Thanksgiving weekend and early December 2021

Per usual, this time of year flies. I've had much of this post saved in a draft for what felt like only a few days, but has in fact, been weeks. Time to catch-up a little on life these last few weeks!

We stayed in town for Thanksgiving this year. The day before Thanksgiving, I spent most of the day prepping food and doing some cleaning, in hopes of having more time to be present and enjoy the actual holiday. I prepared sourdough bread dough, and these paleo pecan pie bars, and some grain-free stuffing.

On Thanksgiving, I baked bread, and then we got dressed after breakfast and headed over to my in-law's home for lunch. We played ping-pong and ate food, and watched/played with Cooper until we headed home before dinner. It was a sweet, low-key day.

Friday, we spent with a trip to the hardware store, and then Nicholas setup the Christmas tree, and then put up lights on the outside of the house while I added a few other Christmas items inside and finished "fluffing" the tree.

The rest of the weekend included lots of knitting, making my first ever batch of sourdough cinnamon rolls (oh my goodness, they were so good, and they didn't need the icing, in our opinion), pulling out our handknit Christmas socks, watching A Charlie Brown Christmas and Frosty the Snowman (Cooper loved both), and finalizing our Christmas shopping for the year.

In the weeks since, I've been working away on the last of my handmade (sewn or knitted) Christmas gifts, and we've done a lot of normal life things. We are enjoying simmer pots, bundled up walks around the neighborhood with pinecone scavenging, and snuggles on the couch with daddy, wearing handknits, eating soups for dinner, and fresh baked sourdough bread. We love our weekly family dates (usually Saturday mornings) running errands together or picking up coffee.

I've had coffee dates with my friend Molly, our weekly park dates with friends, and special Cooper-mommy dates to get a haircut for him, followed by a macaron or two from a quality local bakery. And we love having our (inexpensive, grocery-store-find) nutcracker and some mixed nuts out. A snack and an activity for the whole family. Cooper loves it.

And, we've had the adjustment of converting Cooper's bed to a toddler bed, and all the changes with a nap/sleep routine that come with that. Namely, he's dozing off more snuggled up on us, or on the couch, both of which we love. I'm savoring these snuggles, and the sweet kicks from our growing babe.

Other than that, I'm trying to do my best to chip away at the remaining Christmas to-do list, namely wrapping gifts and preparing a few packages that need to be mailed. And to-do lists aside, I'm trying to see this time of year for what it truly is: a sweet time of anticipation of our Savior's arrival and a time filled with wonder and admiration of God's goodness in His creation, and hoping for snow in the forecast.