me time

Tonight Cameron is at her first real at-a-friend's-house-sleep-over! Of course, it's a double sleep-over with Jason, his best friend Jacob and Jacob's little sister Taylor. Look at her, she's so excited!

It was an easy trial run since their friends just live across the street.

Everyone's excited for the big night. Well, almost everyone...

She soon cheered up when she realized that she would have mom and dad all to herself this evening. We spent some good quality time playing babies tonight.

After Hayden went to bed I spent over an hour blitzing through the kitchen, school area and Jason's room. We are decluttered! For now. And now I can catch up on what went on in the Rusco house during December.

The big kids got to see two live shows this month. Nanny and Pops took them to see a production of Peter Pan and I took them to see The Nutcracker. I love it that they can have these opportunities.

Wait, I better back up. We got our tree Thanksgiving weekend. I know it's crazy since we always buy a live tree and it's anything but live once we get to Christmas, but we JUST CAN'T WAIT! Our addition to our Christmas village this year was a log cabin with a fireplace and family reading inside. It's such a fun tradition to go to Kohl's every year and pick out a new piece.

As you all know, a very sweet baby was born in the month of December and we had quite the party! Happy Birthday Hayden!

No time to smile, eating birthday cake is very serious business! Earlier in the day she had found big sis's Dora nightgown, so she just HAD to wear it to the party. She got a new Dora backpack, watch and doll, so it was a very Dora birthday. ¡Feliz cumpleanos Hayden!

We spent the next night in our car as the rain came down on the San Miguel Electric Light parade. I don't quite know how to put into words the (thrilling? magical? spectacular?) experience of the parade. Just in case you ever want to come up and see it, you'll be impressed to know that the parade route loops around so that you can see it twice! We pulled up at about 5 to six and were home by 6:30. So, yeah. Ahem. Here are the pics:

And there you have it. Obviously, the parade was a smashing success.

I'm gonna call it a night right here. Hopefully, I'll have you caught up on Christmas before the year's end. Good night!

Oh my, this is embarrassing! It's been so long since I've visited blogger that I nearly forgot how to log in. I won't give you any excuses, I'm sure you can imagine the things that keep me away from blogging. First of all, this kid continued to be cute:

This kid turned 5:

And she got a new scooter:

And then this guy showed up. Twice.

He brought his family along.

And then a little of this happened:

And then there was this:

Then this little one discovered how to climb up on the dining table to get to her big sister's stuff. Mom snapped a pic then removed little sis before big sis blew a gasket.

And finally, this boy who grew into a giant, read through the entire 5 books of the Percy Jackson series. Here he is reading in the special reading fort with the girls.

Of course, then there was Christmas, but I'm going to be ambitious and promise you another blog post before the year's end.

Does anybody have an explanation for why blogger started underlining all my text?