon for Ben as well. Then unfortunately immediately following breakfast we went out into the garage to discover that our sweet dog Apollo was dead. We aren’t really sure what happened, but we think it was stomach related since he threw up several times the day before. He would eat pretty much everything he could find so it wouldn’t be surprising if he ate something that caused his death. Thankfully Basil was still alive and well, but it really put a dark cloud over our day to lose Apollo. The day did improve as we were able to spend the evening with my parents and brother, Camden. They came over to enjoy homemade top-your-own pizzas followed by a birthday cake for Jesus. Per Alethea’s request, we made a strawberry cake and it was delicious!

Happy Birthday Jesus

Christmas run with Basil

Last photo of the pups together

Blowing out the candle

Watching a Christmas movie

As usual Declan will get his own update, but now it’s time to say a bit about Alethea. She was so excited about Christmas all month long. We have a little people advent countdown that she really enjoyed taking characters out the pockets and creating the manger scene out of. We also had a different family focused activity each day of December leading up the Christmas. Each day she got to see what it was a put a sticker once we completed it. Some of the fun things we did were watching movies, decorating a gingerbread house, shop for Home of Innocents, egg nog and hot cocoa nights, and more. We also had a construction paper chain link that she tore a piece off each day that had a family members name to pray for on it. She also has the little people nativity characters and she loved playing with them. She saw the cane that Joseph carried and loved to say that “Jesus’ daddy has a candy cane”, lol. All of these things helped her to count down to Jesus’ birthday and begin to understand the “reason for the season”.

playing with her nativity

homemade hot cocoa

gingerbread house

She is a super talkative little girl and I wish I was better at keeping track of the fun things she said this month. It is crazy when I think back to the limited vocabulary she had last Christmas and the vast amount of words she knows now. She sure has grown! One of my favorite things to hear her say lately is “I love you”. There have been a few times she has woken up earlier than Declan and so she came into bed with me to snuggle. Several of those times, she has rolled over and given me a hug and said “I really love you Mommy”. Talk about a heart melter! She is also so in love with her Daddy and her little brother and it is so fun to see her figure out how to love each of them in her own special way. Sometimes that ends up a bit rough with Declan, but thankfully we know the motives are pure.

Happy girl

playing on the tablet on our way to NY

Singing in the backseat while out shopping

She still absolutely loves music and dancing. Any of her toys that play music, she turns on throughout the day and dances to them. She loves to dance circles around Declan and he is a bit fan of that too. She loves to hide from her Daddy and then wrestle with him and it is so fun to watch them enjoy each other. She has really enjoyed story time at the library and continues to be a book worm. Sometimes I think she would be okay with reading all day long. She loves being able to get new books each week at the library and it’s not uncommon to find her “reading” books in the floor on her own. I never cease to be amazed at the concepts she grasps and I truly think much of it is linked to her love for reading. She loves to line things up, sort, and match and she is quite good at it too.