Okay, let's see if I can give you the rundown. Mom and Dad were here for Thanksgiving. We had a pretty quiet meal in the evening (it was delicious) because Dad and Andy when down to Hampton Park to help with a Thanksgiving Outreach. It turned out really great--they had tons of volunteers.
The only bad thing was Noah got sick on Thanksgiving with a bad stomach flu, fever and the works. The worst was over by the next day, but he really did nothing but lay around and sleep for about four days. Andy had to work the night after Thanksgiving, so Mom and I were able to get a little Black Friday shopping done while he was at home with the kids. It was a good thing we took the opportunity because by the weekend, Eli, Mom and Andy were all down with the same flu. It took quite a while to recover from and Andy even used four sick days. He has never been as sick as he was that week in all our married life. I felt really sorry for him. His temperature was up to 102.6. Pretty high for an adult. I don't know what Mom's was, but she took even longer to recover.
Ellie had one little bout of something and then was fine and me and my Dad hung in there taking care of everyone. PTL we were never sick.
Since then our time has been spent with Christmas Pageants, Christmas parties, shopping and decorating the house.
Ellie played Mary in the Christmas Pageant at her school. She was so cute. She held the baby Jesus and when it came time she "tossed" him in the manger. Then I learned something I did not know. Joseph gave Mary some PINK slippers! I guess her feet hurt from all that walking to Bethlehem. After giving birth "Mary" put her slippers on and then stood up and danced like a chicken...and other animals that would have been in the stable.
The kids also had their Gymnastics Finale mid-December. They all love gymnastics. They all got "gold" medals just like the Olympic team. They are quite little stars.
Since Grant and family were coming for Christmas this year, Mom and I worked really hard on getting all the our shopping done before hand. Buying for five kids (plus all the adults) is not easy. Not only did we have to shop for ourselves, we also do all of Grandad's shopping for him. It was hard to keep straight who bought what and with what. I ended up having to do a spreadsheet! (Pilfered from Mom, of course.)
Grandad was set to fly in on Sunday afternoon and Grant's family were to drive in late Sunday night. I guess they were so excited to see us they decided to drive straight through and they got here on Saturday night instead! We all stayed up until 2:00 in the morning talking, even the kids!
Luckily Rachelle had done most of her Christmas shopping already, so except for a few little things and the food shopping we were really free to have some fun!
The first day we took the older kids and Grant and Rachelle downtown to walk around a bit. It is always fun to walk and look at the old houses. I think the kids enjoyed it too. That is until Noah leaned against the railing at the park and got bird crap all over him! He was a little bent after that, lol. Before heading home we drove across the bridge so that Grant could get a close up view of the Yorktown. I think he would have like to do the tour, but they were not going to be here long enough--maybe next time.
On Tuesday we took the kids to Ready Set Jump. We knew they would really enjoy it and it is a great way to burn off energy. We lucked out and about half of the time we were the only ones there. That is always fun because you don't have to worry (as much) about anyone getting hurt. The kids had a blast. You can really tell how alike Noah and Lauren are...they both have no fear and will just try anything. Sometimes I would see Noah catch about three feet of air coming down the big slide.
After lunch and a rest, Rachelle and I decided to tackle Christmas Cookies. I am very much afraid that my kids are going to grow up and say, "hey Mom, remember that ONE time we made Christmas cookies?" It turned out to be much more involved and a lot longer of a process than I ever anticipated. And we did not even make our own dough!
First of all, I blame my Mom and Grant. They bought the cookie cutters. They were all about the size of my thumbnail. It takes a long time to make cookie's when they are all only an inch or two in size! Then, I did not have a rolling pin. I had to resort to using one from Ellie's play cookware. At Teen Missions I always used a great plastic cup for rolling dough, but I must have lost it somewhere because it was nowhere to be seen, so Ellie drug out what she had from her play kitchen set. That was fun.
Next imagine, if you will, five super excited kids (all with pretty squeaky voices) and ten grubby hands all reaching for the same thing at once. There was plenty of yelling, screaming, and hysteria going on. (Not just by the kids. Mommy did a little yelling herself...lol.)
Was it frustrating? Just a little. Especially when I baked the darn things and they all ran together to form big blobs! Next time I will use bigger cutters, more dough and leave twice as much room. (Did I say next time?) Luckily, I burned the last (fiftieth) batch. I was happy to throw those blobs away.
Then came the icing part. I did make it homemade and I thought it was pretty good. The kids did too. Unfortunately, they would use a knife to ice their cookie and then lick the knife clean and stick it back into the icing!
Ellie was the only one who did not get the concept of icing the cookies and setting them aside. I think she ate all the ones that she iced!
It took longer than I expected and was a huge mess, but the kids loved it! That is what it is all about, I guess.
Gotta love that one. Look at Lauren...(top right corner).
Well, that was Christmas Part One. I still have to work on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day etc. Hopefully, I can get to it soon.
If you made it this far, then I have a little "Noah Nugget" for you.
On the first day back to school he was really upset and crying. Andy decided to console him by giving him a clicky pen just like he uses at work. He told Noah if he was sad all he had to do was look at it and know that Daddy was using the same pen.
Well, his teacher took it away from him. When asked why it was taken we got the response, "I was just trying to find someplace to put it when she told me to take it to her desk."
Andy wrote a note to the teacher asking why it was taken from Noah (we realize that he was not the innocent party he claims he was) and could she send it home and we would keep it here.
His teacher wrote back that Noah had been playing with it all day and had been told repeatedly to leave it alone, before she finally took it from him.
When I asked him why he told me he was just putting it away, when in fact he had gotten in trouble for playing with it, this is what he said,
"But Mom, that was just one of the things I was doing with it (the pen). I wanted to give you a quick example."