magical.

I am not generally the type of mom who overly mourns the passing of childhood.  By that, I mean that I don't cry when I put the baby clothes away or think about them being teenagers.  Every stage is different but great.  Ya know?  Maybe I will feel differently when I am on my last kid.  If I even know it is my last kid.  Who knows?

But Christmas.

How many more magical years will we get?  Maybe four more with Annie, if we're lucky.

This year was magical.  I was off from school for a month; and we played all day, went to the park, and took long walks every night to look for Christmas lights.  Annie talked about Santa and reindeer and magic and was just so excited about everything.  Annie sang every Christmas song and wanted me to record her singing them:

We had early and late Christmas with family.  Meg, Con, Elwood, Michael, Tom, Cathy, Brian, and Jess were in town.  We went to Annie's first Jaguar game where I got to hang out with fabulous friends whom I don't see enough.

All in all, it was a lovely Christmas.

Out on a light-finding adventure:

Pine cone craft-crazy (turned out great - thanks Pinterest!):

Cute little tree:

Annie and her BFF:

Two happy girls: