December!

Rachael and I signed up to do hot yoga as much as possible for the month of December (we had a Groupon worth unlimited classes for the month).  Our big plan was to wake up early--like, super early--at 5:00 am to get to the 5:30 class every weekday.  I took this picture of my hair all curled and ready to go by 7:00 that first morning.  Note how tired I look!  Turns out, waking up at 5:00 in the morning kind of sucks, even if it means a whole lot more time to get ready in the morning before the kids wake up.  We eventually switched to the evening class and things got a whole lot more fun.

So, about the class itself: The room is heated to 104 degrees and the humidity is pumped way up.  They don't call it HOT yoga for nothing.  The actual yoga was not that big of a deal, but I don't think I've ever sweat so much in my entire life.  Actually, now that it's over, I miss the sweat more than anything else.  By the end I could definitely tell that I'd gotten stronger, particularly in my arms.  Turns out, I can do hard (and scary) things!  Ever since then, I've deliberately looked for things that scare me a little bit, that sound hard, just to get the exhilaration of completing them.  Just this morning, in the freezing cold January weather (I guess temperature extremes scare me the most?), I went running with Rachael for a couple miles.  I don't run; and running in the cold of the early morning hours sounded  way hard.  I have to credit Rachael for pushing me.  Having a buddy to do these scary things with makes all the difference.  Turns out, running after never having run much, in the early morning, in the freezing cold, for a much farther distance than around the block, isn't as terrible as it sounds.  In fact, I loved it.

Darcy loves to just sit and look at books.  I only remember Audrey doing this as much as she does.  It so cute how patient and grown up she looks when she does it.

I got the kids a new little grocery store for Christmas, and I thought I'd get some shopping baskets to go with it . . . well, turns out these ones I bought off of Amazon aren't going to work.

  

My book club had a cookie exchange and a white elephant exchange (with books, naturally) for our December meeting.  I made some Graham Cracker Toffee for my "cookies."  Jonny helped.

Jonny and Dad taking a perfectly safe, and not at all irresponsible slide down the stairs on a mattress.  NBD!  Jonny does look a little concerned, though.  Not to worry.  It was as fun they [Dave] had hoped.