February

 Not much to report in February! Jade has been doing indoor soccer once a week and Jemma started up weekly gymnastics classes!

 It's been a cold a snowy month! Nate shoveled all the snow into a pile in our front yard, and built the girls a huge snow fort! He kept adding to it with each snow!!

We celebrated Jemma's friend Brynn's birthday with a drive by parade!

I celebrated my friend Lauren turning 35 with a night of Axe Throwing and dinner. It was so nice to catch up with these two.

We also celebrated our sweet Charcoal's 11th Birthday!

January

 Jemma's American Girl car arrived January 6th and was waiting for her under the tree when she woke up!

We spent the night at my parent's house while Nate built some storage shelving in the basement for them! During the day we did a little sledding on the hill across the street from their house.

That evening, Nate and I got out on a double date with our friends Dave and Katie! We went ice skating (which none of us had done in years) and grabbed dinner! We had such a good time together, and nobody got hurt on the ice! :)

The most exciting day in January for us was January 27th when Jemma returned to school in person for the first time since last March!!

Jade started the next day!!

The girls' school district divided up the kids returning in person into 2.5 hour AM and PM sessions. So, right now the girls are attending in person Tuesday-Friday from 8:15-10:45 and then have 2.5 hours of Async work and specials in the afternoons. Monday is an all remote day for everything. It's not much, but it's something and the girls are SO happy to be back!

December

 This year we decided to split up our annual night of driving around looking at Christmas Lights into two separate nights!

The first night we started by walking around Downtown Naperville looking at their light display. We grabbed ice cream from our favorite spot, Cookie Dough Creations, and ate it in the car while we drove around looking at all our favorite local houses! There were several houses that had their lights programmed to music, those were definitely the highlight for the girls!

Our second night was our more traditional night, where the girls get in their pajamas and we drive around looking at lights while eating fries and milkshakes from McDonalds! There were some pretty impressive light displays this year. Even some where people were getting out to look around!

This year, Santa drove through our neighborhood on a float! The girls loved it! Such a fun idea and alternative to visiting Santa in these COVID times! :)

We had our first Christmas celebration with Grandma and Grandpa on December 23rd! We had a fun day of opening presents, playing games and enjoying yummy food. We all spent the night there too, which was extra fun for everyone!

We had a fun day at home on Christmas Eve. We relaxed, watched Christmas movies, made cookies for Santa, had pizza for dinner and watched church online. Our Church was planning to do an outdoor service, but because of super cold temperatures it was unfortunately cancelled last minute.

Christmas Day of course began with presents followed by cinnamon rolls and bacon for breakfast! Later that morning we headed out to celebrate with Nate's extended family! We had such a fun day seeing family!

One of Jemma's gifts (a remote control American Girl car) was delayed, so she received a letter from Santa saying it would be delivered in early January.

Our last celebration was with Grammy and Grampy and the Baum Family on December 26th! The cousins had the best time playing together, and I loved catching up with my sister! There was lots of presents, laughs and food! We did however miss our annual tradition of Nick's Pizza for dinner (because of COVID). 

Our last celebration is typically on December 27th with my extended family on my dad's side. Everyone is pretty scattered throughout the US and it didn't make a ton of sense for us to all to try to gather together due to COVID. Instead, earlier in December the kids all participated in a Zoom Scavenger Hunt event together and the adults had a catch up Zoom together! We miss you all and can't wait to see you in person SOON!