Ryan took the boys out one afternoon, and they strung pretty white lights around the lone tree in our yard. When it shines at night, so solitary in a snow-white, moonlit field, it’s just so pretty.

In this picture, Jameson appears to be sweeping the snow away. He’s got a long way to go:

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Cookies are what it’s all about, right? Rum logs are happily consumed at every moment that seems at all appropriate.

Beatrice longs for a cookie:

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There are pre-dawn book-reading moments that happen quite regularly. The basket of Christmas books gets heftier every year.

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The boys had their CFA Christmas Concert this past Friday evening. William was bursting with excitement over his “very first concert ever in his whole life!!!!!” I will be honest: I was not feeling the Christmas “magic” last week, but did my best to remember how exciting that Friday evening concert always was to me as a child. With that in mind, I made sure to carve out plenty of time to iron clothes, straighten ties, wrap scarves, and say in as many ways as I could, “Hey! This is a big deal!” And they had the best night. (Seeing life through someone else’s eyes sure helps a lot, doesn’t it?)