Boxes make the best toys... and when you've been Christmas shopping online there are lots of boxes.
We did go to a few stores.... after a trip to Chik-fil-a. Shopping with them reminded me why I shop online.
Quite pleased to taste the chocolate buttercream I made for my birthday cupcakes. I made Benzene again for my chemistry class.
My new ridiculous Christmas Chemistry shirt. I wore it to class last Friday- a former student told me, "You have a real problem; you need to get some help!" Haha. She's just jealous of my awesome nerdy t-shirt collection.
Saturday was a Christmas marathon. We started our day with Brunch at the Wyss Christmas. Poor Rachel got to join in the fun.
The girls played outside a little bit with the other kids.
Little cheese. I ask her to smile for a picture and she starts grinning and dancing.
I'm related to some cool people. :)
The big girls got butterfly wings from Great Grandma.
And Cadence got this really cool Fischer price Camper play set. It was the hot toy of the afternoon.
Cecily and Emmy had a great time playing with Cliff and Boden and Jack... Cadence was in heaven carrying around a cup full of snacks in one hand all day long. She even took a decent nap so I got to play a game with my cousins! Who needs toys when you can be bears hibernating in the toy cabinets?
We had to leave before supper and headed straight for the Beutel Christmas. The girls were still going strong, I was starting to wilt a little bit... I spent most of the evening chasing Cadence around: finding her stuck on the chair rack, playing in the toilets, eating food off the floor. *sigh* G and G Beutel turn 90 this year so they had a cake with 90 candles on it and showed a bunch of pictures from over the years. We left before they were done with pictures and before the nativity play because it was getting late and we had been gone from home almost 12 hours.... poor girls wanted to play with their new toys so bad and we made them take baths and go straight to bed. And then we went to church the next morning so they had to wait even longer! Woe is them. Sunday was my birthday. Woot. It was a pretty good day. Kathy handed me a package 'just because' in Church and it was this awesome book.
After church Cecily and I went to the Nutcracker! It was her first ballet and it was so fun. One of my chem students from last year was in it and it was so cool to watch her. Cecily's favorite was the girl in the purple dress (the sugar plum fairy) and she thought the guys wore weird pants. Haha.
Then for supper we went out to eat... we ended up at Logan's Roadhouse, not my favorite, but it fit the criteria for eating out with our three hooligans:
loud enough that we won't disturb any other patrons
you're supposed to throw peanut shells on the floor so dropping food/napkins/everything isn't a big deal
not McDonald's because I'm not eating McD's on my birthday
close-ish to home (not across the river)
kid friendly food
Bob friendly food
They FINALLY got to try the Perla beads Kacie gave them for Christmas!
Monday morning at 6am, Bob, Matt, and Nathan started a Hobbit/Lord of the Rings marathon. Crazy boys. They had breaks for meals scheduled in between movies and watched all six in one stretch. Bob would text me every three hours or so when they would finish a movie.... all the way to 2:30-ish in the morning. Over 20 hours of Tolkien films. He got home around 3am. I don't know if I would ever do that.... even for bragging rights. Anyway, so he slept through Cecily's school Christmas program. Haha. He didn't really miss much. We apparently should have gotten there earlier because it was standing room only. She's up there somewhere.
I think we would have been standing up with these two hoydens anyway: selfies while we wait for it to start.
These days Emmy is into dressing up and playing with her babies.
And Cadence likes to be just like the big girls.
Kacie also gave them a bag of kinetic sand. It's the coolest stuff.
Cadence liked it too, and she kept it in the pan!
Bob is done with work until the new year, yay! And Cecily has one more day of school. And then we have a quiet weekend until the Christmas craziness starts up again. Blessings.
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here.
Also, we go through so much toilet paper. This is why we can't have nice things.
We had some pretty strong wind gusts last week that sent the playhouse tumbling and knocked some holes in it. Sad day. It's not quite as cute as it was a while ago.
The girls and I went and picked out a Christmas tree on a cold windy day so we were in and out pretty fast. They had fun playing on the sleigh and pretending they were reindeer.
They were actually halfway helpful with the decorating.
They distributed their ornaments fairly well.
And then of course we had to shut off all the lights and bask in the glow for a while.
It's so beautiful....
I made springerle this year and they rose a little bit. I think I need to ask grandma what her process is and see what I'm doing wrong...
But I have to climb on the table to touch these pretty flowers.
I am not up for making real gingerbread houses, and I saw these cardboard houses at hobby lobby.
Much less messy and they'll last longer. (Or at least, not need to be eaten since we have enough sweets as it is.)
So festive. Ha.
I let them decorate cookies. They each got a few to decorate as they pleased. And they went into their own containers not to be shared. I decorated the rest with a little less frosting and sprinkles and I didn't lick any knives.
I wasn't paying close enough attention and Emmy squeezed half a bag of frosting onto one cookie.
They were pretty serious about their decorating.
Cecily and Emmy were super excited to go to program practice at church. And get presents and eat cookies. Cadence was very unexcited to get left behind when I dropped them off and picked them up.
So when I was 6 or 7 Grandma bought Abby and I these awesome red wool coats. They were sooooo cool. And classic. And classy. They had matching hats too. It was my church coat and I loved that coat. (Awww.... little Matt....)
Then of course we grew out of them and they got passed down to our sisters, and cousins, and other little girls at church. It's been back in my closet for a few years now waiting for Cecily to grow into it. The original hat is long gone, but the coat itself still looks brand new. I was soooo excited for her to wear it. Guess what- she hates it. Haha. I told her she has to wear it at LEAST once, I mean, Emmy and Cadence both have red church coats this year and they would be so cute together. So she wore it to the Christmas program.
The Christmas Program was quite the night. Emmy and Cecily both did not distinguish themselves, which is good. The Nursery class as a whole though, was a hilarious train wreck. I laugh every time I listen to it. Picture a bunch of exuberant boys waving, making funny noises, sitting down, falling down, looking back over the pulpit; Emmy and three or four others soldiering on. Haha. It was so funny. I was laughing so hard (quietly) that I had tears running down my cheeks and I couldn't really see the last third of their performance. Little Emmy just stood there singing Away in a Manger and side-eyeing the craziness going on around her.
Monday morning, bright and early, Emmy and Cadence got to play at Eva's house while I got a cavity filled. The dentist said it was near the nerve so he numbed it twice and I ended up not being able to feel half my face for three hours. Ugh.
In the evening the Washington girls got together. We met at a nursing home to sing some Christmas Carols first. It's a low income home with a bad reputation and most of us didn't tell our husbands we were going there until we got home... haha. I'm sure we were perfectly safe. Anyway, Erin, Amy, Elise, and Katie and I sang- they announced us over the loudspeaker- only slightly intimidating. We managed 3 part harmony, and we've been singing together for years, so hopefully it wasn't too obvious that we hadn't seen each other in several months, let alone practiced. They seemed to appreciate it, even though we don't know the words to Deck the Hall. The guy guarding the door almost got choked up when we left and said we 'took him back to his childhood.'
We met up with Katelyn and Heidi at Obed and Isaac's for supper, which was delicious. Some of the girls are way more ambitious than me and brought cookies to exchange. And then I got to come home and get the girls to bed at a decent hour. So fun.
Who needs the festival of lights when you can go to Menards?
Actually, we did go see the lights tonight with Sharon, Grace, and Eden. It was fun, they were pretty, the girls were wild, and now I have a slight headache. Woot.
Blessings.
I spent 3+ hours removing the small branches and raking up sticks on Monday and Tuesday last week.
And put it all in the truck. By myself. I was so sore. (I'm getting lazy and weak in my old age.)
We read the story of Esther, which segued into a brief history lesson on the kingdoms and conquests of Asia Minor. Ha.
I try and do at least some Christmas cookie baking in November and freeze them so I'm not scrambling for our early Christmas events. The girls "helped" unwrap kisses, and ate several.
Bob had some days off the week of Thanksgiving so we cut up the tree as much as we could without a chainsaw. Seriously, who needs fancy playgrounds?
Thanksgiving day we went to Washington for church because Jake and Rachel were going to be there. Nothing like descending on the poor unsuspecting future sister-in-law with our three ring circus.... neither of the older girls would sit by her in church. They warmed up a little when we stopped at the farm, especially when she told them about the animals she gets to take care of. We headed back to Dave and June's for Thanksgiving that evening. Friday we raked leaves and enjoyed the sunshine.
Cecily wanted to decorate for Christmas and begged and begged to set up their little tree. There was some fighting about who got to decorate, but then they "compromised" and Emmy got to hand ornaments to Cecily. *sigh* It's a sweet picture though, right?
This little one has discovered electronics. She likes them a lot.
Saturday morning I went to sing at the funeral while Bob, Sharon, Rustin, Grace, Eden, Susan, and Matt came over. I had to miss the felling of the tree trunk, but it was nice to get to be at the funeral- it's hard to be involved with little kids and I'd much rather sing than make food. When I got home they were busy splitting wood.
I'm so glad we could borrow this log-splitter- it was pretty slick!
I whipped up the quintessential AC workday lunch spread- Sloppy Joes, relishes, chips and pop. And brownies. Ha. I don't even like sloppy joes. After lunch was more of the same. Bob's back was sore the next day.
It's a good thing we cut it down, even though I will miss it. There was a pretty decent sized hole in the base where it was starting to rot out- and lots and lots of ants. Sharon and I counted 49 and 52 rings on the bottom slices, so we're guessing it was probably planted soon after the house was built.
Dad and Mom showed up in the afternoon and Dad cut down the redbud.
It was VERY hollow and had a large mass of bird nest way down in it. We heard baby birds in there last spring....
We stacked a lot of wood. We don't even use our fireplace.
I'm really glad that job is done. And I'm thankful we have such willing family to come help us and loan equipment. And there were no injuries or mishap videos to go viral! woot woot! Sunday I subbed in Emmy's Sunday School Class. It was an adventure, or something. They have some high energy boys and they're only 3 years old. Emmy insisted on sitting on my lap in the big room so I couldn't physically separate some of them when they needed it... I didn't have a helper and had to take 2 kids on bathroom breaks.... Marching around Jericho was a bad idea.... haha. I was so glad when the bell rang. I don't ever need to teach Sunday School. Our yard is so open.... Checking out the stump.
And the "Pancakes" Grandpa cut off the red bud for them.
And finding X marks the spot in the garden. (And eating dirt.)
I have no idea where she found these or how she got them on.
What do you mean I can't kiss the cute girl I see in the neighbor's shiny bumper?
Bob worked some crazy late hours this past week, which is never any fun. The girls (all of us) get cranky when we don't see him until 9...or 11... Thursday I had a meeting with the lawyer about easements and Grandma Koch came to keep an eye on the little two. They made a big pancake breakfast and then Cadence got mad when we put the dishes away and put the pancakes back on the table.
I don't want to go to bed yet, I'm playing tablet.
Friday we went to "teaching-school" and then in the evening I took the older two Christmas caroling. Cecily, Emmy, and Kenna were in the front and the people at the nursing home were just enthralled by them. "Oh they're just little angels!" Haha. One of the men handed Emmy this picture of Mickey and Minnie that he drew. She was SO thrilled. Kenna rode with us so the drive was quite lively.
Saturday morning the girls were soooo excited to go to the Santa Breakfast at school. They talked about the book fair all week long. So we went, and it was fun. I let them do the Santa's workshop shopping- they came out with the gifts they found already in bags and they are doing pretty well not telling what they bought so it will be really interesting to see what all they chose! They were a little disappointed that the line for carriage rides was too long, but Cadence was ready to go home and we still wanted to do the library scavenger hunt. They loved their library prizes of crayons and a cookie! Good times.
I don't often write cheesy Christmas letter poems. But when I do, I write sonnets. Ha. I will spare you the rest of it; my prose is not that great, and my poetry is abysmal.
We enjoyed the sunshine again today after church- it really doesn't feel very Christmas-y yet. Or even like it's December.
