December next to some of her favorite things: her daddy, her dolly, and a book 
She often will just sit down and flip through her books, looking at the pictures and saying the sounds of the animals she recognizes
In this picture, December is helping me unload the groceries. She discovered the bag of grapes she could barely keep her hands off of in the grocery store! I was getting more bags out of the car, and I came inside to find December like this, thoroughly enjoying herself!
Brad's birthday was yesterday! December made him a card and gave him a present. Brad wanted hamburgers for his birthday dinner, so we had that and corn on the cob, and cake and ice cream for dessert. We're going to celebrate Brad's birthday with my family tomorrow. I think Brad's birthday was the hottest, most humid day of the year. It was forecasted to be 92 degrees F (about 31 degrees C), and humid like crazy!
Today December is going to go visit Danielle (there were pictures of her in the Memorial Day post) and swim in her pool. Makenzi, Markus, and Emilia will be there, too. It will be fun! Tomorrow morning, my whole family is going on vacation for a few days. I am so excited about it! When we get back, I'll put up some pictures and tell you all about it.
Brad as Terry the Turtle, me as Rocky the Rabbit, and Keeley (a girl in our youth group) as H.M. Hawk
Here's what Brad's turtle shell looks like! (made out of styrofoam)
We just finished doing our last VBS skit! Here's what we've been looking like every morning for the past week. The kids and teachers really seemed to enjoy the skits, and though it was alot of work, it was quite fun, too! Brad was a slow, patient, even-keeled Turtle, and I was an energetic, impulsive, crazy Rabbit. We were the main characters, and there were different characters that came and went throughout the week. This morning, December decided to get into the swing of waking up early, so she was up at 6:30am, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed! It made it easier to feed her and get out of the house at the right time, but I hope she doesn't make this a habit...tomorrow morning, we don't have to leave the house so early!
This is what December commonly looks like after eating. She likes especially to put her hands through her hair when she eats. It's all rather messy. But, she's happy with herself, as the next picture shows!
Look how fast her hands are going. You can't even see them!
Checking the music pages
She plays beautifully! (sort of)
Our church's Vacation Bible School is this week. Last year we were in charge of doing the skits, and it was rather un-fun, so we told the VBS director this year that we would make the props for the skits again, but we didn't want to have anything to do with the daily skits themselves. The pastor's family (he has seven children) said they would take over the skits, and Brad and I were very relieved!
Until the end of last week. While the pastor and his family were away visiting their grandparents out East, their grandfather died (he had been sick for a while), and they won't be back in time. Some of the older girls were teachers for the kids, as well. Our VBS program was thrown a BIG curve ball! To make a long story short, Brad and I are doing the skits again this year. Some of our youth group kids have thankfully stepped up and are acting, along with Brad as Terry the Turtle and me as Rocky the Rabbit. Oh, boy! Yesterday, Mom, Dad, Brad, and I were all working on creating a long-eared, furry rabbit hat for me. We do a skit each day, and we learn our lines the night before. This week is going to be very busy for us...this morning's skit went very well, though. Hopefully the rest of them will go as smoothly!
Here's December hanging out. (I took this picture in sepia, and it turned out kinda cool!)
December likes to play with the camera, but we don't let her play with it, so here she's consoling herself by playing with the camera case instead.
Look at that little mouth, hehee. One of her newer skills is drinking through a straw, and I like to watch her do it. She looks like such a little big person!
More playing with the camera case
Who, me? Stealing chocolate out of the chocolate chip container? No, no. Couldn't be me.
December is looking at the book and saying, "Da da! Da!" Maybe she thinks one of the pictures on the front is Brad (which it isn't)...? Kinda funny.
While we were at my parents' house yesterday, I got out some pictures from when I was a baby. Brad and I were comparing December to my baby pictures and decided December and baby Kristin don't really look all that alike. I think the mouth is similar, but definitely not the eyes! Who does December look like? Tell us, if you know!
I'm still struggling with how much December understands. She doesn't listen very well, and she often does not do what we tell her to do. Is that because she doesn't understand what we're saying to her or because she is choosing not to do what we tell her to do? I never know! For instance, she likes to stand at the back screen door, but she isn't supposed to go outside unless Brad or I take her outside. Often, she will push at the door, and then stick one leg out. I see her do this, and I say, "December, don't go outside without Mommy." But she goes out anyway. I'm not sure what to think about that. Does she not understand me or is she disobeying me?
I need to go outside now and go plant and replant. Mom gave me bean and cucumber seeds I'm going to plant, and I've got to move some flowers that don't like where they are currently planted. Already some of them have died, so I'm going on a rescue mission to save the others.
Eat breakfast, then help Mommy with her chores. December's favorite thing to help out with is sweeping and mopping the floor -- which is good, because that's what she gets the most messy!
Then go play with the laptop. (December's not really supposed to play with the laptop, but I thought this was so cute that I had to take a picture. Brad and I were in another room, and Brad said, "Wait -- I think I hear the laptop keys being pressed." So we walked into the living room, and December had hopped up on the couch and was surfing the web.)
Next, eat raisins. On special days, December gets to go to Grandpa and Grandma's house (that's where she is in this picture). Then she gets to play in the pantry, yay!! Grandma gives her raisins, too.
Learn new things. Here she is learning how to spear things with a fork (that is an important skill to learn).
Now it's getting late, so it's time to get back into the pajamas...and pick out a book to read. If the synopsis on the back cover is good, she'll give it to me to read.
Then, bedtime. Good night, December.
You may have to click on this picture to enlarge it so you can see better -- it shows some of the track and a smoking car
The Faster Pastor Race -- my dad is car #3, the second one from the left. The cars are lined up, ready to start.
There's my dad taking a turn
Here's my Dad, the racer!
On Saturday, we went to some car races. It was so much fun! At first, December and I weren't going to go, but at the last minute, we decided to go. I'm so glad we did! The track is a dirt track, but it had rained pretty hard not long before the races started. The track was turned into a complete slippery mud hole! What happens is people drive junky cars with almost everything torn out of them except the driver's seat (even the windows are taken out). It's pretty much a big kids' version of bumper cars. It was so fun to watch! There were cars smoking, losing wheels (yet still driving around the track as if they had all the wheels), etc. December waved to all the cars as they drove around. My Dad participated in the Faster Pastor race, the round where only pastors could race. His car kept on dying on him and would only start up when he'd get smashed by another car. At the last lap, his car completely died, and since no one hit him after that, he never got to finish. How fun to watch these cars drive so fast and hit each other! It was great.
We set out to give our bread crusts to Canadian geese, but we found ducks first -- these ducks had already been fed, though. There's nearly an entire bag of Cheerios scattered on the ground. 
At last we find our Canadian friends! Look how many of them there are -- see them dotting the grass in the background?
Even though we were being kind by feeding them, they were still very angry with us. That goose in front is hissing at Brad (it sounds just like a cat hissing)
This family had lots of babies (more hissing from the goose)
Brad helps December throw bread crusts to the geese
Brad and December walking down the path, watching the dog pass by
Last night, we went for a walk in a park. We can walk to it from our house, and it's a beautiful park. It runs alongside the Grand River, so there's always ducks and geese there. In the spring there are ducklings and goslings! We decided to find them and let December feed them. The geese are extremely protective of their babies, so we couldn't let December walk too close to them. Last night was one of those nights where it was warm, but you probably wouldn't get too hot if you just sat in a lawn chair in your backyard. However, if you were our for a walk, you got super hot. We were walking for over an hour, so we got quite warm! It was nice to be outside, though.
