So Blessed

A picture's worth a 1,000 words.

Christmas 2020

"This is the best Christmas ever. Well, maybe not e.v.e.r." Brevick 

 

It Started Like This

Anchor poured his own cereal, he thought he needed the whole bag. He was stressed to find out that it didn't all fit in the bag.

Actually, after this kind of a start the day wasn't too bad. We spent 2 hours at the orthodontist. William got his bottom braces on and some sweet neon bands to go with them. Emmerlyn and Charley got their mouths evaluated. Did you know that every kid should be evaluated by the orthodontist before age 7? I did, but as of yet none of my kids have made it there by age 7. Emmerlyn is our youngest tapping in at age 9. Her teeth are good to wait until around 11-12 but Charley is looking at getting an expander to open up and reshape his jaw here in the next little bit. That'll be $1800 so that's nice. He is going to have a great smile.

After that we came home and worked on some hobbies, Emmerlyn made some soap in the shape of a Popsicle. *She is in grungy clothes because she didn't want to get the dye on her nice ones. Smart girl*

Then Brevick wanted a popscicle and was ticked that we didn't have any and I wouldn't go get any.

The kids also worked on some buildings with popscicle sticks and LOTS of glue.

Anchor's work. **I think it might be glued to the table forever...*

Brevick's.

Emmerlyn's and Charley's. Don't worry, the shined up the top with lots of glue.

This evening William babysat while Ben and I went to Lava hot pools and relaxed after a tough week. Or just the last 3 days.

Now we are ready for bed. 

And hopefully, Christmas Eve tomorrow.

 

So Much to Catch Up

 But nobody is going to sleep.

We are all so tired.

Friday was the first day of Christmas break so Emmerlyn and Brevick read some stories online and then all the kids watched a Christmas movie and slept out under the tree.

Or near the tree anyway.

Friday was also William's first teenage friend party at our house. He had a few friends over for pool and pizza and had such a great time. He won a few games and his friends won a few games. He is looking forward to having lots more friends over in the future. One friend came with a little brother so Charley scored a last minute invite to the party. He was pretty pumped.

Saturday we put up a few more lights in the garage so it is nice and bright over the game tables and then we relaxed, played pool, and read some more books. The kids are great little readers and it gives them something to do.

Sunday was church day and that was tough as usual. Thankfully we made it out alive and we were excited to see Monday roll around.

Anchor decided he couldn't stand the way the candy was in the count down jars so he took everybody's candy out and sorted it. Then he started handing it out to people. They all ate it and then were dismayed to find out that their advent jars were off. I don't know where we went wrong here.

The highlight of the day was definitely going to Geronimos with the Rydalch's to jump. Anchor was in HEAVEN!!! The kids had a blast playing with Fletcher, Wilson, and Simeon and also their cousins. They were all pretty impressed with the way those boys could flip. I had fun chasing Anchor around but I did get up and joust with Dora Jean, William, and Brevick. I beat DJ (barely) and Brevick but William definitely won our round. That is harder than it looks.

Today I let the kids do WAY TOO MUCH screen time which resulted in hours of scream time. Brevick lost privileges for tomorrow, Anchor is going through withdrawals right now and Allyn is probably going to be come a nun. 

They did come around in time for dinner though and Anchor was so excited for waffles that he set the table and everything.

What did we do?

 Practiced singing Santa songs.

Did some cozy reading.

I finally found an Advent Calendar. That was disappointing. They are super expensive so I am glad I went with the cheap Rollo option. 

Emmerlyn found a good snack place until some friends stopped by and the middle 3 headed out the door so fast it was like they were never here.

Anchor found the biggest banana he had ever had. He ate all of it but one chunk which he left on the couch for Emmerlyn to find later and die a little inside.

Yep, I think that's it

Oh Yeah, I can do Wednesday

 No. No. I can't. I need to stop saying that. 

Last week as things were coming up I mentally thought that my Wednesday was a day that was mostly free. So I kept scheduling stuff for today until it was completely full. I just got home from a Relief Society activities committee meeting and am finally done with my scheduled events. I just have a few things to finish up and then I am thinking bedtime. 

We had a good morning for about 15 minutes and then the cereal wasn't right, we were talking during scriptures, couldn't look at the box during scriptures. Hated what was on the menu for school but dismayed to learn that even a worse school lunch was coming later this week so he couldn't use his home lunch day until then. 

Anchor woke up wanting to watch mickey mouse. 

I woke up wanting to go back to bed but not having time to do it. 

I ended up resting on the couch for as long as I possibly could before accepting my fate.

I came up to this view of the sky.

Which was lovely but looked so heavy. I feel ya clouds. I really do. I also learned that it is supposed to storm tonight and tomorrow which was a real bummer because I was supposed to go shopping today until I over scheduled myself and now I am going to have to go to the store in the nasty weather. I am crossing my fingers that if I hold out until Friday maybe the weather won't be so bad. I like to shop but I do not like to trudge through slush with the wind pelting snow into my eyes all the while being unable to situate my mask. Anchor also get worried and tells me constantly that we might blow away.

Trust me buddy, we would never be that lucky.

We did get to have a bit of fun, Dora Jean and Montgomery stopped by to have a little help with their Christmas stockings which are turning out super cute. Anchor and Montgomery glared at each other for about an hour but then got it together and played pretty well **at least for those two** It went well until Anchor was sure he wanted to hold the baby. (uh, they way basically the same) we had him sit down and hold him for a minute before Montgomery started panicking. 

Then we needed to feed the missionaries but we didn't know what time they were coming also Emmerlyn had gymnastics at 4:30 today but we needed to leave early for that because she wanted to see if she could get herself home from the bus stop by the haunted abandoned school (aka the stop before hers that is down the hill in old town) so I drove down there and she gave me the directions to get home. She did great, she mixed up her right and left once and that almost got us thrown in the river but she pulled it out just in time. What a sweet little girl.

Side note on her. Her teacher is good friends with a friend of mine in my ward so she was telling me today that Emmerlyn's teacher was just gushing over her. Saying that she is grateful everyday that she gets to be her teacher. Emmerlyn is so kind and sweet but fun and fiery. She has great input and likes to answer the questions and her teacher really just adores her. That made my heart happy to hear but it was not anything that I didn't know. Emmerlyn is a great girl. I don't know how I ever qualified to be her mom.

William texted some friends today and invited them over to play in the new game room. He is also requiring that pizza be served so it can be a pizza party. I am glad that we put that together and for the babysitting opportunity we have been give with the game tables. I think that the effort we put into that room will be worth it.

Brevick had some friends over for a bit this afternoon. They had lots of fun playing in the rapidly melting snow and then pulled out the boxing gloves for a little more rough and tumble fun. Thankfully their mom came to pick them back up not long after that so nobody got hurt.

Charley has just been chirpin' around this afternoon. He got a new book so he is diving into it which means it's going to be finished in no time at all and we will have to go to the public library and hope that they have the next book in the series. He is such a great kid, I am just really trying hard to figure out how to best help him to reach his potential. That is so daunting to me because I don't want to hinder him by not giving him the ability to tap into the amazing potential he has inside that little head of his. 

I still hadn't been able to get a hold of the missionaries to find out what time they were going to come for dinner tonight and finally got through to them after I dropped Emmerlyn off at gymnastics. Turns out they can't come to our house for dinner right now because of COVID so I had to bring the dinner to them. Which was fine. I packaged it all up and then Emmerlyn and I dropped it off after I picked her up from gymnastics. We only knocked on 2 wrong doors before we got the right one. Thankfully we had the good sense to walk away before anyone opened it...

William had his first YM activity since the shutdown so he was pretty pumped about it. They played dodgeball, had donuts, and played some upcoming activities. He really had fun and I was glad to see him enjoying himself.

Okay, I can check this off my list, now on to the next thing.

Clean Blanket, New Bed

 Last night was rough, the sleepless kind of rough. Anchor woke up a bazillion times for some unknown reason and then got up way too early this morning with a wet blanket. We took it from him to throw it in the wash (which usually he will give it up to get clean and then accept a substitute) but he looked up with the most heartbroken lip quivering and tears welling in his eyes. He tried to hold it together but then lost his composure into wails and screams.

Poor boy.

Poor entire household.

Eventually he accepted the sub only on the condition that he would get a couple episodes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

It worked out because I had an errand to run. Which William pointed out that both he and Charley would be in a google meet during that time. I said that was ok. You guys are just here to make sure he is safe. His show would babysit him. Charley mumbled "that's a lot of pressure to put on a cartoon character." I laughed all the way to my appointment.

The blanket got all scrubbed up and he was quick to go down and claim it from the basement.

he decided it was now time for a new bed. 

So he dumped out all the toys to make himself one.

The rest of the day was spent doing laundry and school work. Taking a way too short nap and pulling off the gingerbreads from the tree organizing them into a group and then smashing them on the ground. That was so nice. 

We also took some time to go play in the snow.

That breeze was BITTER but they had fun so it was worth it.

We had omelets for dinner and Brevick THOUGHT he hated those, turns out he likes 'em.  Anchor ate about 2 bites then took his jam covered toast around and touched everything between the kitchen and living room. Our whole lives are now sticky beyond recovery.