Halfway through Advent

We're already more than halfway through Advent and just 10 days from Christmas. The past two weeks have been spent preparing ourselves for Christmas, lighting our candles, reading a reflection, and, of course, having an individually wrapped sweet each morning. Necessities, people.

We've also celebrated a few saints' days and participated in a couple of neat-o public events here in NOLA and also in Houston: 1. Luna Fete on Lafayette Square 2. outdoor viewing of The Polar Express on Spanish Plaza 3. Algiers Point (massive) bonfire 4. Second-line with St. Nick in Dutch Alley 5. Walker Elementary's Jingle Bell Walk (Mom's school) and 6. Houston Zoo Lights (on St. Lucy's day). We even managed to have Mexican on Dec 12th for Our Lady of Guadalupe.

With the first of Advent, Dylan and I started hosting coffee & donuts at our church. It so desperately needs a little community life, so we're starting with food and hoping it grows from there! The first day, we were late for the early Mass (facepalm), but the second was a huge success. The following week was more organized and a big success again - for both Masses. Last weekend, we were in Houston, and a friend stepped up to host it. It's happening =).

Those are the big things that have been going on, and any photos were most definitely not taken by me, so I'll try to wrangle some up from Mom, Gin, and/or Dylan.

Little tidbits:
- Ada played peekaboo with (cousin / Father) Scott visiting from FL. Like, she initiated it, held up a napkin, and pulled it down to smile at him.
- Paul asked to go "back to Tetsas", oh, at about Beaumont... (ie, not that far from Houston en route back to NOLA)
- Paul's been asking for us to do to "our green house" what others have done with lights, cute.
- Ada dances, and it's so. so. funny.
- It's December 16th, and we're still in T-shirts (well, Dylan and I are).

Now, I'll get to work on getting some of those photos.