The holiday season was such a whirlwind! I cant believe I am writing this in January already. We kicked things off on thanksgiving here in Chicago and kept things very low-key. I think I am a decent home cook, but somehow ruined the turkey – so we had mostly sides. I made my first batch of Christmas bark, which also didnt turn out that great, but I perfected my technique in the coming weeks (I have found the bark turns out better the soberer you are…. go figure…).
Em was here right after thanksgiving which was a huge help. (And we had an amazing surprise brunch with her and all the wozniaks aunt/uncles when she arrived!) We looooooved having her here. Everything is easier with another set of hands — Or I basically asked her to keep Evie the hell away from me, thus making life 1000x easier, so she was on Evie duty the entire time. She was the first guest to arrive since potty training Evie, too, so that was extra helpful! Also, Em is such a good sister/friend, and we just like having her around 🙂 So it was a really really great week. I wish she lived with us always. She started the holidays off right with some Christmas cookies:
[Quick aside from holiday events: Evie is doing great with potty training!! We used M&Ms to help reinforce the idea of going, as we did with Wil, but with Wil – as soon as things started becoming habit – he kind of forgot about the M&Ms. But Evie hasnt forgotten! we are like 6 weeks in and after every pee shes asking for ‘LOTS OF NEMNEMS!!’ i dont know how we will break it, but shes doing great, so thats what important to us right now.]
Life is still crazy around here but we tried to celebrate the holidays the best we could. The hierarchy of needs in this house tends to be: bodily fluids, food, sleep, (but then you could also add in the complexity of whos need it is. Evie trumps anyone these days, then Zev…anyway) ….all the way down on the list was anything christmas related – but I think we did ok! I mean — everything was kind of a disaster, but the kids were happy so thats all that matters. The tree turned out alright:
Our outside decorations were kind of a mess. I bought minimal lights to meet the kids idea of ‘christmas lights’ outside, and thought we would just do a simple frame around the garage, but Phil pulled an audible and used as much of the lights as possible – forgoing any symmetry or rationalization in my brain, which drove me crazy – But the kids loved them. c’est la vie. We also went to the big Arlington Heights lights display which the kids had a blast at.
When we went to see Santa — we dressed Wil up in a collared shirt and Evie in a new dress. We clearly dont dress our kids up enough because Wil kept referring to himself as a ‘doctor’ and Evie as a ‘princess’ just because we put them in nice clothes for the first time in….a year? We went to the ‘free’ santa up in barrington (dont have to pay for pictures or anything) and heard you get what you pay for, but he turned out to be a very decent looking santa! But we didnt get a clear pictures of the kids, go figure.
Wil and Evie both had christmas parties at school. Wil’s class even did a whole Program with like 5 songs! (That seems like a lot for a bunch of 4 year olds?) His teachers asked that I come up and sit with them at the front of the church, in front of Wil so that I could help keep him focused during the show, so I had a great seat 😉 And it went great!! We are really proud of him.
If you have an extra 3 minutes of your life you should watch this whole thing. I love this guy:
Heres the rest of the pictures from December in Chicago. We spent a lot of time at Barrington library – or at playgrounds in the 4-oclock twilight hour:
Next – We’re off to bloomington!!
Woznation 
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