Fourth Sunday of Advent

On my way to Mass, one day shy of 25 weeks

After a lovely brunch, we bought our Christmas tree: it was bright, can you tell? John immediately double-checked, "It's still Advent, isn't it?" (Yes!) Our plan is to decorate the tree on Christmas Eve.

I enjoyed the treat of taking a nap while Chris occupied the children: having Chris on a business trip last week really sapped my energy (both kids still wake several times per night). In the afternoon, we baked gingerbread cookies to give as gifts to our neighbors. Turns out Mary likes molasses!

I let the kids decorate our family's share of cookies and I decorated the ones for the neighbors. But if you could see how they turned out, you'd understand why I'll let the neighbors go ahead and assume that the kids decorated those too!

I also baked three lasagnas today, so I was on my feet in the kitchen almost straight from one o'clock to six. I'm almost six months pregnant and I tweaked my back at the end, so I'm sitting here with an ice pack while Chris cleans my disaster of a kitchen. Mental note: I can't stay on my feet that long anymore!