The Avonlea Way: Lots of fun in December (2020)

Well, it was quite a month. Logan turned 7, we celebrated Jesus' birthday and Justin turned 40. In 4 days we will celebrate Maggie's birthday. A lot of fun going on around here!

Decorating Christmas cookies!

Logan's 7th birthday! (Blowing out candles covid-style... cutting Logan's piece and blowing on his piece alone)

Me and Penny

Christmas at Grammy and Pop Pop's- Lanna and Jacob

Maggie Dill playing with a walkie talkie- nothing special about this pic, but she's been playing without her shirt on from time to time and it just cracks me up.

Lantern Walk- a Plessinger tradition. We've been doing the Lantern walk on Christmas Eve with just the 5 of us, but thisyear we did it when we were with the whole Plessinger crew and we walked down a long driveway in the country to Jusitn's great aunt and uncle's house and then sang Christmas carols to them!

Logan decorating Christmas cookies. He looooved the sprinkles, haha!

More sprinkles!

Otrio- a fun game that Logan got for Christmas from the cousins.

I tried making mom's sour cream chocolate cake for the first time. It looked like a mess, but it tasted yummy to me! I didn't know that I needed to flip the cakes out of the pans after 10 minutes. I left the cakes in the pans for about 3 hours, haha! So they stuck to the pan, but we made it work.

Waiting to see Santa!

Maggie and Penny

Making the cake!

Christmas morning- reading Luke 2. (Jacob is a little preoccupied looking at presents!)

Decorator extradonairre!

I had to put this in, because Justin just bought this "battery daddy" battery organizer and he loves it so much! I feel like it's a sign that you're 40... when you really appreciate having your batteries organized, haha!

I've got to keep a few running pics in the mix!

Maggie put a superhero cape on Penny!

Our gingerbread house

Grammy and Pop Pop and the 7 grandkids!

Maggie and her new pistol- tough girl!

Grammy and Pop Pop gave this fairy costume to Maggie yesterday as an early birthday present. She's been going around granting wishes to everyone! I can't wait for the Buckeyes to win tonight ;)

Cutie Pie

Little story on this Grinch ornament. We went to see Santa 4 days before Christmas (lesson learned: don't go see Santa so close to Christmas!) and Jacob asked for a Grinch ornament. Santa searched all over and finally found one. Santa was curious how Jacob would like it. We are an unwrapped-one-gift-from-Santa family. Pic to follow with the rest of the story.

A few Christmas card pic outtakes

Magnatile marble run from Mimi and Bobby

Fingerpaint stamp book from the Finneys- Jacob loves it!

They've been loving this Osmo pad and have all been coloring on the dry erase boards together because of it. So fun.

Christmas Eve Service!

Logan's birthday at Just Hoops with Liam and Rhett

We had such great packing snow one day. It snowed steadily all day and by the end of the day we had enough to go out and play in!

Gingerbread House time

Christmas Eve!

Logan wanted a basketball on his cake and Jacob suggested a basketball snowman! Logan loved the idea. I made the cake and Justin made the basketball snowman happen!

Logan and I made some white bean muffins. This month he has learned to crack the eggs and do most of the baking when we bake things.

Jacob and I thought this would be an easy craft for him to do. It turns out that Pinterest makes things look a lot better, haha! I think we needed a different pinecone ;)

Maggie got on her new baking hat and apron to make banana bread!

For the Grinch day at school, Jacob was supposed to wear green and anything festive. We made the antlers and I even used our hot glue gun. We got it a while ago, but I don't use it often. It made the googly eyes stay so well!

Christmas morning!

Christmas card pic

Snow friends!

Toy shotguns for Christmas!

Early morning on Christmas

Jacob made a new suit for Santa... his is the bottom row, the second one from the right. Green suit. He made him a suit that looked like a Christmas tree so that he would blend in if he got caught.

Penny in the nativity scene

Caroling with the Plessinger crew

Nerf guns!

I love her so much

This was the finished product. It looked like an animal got to it, haha!

Justin made this pork shoulder for us for today (New Year's Day). He put it in last night. It was Ah-mazing!!! Such yummy pulled pork sandwiches.

Just Hoops on Logan's birthday

Cousins! Jacob, Colton and Logan- they get along and play so well together.

Logan will play basketball on a team for the first time beginning January 23.

Caroling- Logan and I practiced the lyrics to the songs that day

They each drew a bird in a nest (Maggie, Jacob, Logan)

A good chunk of the cake in the pan!

Making Christmas cookies

Showing us her new stick-on earrings

Playing inthe snow

Lantern Walk

Maggie is obsessed with Penny

Jacob was SOO excited about his Grinch ornament!

Logan got to stay up a bit late for a Browns Monday Night Football game :-)

One of our bigger group runs

Outdoor Christmas hangout on December 26 with Mom and Bill

Maggie writing her name :)

Jacob got a stuffed Yoshi for Christmas- and he loves it! (Logan got a Nintendo Switch for Christmas, so they are both loving all things Nintendo :))

It was on December 20, that I saw I could get to 1400 miles for the year if I finished strong. So, I had a big push at the end and made it to 1400. I'm super pumped about it. I have some goals for 2021. They are similar to this year, but as far as yearly total, I hope to get 1400 again. I actually don't want to run more than that. If anything, I need to add in more cross training and possibly run less. I want to have one 1/2 marathon run a month (not a race, but a 13.1 mile run with friends). For 2020 I had one 10-miler per month.

If you look hard, you can find Penny in the tree. The first week we had the tree up, she climbed it about 5 times a day. Once we got some presents under the tree, she was deterred a bit.

Logan brought home a Lima Bean seed and we planted it. It's been fun to check on the progress.

Karaoke at the Finneys!!! That is one of her neighbors (Ann-Marie, I think)

Outtake

7 mile run on Christmas Day. I ran with Lindsay. There was a lot of snow to run thought and my legs were toast after this!

Rhett, Logan and Liam

Justin's 40th birthday! We went to dinner at Eddie Merlot's with the Finneys and then met Tommie and Amber at Top Golf. It was a great night!

Christmas at the Finneys!

Watching Polar Express on Christmas Eve. I had only seen it once. I really enjoy it. Jacob was cracking me up. Logan has the striped pants on and Jacob is at the end of the couch.