Coffee With Elly

We were sitting around wondering what to do with ourselves on New Year’s Day, when we suddenly remembered that we had a brand new Zoo Membership from my mom and dad! So we loaded the kids up and went to the zoo in the mid afternoon.  The weather was unbelievably beautiful, though frigid. All of the kids enjoyed the excursion. We had dinner at the café then went back out to enjoy the Zoo Lights. Though, truth be told, by that time we were pretty worn and So, SO cold. I’m looking forward to taking advantage of the membership again sometime soon! Maybe on a slightly warmer day? Surprise! Everybody had gloves! Michael made reference to the Proverbs 31 woman and I felt so proud of myself! (I realize that to those who live in places with weird weather patterns - like snow in the winter - having gloves is probably very standard, but in my suburban Pacific Northwest life, children's gloves are mostly unnecessary and usually misplaced. As in lost.) Didn’t Aunt Katy craft this fine hat? ...

The fact that I have almost no posts in December just goes to show how busy the month was! We drove home from my parents house after Thanksgiving and realized that we had to get a tree that evening or we weren't going to be able to get it for over a couple of weeks, due to events, activities and Michael being out of town for 4 days during the first week of December. So we drove in, unloaded the car, and Michael and the boys drove back down the hill to the nearest tree lot, picked out a tree, brought it up, set it up and there it was. The middle of the month was party, party, party, with 3 parties at our house in five days!  Judah had two birthday parties, and we hosted our Community Group's Christmas party. This was in addition to three Christmas parties elsewhere! It was a very busy time, and I felt like I was running a marathon! But isn't that the norm for Christmas time? Family Birthday Party:  Friends' Birthday Party - a pizza and a movie night, with a heal...