December 2021 Highlights

December! A wonderful month! Here's what we were up to:

The first night of December there was an absolutely stunning sunset.

The first Friday of December we went with the other local Evans families to the Denver Zoo Lights!

Missing Chris and Jane who were finding a bathroom to wash Jane's hands from the sticky cotton candy haha.

Cuties!

"I want a hippopotamus for Christmas! Only a hippopotamus will do!"

Lights in all the colors, so fun!

Fox really loves gingerbread men.

I took the kids to the mall one evening after math tutoring to get dinner.

Popeyes will be in the food court soon! The kids are over the moon! We loved Popeyes in the food court when we lived on the base in Germany.

Santa! We didn't see Santa here this year, but we did find him later in the month at Cabela's.

Super cool Lego display.

Chris was gifted some scratch cards. I think they won a dollar.

Watching Home Alone in bed.

I started adding salsa to my breakfast eggs and it totally changes the flavor profile! Yum!

It legit snowed! Finally! First measurable snowfall of the season, it was the longest Denver has ever gone without snow. And sadly it caught up to us later... read on.

We stayed one night at the Gaylord Rockies Hotel out by the airport. The previous two years we've gone to the Christmas special event we've told ourselves we should stay the night and so this year, we did! And it was awesome!

We parked and walked to the reception desks.

Ooooooh! So festive!

First thing's first: swimming!

I even put my swimsuit on, that never happens.

Neato!

We braved the freezing temps and went outside to sit in the hottub.

We lasted about 2 minutes before going back indoors.

We headed back to the room to change into jammies then walk around in search of treats.

So many photos ops all around the hotel, I took around 500 pics.

Massive tree!

White chocolate hot chocolate with crushed peppermint - even now I can't stop thinking about it. Soooooo delicious!

Handsome Mr. Fox.

Lounging.

This is all inside!

My favorite view.

Me! I have to remind myself to take selfies or have Chris or strangers take our pic so I can be in them too.

Every year it's fun to find the new things. This grab'n'go area was new and I liked the displays.

We fell asleep watching Christmas Chronicles and woke up to this beautiful view of Denver and the Rocky Mountains.

Breakfast.

We chilled in front of this huge fireplace for about an hour before the exhibits opened.

All on our various screens for an hour. But you know what? It's one of my favorite memories from the whole weekend.

Photo op.

Photo op. I mean right?! Everywhere!

Walking around and seeing all that we could see in this massive hotel.

I love all the Christmas decor.

There's a little arcade room and the kids miraculously each got three rubber duckies from this claw machine.

We checked out the gym.

Beautiful day!

At 10am the Mission: Save Elf event opened.

All the things for sale were so cute!

Our family in December 2021 at the Gaylord Rockies Hotel.

Fox and Jane are so good at letting me take hundreds of pictures of them in quick succession.

Lol.

But first, let me take an elfie!

Fun interactive rooms.

We "baked" a cookie.

Fox's cookie,

Loved this epically decorated room based on the movie Elf.

Just like the movie.

Throwing snowballs.

Dancing in the mail room.

We grabbed a gingerbread house kit to go.

I took so many pictures to go along with my 25 Christmas Cut Files 2021.

Cool string art.

Then we ventured outside for even more activities.

Getting ready to go tubing down the hill!

Here we go!!

Chris took Fox and Jane on a lap around the ice rink.

We ended by playing two holes of mini golf lol. It was cold and I was missing my kitties :)

Bye bye Gaylord Rockies Hotel! Hope to be back next year!

That night I perused through Netflix and watched a movie called Holiday in the Wild and loved it oh so much. Having kitties snuggling with me always helps.

We had someone over to give us a bid for new blinds, but holy cow $16,000.00 for 20 blinds is just insaaaane. Next!

Proud of my lion mane lol.

Fun light strand earrings from Target.

Of course we went and saw the Gingerbread House! It's a must.

As I was shopping for more kit supplies on Amazon this little pink radio came up in the "recommended for you" section and I couldn't help myself! It's tiny! It's pink! Get in my cart! And it's fantastic quality! Even as I'm typing this I still haven't had to charge it and the sound is top notch. I love it.

The Saturday before Christmas we went and saw Santa at Cabela's and he was so nice!

So friendly and chatty!

Then we drove over to Tom & Margi's to spend the afternoon baking and decorating gingerbread men cookies.

While they were decorating I was hand stitching the "thanksgiving" letters for my December Daily while Chris and Tom were watching golf and football.

Fun times with Nana!

The Sunday before Christmas we had our Christmas program at church and this was Fox's very last time participating in a Primary program! I can't even believe it.

On Christmas "Adam" (the night before Christmas Eve) we continued the tradition of eating dinner together virtually, opening a present that we get from Target, and then reading from the Coming of Christ book.

I love love love this tradition.

Let the Christmas Eve festivities begin!

We saw Sing 2 in the morning and I actually really loved it! I'd totally see it again.

Chris made a delicious dinner and we used my Grandma Cathie's beautiful white and gold-rimmed dishes that we inherited.

Changed my outfit to something sparkly for all the Christmas Eve traditions at Tom & Margi's.

They invited a bunch of people over for the Nativity in the Barn.

Jane was an angel and Fox was the tax collector.

Jane and I by the fireplace.

Jane played some of her current piano songs.

Then we all played the Bag Game.

Back at home, we put Fox & Jane to sleep then got to work prepping for Christmas! We ended the night by watching the X-Files episode How the Ghosts Stole Christmas. It's tradition!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Fox and Jane woke up bright and early of course. There's a reason for the expression "like a kid at Christmas!"

They got new blankets and fun toys.

I got Chris an extreme driving experience happening next summer so I made him this fun card that he opened and could read all about it.

He's legit excited! Yay! He's the hardest person in the world to shop for so I was happy that I found this for him.

Traditional Christmas quiche and cinnamon rolls breakfast.

Christmas carnage.

Remember I talked about how dry it's been? On December 30th it was very very windy, supposedly knocked over a power line (I think it's still all under investigation, power company says no lines were down), which sparked a fire (now called the Marshall Fire) that quickly raged and destroyed over 1000 homes and structures in Superior/Boulder. Unbelievable. Tragic. So sad. Especially since so many people are out of town for the holidays and pets got left at home. And the worst part? The very next day we had a snowstorm which would have prevented these fires. It's so awful. Coloradans are rad though and are coming together to help in any way we can.

*****

We saw 2 movies in the theater, Spiderman and Sing 2. I enjoyed both.

I watched all kinds of holiday baking shows throughout December. Makes me want to bake but I know that won't happen lol.

We've been falling asleep to FRIENDS for a decade now, so this resonates with me:

*****

Kitties! They're the BEST! Omg they bring me so much happiness I can't even put it into words.

I have an orange blanket on my scrapping table that they sleep on frequently, especially as I'm working at the computer or standing to scrap.

They're both on the naughty list for sure though lololol. They played with these trees all day every day. The day after Christmas we put everything away to keep them from destroying all our decorations.

Jillybean worn out from her antics.

Amy Apple being her stinkin' cute self.

Like Rachel, they follow me everywhere, and I wouldn't have it any other way!

We thought we had escaped from the "cats climbing trees" thing but the week of Christmas they figured it out! They would run up and down our 10' tree, swat at the ornaments, take NAPS, oh em gee. So cute and funny but also worrisome. Which again is why we took everything down so quickly. Let's play a game of I spy! Can you see a kitty or two in every photo??

They're the best. We all love them and thank our lucky stars that we got two more nice kitties.

*****

On the scrappy front! While I only shared 2 personal projects here in December, it was a super productive month behind the scenes: I made 8 layouts and 4 mini albums for my upcoming PaigePals virtual classes! All is Bright Layout // December Daily 2021

Most of December my time was dedicated to working on my December Daily 2021. This is an annual project near and dear to my heart, all thanks to Ali Edwards. Here is a collage of all 9 of my December Daily mini albums:

I spent about a week stitching the cover, another week backing my 25 Christmas Cut Files 2021, and then another two weeks adding all the photos and details. Labor of love and I wouldn't have it any other way.

When I wasn't working on my December Daily, I was prepping, planning, and creating the projects for my next round of PaigePals kits & virtual classes! I always have at least one "helper", usually two :)

Once I figured out what was going in all the kits, I started creating the projects. For each kit we will make 2 layouts and a mini album. The whole time I was creating, I just had a huge smile on my face. I love love love love scrapbooking and creating, even after all these years. Going on 21 years of scrapbooking and I love it even more now than I did back then.

I created 8 layouts and 4 mini albums in about 12 days and I love each and every project that we will create together. I will have the virtual classes up in My Shop very soon!

The last week of December was spent putting all the kits together. I only have a few of Kit 3 left! This is a pic of Kit 2 though.

The day before the New Year I got a box of my next collection! AHHH! It's like Christmas all over again when these boxes of ultimate happy mail land on my doorstep. The big reveal will be here on Thursday!