We were getting ready to head into the weekend at the end of
my last post. Most of the weekend was just a blur to me because I still wasn’t
feeling well and was really dragging. I had high hopes of getting a lot done
and it just didn’t happen. I did run some errands on Friday and I was exhausted
after that. I gave in as far as making dinner for the twins birthday (their
meal suggestions of Sprite and “letter Cheezits didn’t help much) and ordered
some food from Hy-Vee while I waited in line to pick up the kids that day.
Jackson had a basketball scrimmage after school that day with some of the home
school team. His old coach, Dylan, was also in town and hung out with them.
Later that evening, we headed out to Matthew and Kristin’s for Ainsley’s 4th
birthday party. And we didn’t have anything going on the next day, so I enjoyed
sleeping in, as did Jackson and Ellie. Lincoln was up early with Andrew and
they went out to the ranch and helped Andrew’s dad with some stuff. I laid
around a lot during the day while Andrew kept the kids busy. He had them out in
the garage hitting balls, took the younger ones to the office and let them
skate and dribble the basketball around in the basement while he worked. Then
later that afternoon, they went to Home Depot and were there for a few hours
while Andrew looked for some stuff. He said he wishes he could see the
surveillance video of the kids because he thinks it would be pretty
entertaining. They were done with Home Depot. But he did reward them by taking
them to La Fuente. I had made chicken noodle soup for dinner and knew they
wouldn’t like it, so I was fine with it. We finally made it to church on Sunday
even though I still wasn’t feeling the best. It had been a while and I knew we
needed to go. And I did do some grocery shopping afterwards and then came home
and rested. I got the twins and Mary’s birthday gifts wrapped and we did get
the gift cards for the teachers for Christmas all ready and now we just have to
add cookies.
My mom invited us over for dinner that night and my dad
convinced me to get a steroid injection to help give me a boost to get over
whatever was keeping me down for 2 weeks. He also checked Miles’ ear and it
looked good except for a little bit of fluid. I guess the drops dissolved the
wax. Monday morning I did feel better and I was off to help in the boys’
classes. The twins’ teacher said it was the first day they had everyone in
their class there in a couple weeks. When I got home, I focused on getting my
Christmas wrapping going. When the kids got home, we worked on their “kindness
act” that was in the advent tree that morning-donating toys to charity. We went
through all their toys and picked out some good ones we thought some other kids
would enjoy and I ran them to Salvation Army when I dropped Ellie off at dance.
And that night we enjoyed a sit-down dinner at our table, which is always nice
to do…chance to slow down for just a bit.
Tuesday, I was still feeling pretty good so I did a ride on
the bike for just a ½ hour. Then I scooped reduced fat ice cream into cups to
take for the twins’ birthday at school the next day. With the new snack rules,
you can’t take cupcakes, but you can take reduced fat ice cream. And I got most
of my wrapping done for the kids, which was great. That night, Ellie had her last
dance class until after the new year and Lincoln had another basketball
practice. Andrew had been working with him a little bit and it helped. The next
day we got to celebrate Miles and Bennett’s 6th birthday. It is
always fun to go back and read their birth story…it was entertaining. That
morning, I had donuts for them before we went to school. The shot had worn off
by this point, so I was thankful that I had ordered food for dinner that night.
I spent a lot of the day cleaning the house and got things decorated for the
party. That afternoon, I went to the twins’ class and brought the ice cream.
The kids were all so excited. The twins helped me hand out everything, they
sang Happy Birthday to them while they stood on chairs by Mrs. Feeney and then
she gave them six hugs before the twins declared that everyone could eat. One
little boy who had just moved here from Saudi Arabia just a couple months ago,
gave me a thumbs up and said, “Good!” It was so cute. Another little girl with
cerebal palsey was enjoying the ice cream as her nurse fed it to her until she
started vomiting. Poor girl. I wasn’t too excited about cleaning up vomit, but
I knew I needed to help. I was grabbing some Clorox wipes while the nurse tried
to get her to the trash can and she proceeded to vomit again and some of it got
on a girls’ backpack and another boys coat. I tried to clean them off the best
I could, then gathered the twins and we
picked up Lincoln and got to leave school a little early.
Jackson was waiting
for us in the car and we picked up Ellie. Jackson has his last basketball
practice. While he was gone, Ellie and Andrew worked on leveling out the rock we got earlier in the day.
Andrew picked up the food
from Hy-Vee that evening while I worked on a couple of sides to serve with that
food, got the cupcakes ready and brought up the presents. A couple people tried
to call the twins and tell them Happy Birthday, but they weren’t too into it.
Lissy tried to do Google Hangouts with them, but they basically ran away. Then
the Taylors Facetimed them on my dad’s phone, but they weren’t too excited
about it. Not sure why they were acting that way. They were excited when it was
time to open presents though. While they loved it all, I got a little anxious
thinking about where we were going to put all their new toys…times 2. After
presents, we did cupcakes and sang Happy Birthday. They were happy to finally
get their cupcakes and then went back to playing. I got them a couple Nerf guns
that I didn’t realize were going to be as big as they were and I think they are
going to cause some fights 😊. They were pretty happy with their big day
and told me thank you at the end of the night. They went to bed some pretty
happy 6 year-olds.
They weren’t as excited to get up on Thursday as they were
on Wednesday. It was back to a normal day at school. After I dropped them off,
I got on the treadmill to run for the first time in a long time. Then it was
off to do the grocery shopping and knock some items off my to-do list. Ellie
had math practice after school and that was all we had going on that night. We
ordered pizza for dinner and had a laid-back evening. Lincoln did a dance
performance for me to some Christmas music before we turned on some Christmas
shows. Friday was Mary’s birthday, so we went out to eat at Colton’s for that.
I made the mistake of not making reservations for us and it was Truman
graduation weekend, so we had to wait for a while and we had to split up to get
seated. We gave Mary her gift at the twins’ party so she didn’t have to unwrap
it at the restaurant…a handmade wood cutting board made by a friend of Andrew’s
who lives near his parents. It is pretty heavy-duty. Since we were late eating,
I was late getting to my other event for that night, a little et-together at
Leah’s. It was our usual bunco group but we did a gift exchange instead. I made
a red velvet sheet cake to take, but everyone was done snacking by the time I
got there, so no one ate any. We did a fun gift exchange where you would either
unwrap, switch or steal a gift depending on the number you rolled on the dice.
One present was a goldfish and no one wanted to get stuck with it. I ended up
with it on the second to last roll, and then it moved again and I ended up with
a Starbucks gift card. My family did enjoy some red velvet cake the next few
days and I was able to take the other half of the cake and use it for the
dessert I needed to make for the Middle School Christmas teacher lunch.
The kids went out to the ranch early on Saturday and I ran
on the treadmill again…finally trying to get back at it. Mary brought the kids back
before lunch while Andrew went to a sale. We had some decent weather, so I
forced the kids to play outside a lot during the day while I did a lot of
baking for neighbor and teacher gifts and another PTA teacher lunch. They
played some basketball, rode bikes and scooters and explored the “fort” behind
Ty’s house. Jackson went to see the new Star Wars movie that afternoon with
Zach and I did a little more wrapping and finished up the gifts that needed
some “crafting”. The kids helped me finish up most of the wrapping on Sunday by
helping wrap their gifts for their cousins and siblings. And I stayed up a
little later that night and was able to finish all but 7 presents. We did a
little more baking on Sunday and prepped the teacher gifts and had the kids
deliver cookies to our neighbors. Then they did a little laser tag in between.
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