Our church’s children put on one seriously great Christmas pageant tonight.* Last night was the dress rehearsal, and I think I got most of my tears out then. Not all, though. Advent never fails to capture my imagination, and pair it with kids that I love, it’s almost too much. Put those kids in costume and let them sing. I mean, c’mon.

* The program was written and directed this year by my friend Amanda (this little angel is her Clara), and she absolutely killed it. Thank you, Amanda, for putting together and pulling off such an utterly enjoyable evening. And thank you, Redeemer, for the kids. They are spectacular.

Clara’s favorite thing by far these days is dance class. Dance class is on Thursday mornings, but Clara begins each day (with very few exceptions) asking, “What day is today? Is today Thoorsday? How many more days until I have dance class?” Today marked the last day in a session, so these precious three- and four-year-olds gave a mini-recital, showing the mommies and daddies (and grandpas and grandmas) what they learned. So much goodness here.

Our Christmas tree fell right over yesterday. A loud crash, water and pine needles everywhere, and a few broken ornaments (including Ian’s faaaaaaavorite), but no one was hurt. And even better no one yelled or snapped at anyone else in the chaos of putting it all right again. We’re taking it a little slower this time, hanging a few ornaments at a time, figuring we’ll get there. Clara saw her chance after the boys left for school this morning to “do the ordaments” in peace. Works for me.

December is a ninja–sneaky, sneaky last month of the year snuck right up on me. And December means it’s time for the December Photo Project, one photo a day for the first twenty-five days of the month.

One of the traditions we started a couple of years ago is wrapping twenty-five winter or Christmas books and opening one each day of December until Christmas. Our success is, as you might imagine, mixed. Inevitably there are fights about whose turn it is to open a book. We often only go five or six days before one (or all) of the kids gets antsy and/or full-on tantrumy and we find ourselves opening two or three books a day (just not a battle I’m ever going to pick). But each year we start with the hope that this will be a tradition that is as sweet as it sounds. So far so good as we opened our first book this morning. And I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes with two (more) readers in the household–I am ever amazed at what the kids can do, and I have to say that the fact the boys can really and truly read is one of my favorite things ever. And when they read to each other or to Clara? I just can’t even.

We have been planning our family Halloween costumes for a long time, and when it all came together, it was more fun than I had even imagined. We are all big fans of the animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender, and we thought that without a shaved head Simon looks pretty Aang-like; with a shaved head, though, he’s a dead ringer. We also suspected that Clara would make the cutest little Appa ever, and in fact she did. (My favorite was when people would ask Clara what she was planning to be for Halloween. She would say, “a fwying buffalo!” Without fail, they looked at me puzzled, and I confirmed, “Yes, she is going to be a flying buffalo.”) An earth bender was an obvious choice for Ian, as his favorite color is brown (and his best buddy’s favorite color is green). Jason chose Fire Nation because, well, it would look cool. And that left me with becoming a water bender to round out the team.

I’m not going to lie: it was a lot of work (I made something like 80 percent of all the costumes by hand), but I would also say it was completely worth it. It was kind of magical to be transformed for a day.

It’s overexposed and blurry, but I still love this image (actually, that’s probably a big part of the reason why I love this image). And I love this family (another big part). In a few days, I’ll share lots more photos of a quick adventure to the apple orchard on a practically perfect fall evening.

I was thrilled when Molly’s mom asked if I would consider taking Molly’s senior pictures. And it was such a pleasure to get to know Molly (and a little bit of Lincoln) on a beautiful spring day. A few months later, I still smile whenever I think of Molly’s beautiful smile, sly sense of humor, and strong sense of herself. She struck me as a classic example of someone who doesn’t say much, but when she does, she’s so worth listening to.

We took a tour of Robinette Farms and had such a good time and learned so much. We also came home with tomatoes that we ate like candy, a yellow watermelon, beautiful red peppers, and “funny” eggs (in various colors and shapes).