December in Pictures

The month of December was quite full around here. But full in a good way. Not too busy, but filled with celebration of the birth of our Savior. Anyway, I apparently was too busy celebrating to do much blogging, but I wanted to document this sweet time with a few (ok, more than a few) pictures. So here we go.

Right after Thanksgiving, we had our youth over for our annual "Tacky Christmas sweater and Decorate the Tolberts' massive Christmas tree" party.

 

The finished product

I also helped to plan a Christmas Craft exchange party for our women's ministry. So fun!

This was my contribution to the craft exchange. They are reversible and say "Always be THANKFUL!" on the other side.

Luke helped me make those by cutting and sanding all the blocks. We also made a number of these trees for friends this year.

Oh, and I had to get one of the girls in these matching dresses! Quick story...the baby size Luke's mom bought for AK four years ago. The two older girls' dresses I found last fall at a consignment sale. Amazing!

Luke really tried to plan ahead this Christmas season to have quiet time with our little family. We had Wii game nights by the Christmas tree...and Caroline beat us all at bowling...

Family movie nights...

(I highly recommend "Why do we call it Christmas?" for kids and adults of all ages!)

And Christmas lights drives around town. We got the girls in their jammies one night and then surprised them by putting them in the car instead of in bed!

Both girls were able to perform in some special Christmas programs this year. 

Anna Kate in our MHBC children's choir

Caroline with her Two's class at Bethesda singing Jingle Bells and Twinkle Twinkle. This was her first time ever on stage anywhere and she did great!

And Anna Kate with the Four's class. She was an angel, and a beautiful one at that!
(She's not the little blonde girl in the front, but the next one back!)

She is the angel in the front row (next to the little camels!) in the next two pictures

One Saturday morning (while Daddy had a youth event), I took the girls to the Camden Christmas parade. They loved it!

That night we did take all the girls with us on the youth progressive dinner. One of our youth took this one when we stopped at our house for salads.

Just one Sunday all dressed up for church.

Caroline with her amazing bed-head!

One of the highlights of the Christmas season for the girls this year was our big basket of Christmas books. Our own Christmas library has become quite extensive already! We also enjoyed checking out a number of Christmas books from our public library. 

Just a few days before Christmas, we enjoyed a special (although short!) visit from Uncle Stephen, Aunt Rachael, Leah, Bekah, and Micah. They stopped through on their way to visit Rachael's family and were able to go to our candlelight service with us. Both Leah and Anna Kate held candles for the first time this year!

No one was really interested in posing for pictures, but at least I documented that they were all together!

And then we put all four in a room to sleep! This may not have lasted all night, but they sure were cute.

Whew! We sure had a wonderful December! And I haven't even gotten to Christmas yet! Mountain house Christmas coming up next...