Jackson and Ellie went to swim practice that afternoon
even though they weren’t too excited about it.
Then when they were done we headed out to Matthew and Kristin’s to eat
pizza with Andrew’s family. I made a
dessert to take out and it was still kind of warm when we had to leave. So I just set it outside when we got there
because it has been sooo cold lately. We
got to see Annie and Brad and the girls one more time before they left. And Brad had some guys there from his church
that came down to hunt that were staying at Matthew and Kristin’s so they
joined us too. The kids kept themselves
entertained all night but then it was time to head home and get ready for
school the next day.
Lincoln had a fun day on Tuesday because he ended up
going out to Alex’s grandparents’ house for the afternoon. Joyce was watching Alex and she said he does
much better when he has someone to play with.
She even picked up some McDonald’s for them before they headed out. I think Lincoln had a blast. Ellie had dance that afternoon so I dropped
her off and then got started on dinner.
We had pancakes and I have been thinking for a while that I need to do a
triple batch to have enough for our family so I finally did it. That was a lot of pancakes. We ate before Ellie was done with dance but
she asked me to save her four pancakes.
That girl LOVES her pancakes (but pretty much only my dad’s recipe).
After we were all done with dinner, we drew names for the
kids’ Christmas present exchange. Ellie
was in charge of getting it all ready so she wrote out the names and even made
a basket to put them in.
I also talked
to some of the kids about another Christmas present we were going to do. Samaritan’s Purse, the organization that does
the Operation Christmas Child boxes, also sends out a Christmas catalogue where
they have different items you can purchase to help out families in need in
different countries. You can buy things
from school supplies, to clean water, to chicken, to schools, etc. So I am having them go through and mark some
things they think they would want to buy and we will decide later what items
when want to get. And then it was time
to get Ellie to gymnastics. Andrew had
warned that he was very tired and he did have everyone in bed when we got
home. I went up to check on the twins
and all was well. But something must
have gone wrong during the night because their room was a disaster the next
morning when I went up to wake up Lincoln.
One of the pictures on the wall was on the floor, all the things were
off the bulletin board, both of the twins had their diapers off and had wet
their beds, clothes were strewn around the room and they were out. Not the best way to start of our
morning. So I stripped the beds and
started the laundry and got on with our day.
The rest of the day was spent getting stuff ready for small group and
various other projects. I made some
paint brush pretzels for Ellie’s birthday party and my odd collection of
colored candy melts came in handy for that.
Lincoln played with Alex during the afternoon. They usually spend time at both houses and
while they were here they pretended they were all sorts of different wild
animals. It eventually ended in some
crying when their “attacking” got a little too real. But they made up by the time he came back for
small group that night. It was our last
group until after the Christmas break.
We are having a Christmas dinner out at Matthew and Kristin’s in a
couple of weeks though.
Thursday was just one of those days where things just
didn’t go very smoothly. The twins kept
me on my toes all day and then I was having some computer/printer issues that
made some simple tasks take much longer and before I knew it my day was
done. The kids did have some good
moments though while they played with the Magformers and some puzzles. At least for a little bit before the fighting
started up J. But they have decided they really like the
Magformers right now and are getting better at building stuff with them every
day.
Then Lincoln got out the paper
airplane book and we worked on making one together that he was very excited
about. I took down the little bit of
fall decorations we had and started putting up a few things for Ellie’s
birthday party the next day. I realized
a couple days back that I didn’t have a birthday banner for this party but I
thought I had one stored away that would work.
So I looked through my box of girl party stuff and couldn’t find
it. So I had to make one last minute but
with the computer problems, I didn’t get that done until the day of the
party. I did get a big grocery shopping
trip in Thursday night though. I wanted
to get everything I needed for the Thanksgiving meal and then our normal stuff
too, plus cupcakes for Ellie’s party.
Andrew and the kids were waiting for me when I got home and helped me
carry everything in-I was so thankful for that! Andrew had been busy while I was
gone teaching the kids how to rope and doing baths and haircuts for the three
youngest. He did them pretty short this
time so that he doesn’t have to do it for a while after his surgery. But man the twins look older L. Andrew a pretty good job of cleaning up the
hair but there it just sticks around everywhere so I cleaned that up after I
got all the groceries put away. There
was even a nice big ring of hair all the way around the bathtub.
Lincoln was up a little before six Friday morning and
wanted to get in my bed because it was so cozy.
I let him get in while I went ahead and started getting around. Then Bennett was up so I decided to just go
ahead and get him and Miles ready (who I had to get up because he had again taken off his diaper during the night
and peed, but he did have another diaper there that it looked like he was
trying to get on). But there was a sweet
moment when Miles came downstairs and he was crying because I had gotten onto
him for taking off his diaper. Bennett
met him at the bottom of the stairs with his sippy cup of milk and said, “Here
you go, Miles.” And Miles said, “Thank you ‘Bemmet’.” And then they gave each other a hug J. So I got them situated and then I got on the
bike. Lincoln slept through me riding
the bike with the TV turned up so I could hear it over the bike (we have the
bike set up on a trainer in our bedroom).
He finally woke up just as I was finishing. Andrew didn’t get home until
about 7:35 and he showered, got ready and was out of the house with Jackson and
Ellie less than 15 minutes later. Then
it was time for the rest of us to get busy with our day. They watched a movie and played with the
Magformers and puzzles again while I worked on making the banner for Ellie and
a couple small Christmas things I wanted to cut with my Silhouette. Of course
Lincoln was wanting to help so he got to pull the cut items off of the sticky
mats. A funny side note about the twins
watching TV…if they are watching a recorded program and it is at the end, a
little box comes up on the TV with the option to delete or save the
recording. They both run up to the TV
and start touching the box as if the TV is a touch screen (like my dad’s iPad)J.
And later that afternoon he was such a big help when he
cleaned up all the toys in the family room while I laid the twins down for
their naps so that it would be clean for Ellie’s party after school. Then it was time to get busy with all the
party stuff. And I thought I had things
under control but it was very evident as the time got closer that I way
underestimated how long it would take to pull everything together. I was so, so thankful my mom and Molly had
offered to help out and even showed up at 2.
I didn’t do too much before because I thought the twins would just be
into everything. So we all worked on
setting out the food, putting in the toppers on the cupcakes, and putting out
the centerpieces. Then it was time to
set up all the art stuff. My mom did
most of that while I finished up some other stuff and Molly made a last-minute
trip to Wal-Mart because I thought my package of aprons had more than it
actually did. We had twelve girls coming
and only 7 aprons. Each girl had a
canvas on which I had outlined a tree trunk for them to paint, a container of
buttons to add to the tree, a palette of paint, paint brushes, a jar of water
and a wooden picture frame to also paint along with their aprons. So my mom (with Lincoln’s help of course) got
all of that set out. We finished up
everything and I was able to get a few pictures just before the girls showed
up. Andrew took Jackson and Lincoln and
quickly disappeared out to the ranch for a quick afternoon of hunting.
The girls ate some snacks while we waited for everyone to
show up and then we started the painting.
They all seemed to enjoy it and it was neat to see the different ways
they painted their trees and frames.
They actually spent more time doing it than I thought they would so we
skipped on the other activity we were going to do-make toilet paper dresses. I thought it would be a fun thing for Ellie
since she likes watching Project Runway.
But we had to move onto opening presents after the painting was all done
and that is when they got wild. They
decided to have more of the snacks and by the time we were done with presents
there was popcorn and shredded tissue paper all over the floor along with girls
screaming and wrestling each other-they were almost as bad as the boys J. We finally got them calmed down enough to
take some pictures of the group.
After that we just had a few minutes left to do cupcakes.
In the midst of all of this got all the
paint stuff off the table and stripped off the plastic tablecloth I had on
there for the paint so that they could eat the cupcakes there. Then my mom and Molly worked quickly at
assembling some take-home bags for all the girls. I should have thought to have
something for them but I was just thinking they would take their painted items
home as favors and didn’t need anything else.
But they were wanting to take the painting supplies home so I found a
few yellow lunch bags and the regular lunch bags to put everything in. Molly wrote their names on their aprons and
my mom worked on cleaning all the paint off of the palettes. So each girl got to take those home along
with some paint brushes and some crayon bubble gum that I remembered I had last
minute. I think some girls even threw
some of the extra buttons in their bags too.
But overall I think it was a fun party and a great one for Ellie. And I definitely could not have done it
without Molly and my mom. And the twins
were up for the last few minutes of it.
I think they were wondering what they had gotten themselves into and if
maybe they shouldn’t have just stayed in bed.
The screaming girls kind of overwhelmed them. But they were much happier when everyone was
gone and they got to enjoy some cupcakes.
My mom and Molly helped me clean up a bit and then they
headed home. While I was working on
cleaning up the rest, Andrew and the boys got home. And once I finally got everything cleaned up
and put away we headed over to my parents for dinner. Lissy and her friend, Lyndsey, were coming
into town to do a wedding on Saturday and they were going to pick up AJ’s. I offered to get it as a thank you for the
help with the party so I called in the order and they picked it up on their way
through Macon. So we met up with them at
my parents and had a yummy dinner. But Andrew actually just went to the office
to get some work done. We got to sit around and visit for a bit but it was soon
time to go home because we were a tired group-or at least some of us. Ellie immediately started playing with her
new presents again. She got a couple of
small Lego sets and Lincoln was so excited for her to build them. Then he was super sweet in offering to help
her when I told her she needed to take her stuff up to her room. And after he
got it up there, he went to bed because he was exhausted from helping all of us
during the day. The twins had some
trouble settling down plus Andrew ended up staying at the office late, so I
ended up staying up too.
Saturday morning Andrew and Jackson headed out to hunt a little before six. I woke up in the middle of the night coughing and was up for a bit so I thought I would go ahead and sleep in for a bit. The twins and Lincoln ended up coming down a little after seven and joined me in bed. There wasn’t much sleeping after that so we got up and got them ready for the day. Then we all went downstairs so I could run. There was one balloon down there that they all started fighting over so I ended up stopping my run for a bit to blow up a couple more balloons and that is what they played with while I finished up my run.
Andrew and Jackson got home around one. Jackson ended up shooting a doe but he said
he and his Dad did it. I guess Jackson shot it, it ran off, they chased after her for a while and then Andrew gave the final shot. Jackson was so disappointed though when they realized they forgot the meat in the back of the truck and it happened to be a warmer day so it had to be thrown out.
After wrestling around a bit with the twins on the floor, Andrew fell asleep right there. I eventually got the twins down for their nap and then started working on finishing up the outdoor Christmas decorations. I would have waited a little longer but the temperatures were nice outside, it was supposed the rain the next day and then get cold again. Ellie and Lincoln helped me bring it all up from the basement and get most of it put out. Then Ellie went to play with Faith and Lincoln headed out with Andrew to do some afternoon hunting. It was so different than when they went out last weekend all bundled up. This time they both just had jeans and pullovers on.
After wrestling around a bit with the twins on the floor, Andrew fell asleep right there. I eventually got the twins down for their nap and then started working on finishing up the outdoor Christmas decorations. I would have waited a little longer but the temperatures were nice outside, it was supposed the rain the next day and then get cold again. Ellie and Lincoln helped me bring it all up from the basement and get most of it put out. Then Ellie went to play with Faith and Lincoln headed out with Andrew to do some afternoon hunting. It was so different than when they went out last weekend all bundled up. This time they both just had jeans and pullovers on.
Then I went back to work finishing up the
decorations. My last thing to do was the
nativity silhouettes. The ground hadn’t
thawed as much as I thought it would have and I had trouble getting the stakes
all the way into the ground. I ended up
taking the stake off Baby Jesus and used a rubber mallet to drive it into the
ground and make holes for the other ones. So I eventually got them in place and we were
good to go. That evening I had to drop Jackson off for a birthday party/sleep
over. Then Andrew got home about an hour
later and we had dinner. After clean up
and baths, Andrew and the kids did some more roping. It has become a nightly activity lately for
them and they have a lot of fun. While
they were doing that I settled into the old office and got started on my
Christmas wrapping while watching Christmas movies on the Hallmark
channel. Then Ellie convinced me to let
her sleep with me and we watched Project Runway J.
The next morning was a dreary, rainy morning but at least
it wasn’t cold. We got up and I got
everyone ready and just as we were getting ready to head out the door to pick
up Jackson and go to church, Andrew came in.
I just assumed he was out hunting even though it was raining. So he quickly got ready and then we picked up
Jackson and headed on to church. Jackson
ended up sitting with us and he had a hard time staying awake. I think it was a late night at the sleepover.
I also had the kids help me finish up our decisions on
what to get from the Christmas Catalog.
We ended up going with some baby chicks, gospel booklets,
bibles/Christian literature, and “feed a hungry baby for a week”. In the past we have talked about those in
need in our community and I hope this gives them a heart for those in desperate
need all over the world. After we
finished that up, Andrew and Jackson headed out to hunt for a bit. Andrew brought up the Christmas china while
we were wrapping so I put that out while he was gone and then got busy wrapping. The hunters got back a little before dinner
time without any success. And then later
that night I did some grocery shopping while Andrew and the kids did their
roping again. It was time for bed by the
time I got home but I decided to stay up and try to get a Christmas deal online
from Kohl’s. No one knew for sure what
time zone the deals would be starting in so I stayed up until after 2am hoping
to get it. But it never became available
so it may just be an actual Black Friday thing.
I did work on cleaning the basement, working on this blog and wrapping
some presents though. So morning came early but I did let myself sleep in a
little later than normal and was kind of slow getting my stuff done in the
morning.
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