Longest blog post ever

December was a busy month for us, and as you can see I am trying to play catch up on the blog from the past 9 months. So I'm just rolling the whole month into one post. Here goes! 

We hosted Ty's work Christmas party at our house. Here's the whole Prodigy crew from the Austin office. 

The kids had so much fun decorating the Christmas tree that they gave me the best fake smiles ever :)

The girls and I, along with Chez, Eliza and Hazel committed to wearing dresses all month long for International Justice Mission's Dressember event. We wore dresses every day of the month and fundraised for the non-profit that advocates for oppressed people around the world. 

Zoe sporting her dress and pig tails.

My laptop crashed so we took it downtown to get fixed. Figured we'd stop at the sushi place next door for a fun lunch! It's funny how much the kids love sushi rolls. 

Sporting our dresses downtown.

Now you see why Zoe needed that cast on last month. She is a dare devil.

Tatum was invited to Wesley's Frozen birthday where they received a real live visit from Elsa. 

This was Tatum's favorite party to go to this year and she's already been asking to have Elsa come to her party next year. 

Tire swing at Westover

The Dishman girls all together sporting our Dressember dresses

The boys at golf. This was the one sport Colt really cared about learning to play this year. They enjoyed it, but didn't choose to sign up again for the spring. 

Levi took a trip to the Minor Emergency Clinic with what we thought was a broken arm. Turned out to be just a sprain or something. He got a soft cast/arm brace that he enjoyed wearing, mostly for attentions sake :) 

I saw Santa and Rudolph fishing on Town Lake one morning when I went downtown for a run on the trail. There were actually about 20 of these guys out there, all dressed like Santa. It was a great reminder of one of the things I love about living in Austin!

We love the Trail of Lights! 

This particular night was UT night. Tatum enjoyed talking to the cheerleaders. We even saw Vince Young and Houston Street walking up to the stage to give a welcome to the crowd. Then hustled to begin walking the trail before the crowd was dismissed and got super crowded. 

As part of our kids bedtime routine, they ask for stories from our past (usually when we were their ages). While Ty is by far the superior storyteller in our family, I do get opportunities to tell stories from my childhood from time to time. One story I have told them is that my Dad has been delivering Meals on Wheels for probably 30 years now. When we were kids, Andrew, Alethea and I used to go with him during the summer. There was one house that we weren't allowed to walk the meal up to the door because the elderly man inside was usually naked. He had no air conditioning so it was the best way for him to stay cool in the hot West Texas summers. Anyway, the kids latched on to the part about him being naked and frequently ask for that story to be told. They also decided that they wanted the opportunity to deliver Meals on Wheels with Grandad. We finally worked it out to visit Abilene on a day when he delivers. The kids were so excited to load up all the meals and drinks and deliver them to some hungry people. We even had a bit of a competition to see who could deliver to a spanish speaker and try to use some spanish... I don't know, the boys turn everything into a competition lately. Anyway, I thought it was a great time and I'm glad the kids got this experience with their Grandad! 

Snuggles in Abilene

I could kiss her sweet cheeks all day!

Cousin time

It's fun to watch these two grow up together!

We had Dillman Christmas at our house. The family is getting so big that our living room could barely contain all the gifts :) It is really fun for the kids to help bring in all the presents, then pass them out when its time. Thanks to Jennifer for her generosity to all of us! 

She even found this personalized wrapping paper which made passing out the gifts much faster :)

I hate that out of the 2 Christmas celebrations we had I failed to take any pictures of any family, except Axel and Zoe. I'll try to do better next year!

Here's the girls and I on our last day of Dressember. It was a great cause and I was able to share IJMs mission with many people who had never heard of them. We raised money for them too - their biggest fundraising year ever! It's neat to hear the stories of people they were able to help because of this increase in funding. But, I'm not gonna lie... I was SUPER excited to wear Jeans on January 1st!!