I promise you that we really did move to Texas. Not that you would know this from the life of this blog. I have taken some long pauses in my six years of blogging, but I think a seven-week break between posts is a new record, even for me. My problem is that I keep putting off writing anything until I can write everything -- the complete chronicles of the move and our transition and all the high and low points along the way. And that is just never going to happen. So the short version is that we moved. It was crazy. We're here now and some days are good and some days are hard. I know there are a ton of people who really miss us and our kids. So here are a few short videos I've taken in the last few weeks that should at least give you a good idea what the kids have been up to.

Isaac has been getting cuter by the minute. And trying out his first park swings at a nice playground near our new house. He is a big fan.

Kate has been conducting symphonies played by her automatic keyboard and generally bossing everyone around. Isaac is happy to dance in one spot for now. When he gets that crawling move he's working on figured out, she might have more trouble getting him to do what she wants.

And the kids have been exploring the wonders of our new house. Specifically, the door stoppers. I never realized that we didn't have those in our old house, but apparently we did not because Kate finds them fascinating. Isaac thinks anything Kate does is super cool, so he's entertained too. Not that she's letting him have a turn.

That's what I've got for tonight!

Would it be OK if I admitted that I am totally not in the Christmas spirit this year? Around the second week in November, as the truck containing all our boxes arrived at our new house and life was at its absolute craziest, family conversations about Christmas gift arrangements and plans started coming up and it was all I could do not to say festive things like "Oh my gosh, do we really have to do this right now?"

Such a good attitude to have about the season celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior.

Obviously, it would be an understatement to say that I could use some concrete ways to connect with the celebratory spirit of the month. One proactive step I've taken is that on the first Sunday of Advent, I braved the wilderness of boxes in our garage long enough to find the little Christmas tree and ornaments I made last year to serve as our Jesse Tree. A little part of me was hoping that if I got out the little tree I wouldn't have to get out the big tree, but as soon as Kate saw the Jesse Tree, she was all "Where is our BIG tree, mommy? I want our BIG tree to come out!" So this week I will be getting out the BIG tree.

All of this is why I'm glad my awesome friend Rebecca Tredway is once again hosting the December Photo Project. I think this will be my third year to do the project and I always find that it is a fun way to challenge myself to shoot more photos and really pay attention to the little visual stories that happen around me every day. I could really use that structure this year -- did I mention how I didn't blog for SEVEN WEEKS?

So while I am somewhat skeptical of my own ability to post one photo every day from tomorrow until Christmas, I'm going to try with certain disclaimers:

1) During the course of the move I did actually take a lot of photos. I will probably use some of those photos for days when I have not managed to take anything new. This is probably the only way I'm going to get around to showing people photos of, say, our new house. And our cardboard box mountain, which was one of the seven wonders of the world.

2) The other pictures I take are probably not going to be very good, especially if I try to take pictures of my kids who will not sit still.

So with that out of the way, bring on the DPP. If you want to join me, head on over and sign up!