Last month of the year

This poor post will carry the weight of the entire month, and yet will be published in January.  This is likely to be the fate of this poor blog. Perhaps Tertius' arrival will change that. But I do not blog very much, or tweet very much, anymore.  Do you know what I do now? I Marco Polo my closest women friends, and I write fanfiction.  I have been quite prolific at both of those occupations this month. 

Here are the other things we did this month. 

We celebrated Advent at St. Thomas' Episcopal Church in Brighton, which has become our home church.  I taught Children's Chapel twice.

On the second Sunday of Advent, as is our tradition, we picked out our tree.  Gro-Moore's being closed (lamentations abound), we went to Powers Farm Market in Pittsford. They had the advantage of being a proper farm that also has animals!

We add the ornaments during Advent III

I also got to check out the ROC Holiday village before Christmas this year! Ok, we still just went ice skating and did not do any of the other myriad activities the event actually offers.  We have to leave something for the future, after all; we plan to be living here for roughly forever now. 

The kids have made massive improvements in their skating abilities! Miles can just about always go without his little skate helper. On the earlier trip, Adele was not able to go without it, but as of Tuesday the 31st, she can! 

There's been quite a lot of snow in December . . . until Christmas, at which point we had a violent thaw and it's stayed green to this day. But it was gorgeous while it lasted.

December 7th we went to the RH Singers Pancake Breakfast, which is our new tradition.  I love having local events to attend every year; in each place we've lived, we've found splendid new traditions like this.  I love this one because it's in my high school cafeteria, it's less than a mile from home, we get to hear that year's crop of RH Singers do some songs from their carol book, we can see Santa and get photos, pay less than we would in a mall for the experience, and money all goes to RH Singers' budget. 

Miles' Winter Concert was December 18. He did a great job playing French horn and singing in the choir.  They did A Whole New World, which was a bizarre throwback to my 5th grade year, when the first Aladdin was released and we were all obsessed with the soundtrack.  

On the Solstice, we invited friends to the house for dinner, spiced wine, and rainbow flames in the fire pit. It was glorious.  

The Soule family and Allie were there for the fire, and Chris & Jackson joined the party for dinner.  A perfect way to celebrate the shortest, darkest day: light that we make ourselves.  

Advent III

Adele's artistry only increases 

I was a narrator for the Christmas Pageant again.  Miles was Joseph again.  But in a new turn of events, Adele got to play Mary!

She's been gunning for that role for years, but she's always been too small and short.  This year, they were the most believable Holy Family ever in some ways, because of all the sotto voce bickering they were doing almost throughout the pageant. 

Just before Christmas, Jon was diagnosed with pneumonia!  He was feeling fairly terrible on Christmas Eve, so the kids and I went to the Nickoloff's for Christmas Eve dinner (Jon still prepared pozole and tamales as usual! bless him). We enjoyed the Christmas Eve service at South Wedge Mission, as is becoming another tradition.  And the kids, as we have done for many years now, posed for a Christmas photo.

At home, they wore their new pajamas for bed and wrote their letters to Father Christmas.

Christmas Day

Photo of Miles & Adele after discovering that they  unknowingly got each other the same gift for Christmas.

Adele's artistic ventures have been fabulous lately! If you see us, ask about her "Parents As--" series 

At Christmas, I was almost 35 weeks pregnant. 

If you're wondering, I'm feeling sore, tired, short of breath, weak, and generally unfit for most physical things.  When I can get enough sleep, I'm usually pretty happy, particularly now that I've gotten my to-do list nearly done for the baby's arrival. I pushed myself rather a lot over the break to get the laundry and shopping done, and to keep up with the family's laundry as well.  This was very successful, and I even had some time to relax and play the new Nintendo Switch we got for Christmas.  I'm falling back in love with Dr. Mario. 

At this point, there are just a few purchases left to make.  The car seat is installed, everything is assembled, and we're just waiting.  I'm back at work, and will remain at work until labor starts.  However, as walking is increasingly physically hard, and as I'm increasingly sore and breathless, I'm a bit more impatient for labor to start than I was with the others.  It's been a blast.  And now I'm ready, and now I'm done.  So, I'm going to try to add as many social experiences as I can in the next weeks. I'll need some help passing the time. 

We did a reprise of our ROC Holiday Village visit on Tuesday!  I didn't realize there were musical instruments near the murals at Manhattan Square:

I watched. I wouldn't trust myself even to walk on ice just now (besides, putting on SOCKS is a challenge these days). It's a little sad for me, because I love ice skating.  But I will have, I hope, many many years in which to use my own skates, and only just now to be on the crest of this miracle. 

All in all, it was really a perfect end to a year which has been decidedly mixed.  Last year at this time we had just had the second of our three miscarriages, and I was recovering from the second surgery.  I'm at almost the one-year anniversary of having begun my fanfic (ask me, if you want to read it.  HP fans only), and I think I'm about four chapters from finishing it.  

This morning, I applied for my NYS teaching certificate, having finally met the requirements, after about 13 months of hard work.  

I think I need to keep up with blogging more, if only because it helps one to see how very much one has done with one's time.

Here we go, 2020.