Twas the week before Christmas

Holidays are busy and exciting with a bunch of little kids and we are having fun and almost ready.

Last Monday (12/12) was mostly the routine.  We did grocery swap and I went first.   That night was a Posada (traditional Mexican Christmas celebration complete with live Nativity, Christmas songs, and LOTS of tamales) at a family in the ward's home.  It was chaotic and fun to sing songs outside with neighbors and friends.

This pic is actually from Sunday night.  The kids are so excited to have our Christmas picture books out again and we read them over and over again.

Tuesday (12/13) started with tutoring for Megan and Brooke before school.  Jack, Emily, and I ran some errands (including mailing a package for you!) and then my nephew Luke got dropped off as Dan's sister Ali and her hubby headed to Washington DC for a few days.  After school I picked up my girls plus Ali's daughter Whitney and we had piano.  I made cookies that afternoon and went to a cookie exchange party that night.  The kids were pretty excited to see I'd brought home a big platter of a variety of cookies.  They were all delicious.

Wednesday (12/14) we sent the 4 big girls to school and got ready for playgroup but then the nurse called--my niece was sick.  So we picked her up and spent the day at home letting her recover.  Thankfully her recovery was quick and no one else got sick.  Megan had A days that day and Brooke had a song practice to prep for a performance at the ward party..

Emily is really getting around the house these days and has even pulled herself up a few times.  She was pretty happy with herself.  This was Wednesday.

Thursday (12/15) was a busy morning.  Thankfully Whitney was recovered.  I took Jack, Luke, and Emily to a neighbor's house and three of the girls to school and then Megan and I went to get her CT done of her ears.  It was pretty quick and she was back to school by 8:45.  Then I took the little kids to the joy school nursing home visit where they performed the nativity and sang songs and greeted the old people.  Luke is in the joy school group and since we were there watching, Jack got to join in.  It was ADORABLE.  They performed at 2 different nursing homes and then Luke went home from there to spend the night with another friend. 

Just a few kids at the nursing home...

Cutie shepherds.  Especially that middle one.

Friday (12/16) was the last day of school!  I dropped Jack at his playschool and then Emily and I got to hop from party to party for Megan, Brooke, and Candy.  Afterschool I picked up ALL the kids (my 5 plus Ali's 3 oldest) and brought them home.  After a quick snack, I took them all to a kid's ornament exchange which was crazy and fun.  We dropped those 8 kids at babysit night (wahoo!) so we could join with Dad, Sally, Alex, Charlie, Carrie, Shad, and Amy at Perry's for a birthday dinner for Carrie and Alex.  Yummy and a lot of fun talking and laughing with that group.  We got to be in a party room and it was so nice to be away from the crowds and enjoy being together.  We even got a bananas foster a flambe for dessert (meaning they lit it on fire for us at the table and it was great!).

Saturday (12/17) was a fairly quiet Saturday.  Megan had bell choir practice to prep for the ward party, we hung up some Christmas lights (not our best setup, but it'll do!).  Dan did some shopping, I did some shopping, and that night we had our ward party.  It was a great time, lots of friends, Santa came, and there was a talent show.  Megan, Brooke, and Dan all participated.

Brooke's group was made up of first graders who are all missing some or all of their teeth--so they sang "All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth".  It was adorable.

Sunday (12/18) was good.  Dan had early meetings and it was a busy morning with lots of squabbling but we made it to church with a few minutes to spare.  The kids were busy during sacrament meeting, so although I gathered that the theme was missionary work, I didn't catch much else.  It was the last Sunday of the year with my class and my team teacher taught about Christmas.  She's come a long way in a year (she was SO timid when we started!).  After church we tried to keep the kids busy and occupied so they wouldn't fight.  They helped us with sealing our Christmas cards.  Dan had an evening meeting and while he was gone I was cleaning up the kitchen and listening to a podcast from the Mormon Channel and it was such an answer to my prayers--it was a panel discussion from a group of women who each had many children and they talked about how to know if you are a good parent.  All of their children are now grown, but what they said about prioritizing your time and remembering that big tasks are accomplished one step at a time were what I needed to hear.  I just felt so loved from Heavenly Father that he would help me choose that random episode that addressed some of my recent concerns.  

Monday (12/19) began with dropping my kids (all 5!) with Ashley while I sprinted through the grocery store.  I threw the fridge stuff in at home and ran back to pick up the Megans.  My Megan had her appointment with the specialist at Texas Children's and Megan T tagged along to keep her company.  We pulled into the parking garage at the same time as the mother of their little friend with cancer and we chatted with her as we rode the elevator.  That sure helped me get the right perspective on Megan's ear issues--there are definitely worse things than mild hearing loss.  We waited FOREVER for the doc and then waited again while he loaded the CT on his computer and studied it.  When he finally came in, he said the good news was her ear didn't seem to have anything terrible going on (no cancer, nothing progressively getting worse, etc).  The bad news was he still wasn't entirely sure why she has a loss on the left side.  So he gave us two options to think about:  1, go get hearing aids and 2, let him do surgery--he might or might not be able to improve her hearing depending on what he finds behind her ear drum, but he felt confident he wouldn't make it worse either.

The Megans in the waiting room at TCH

We are still deciding but are leaning toward hearing aids for now.  If she hates them or they don't fix her issues, we can always  do the surgery in the future. 

We didn't get back til 1 pm and then I had the 10 kids at my house for a few hours while Ashley shopped.  The kids did amazing though and it was a great day. 

Jack was on the lesson for Family Night and we read a Christmas story (our pick) and Snowmen at Night (his pick) and watched the beginning of Elf for our activity (Candy's pick).  It was a lot of fun.

Today (Tuesday 12/20) I did a quick embroidery job in the morning and then I took all the kids to bed bath and beyond to finish picking things to give to Carrie.  We got it done.  Then we went to a dollar store for them to pick things for Ali's kids.  And then we met up with Ali and her kids at a park.  It was a really nice outing, we had a picnic lunch and enjoyed the sun and the 50 degree weather.

Second week of Dec

Another fun and busy week in the books. 

Dec. 5 (Mon) I picked up my groceries at 8 am (I did the online ordering) so that instead of shopping while Ashley had my kids I could run to the dentist.  That worked out great.  Then I called to set up the appointment with the ENT specialist and they had an opening that day!  So I got Ali to take Jack and Emily while they napped and got Ashley to pick up the school kids and I took Megan on down to Texas Children's.  The doctor was really nice and knowledgable.  He listened to her history and looked at her ears and felt like what we really needed was more information on the structure of her ear canals themselves.  He thinks there is a good possibility that the bones to transmit sounds are underdeveloped on the left side but he needs a CT scan to know for sure.  We will get that set up ASAP.  We had a quick family night by Candy where we watched the mormon channel video about the old shoemaker who has a dream that Christ will come the next day

Dec. 6 (Tue).  Another appointment day.  Emily had her 9 month checkup and she is doing just great.  Then I picked up Megan and headed to Shad's office for an ortho checkup.  Her teeth have grown in so she got 2 new brackets and a new wire.  Probably only like 4 more months til this phase is done for her.  We had a RS activity that night, a dinner and Christmas program.  I sang O Come O Come Emmanuel with Ali and another friend.  There were 4 other musical numbers and another sister shared a story--Aaron's Christmas tree!  This sister actually knew Mom in the 80s and Mom taught her oldest kids to swim.  It made me wonder if they had shared that story at relief society back then or something since they both knew of it and loved it :).  Megan threw up twice while I was at my activity (lucky Dan) but it was short lived and she slept well that night.

This girl is an army crawling pro now.  She even fell all the way down the stairs last week (not head over heels, so it was just 12 short falls to the landing,but it scared us all pretty good!).  Here she is chowing on an apple core--her favorite teether.

Dec. 7 (Wed). We had playgroup at the Houston Fire Museum downtown.  I'd never been and it was a cool place to visit.  Jack had a blast in the little kid-size fire station in the back.  We swapped some kids with the Tracy's and let them all play after school.  I went to the temple when Dan got home from work and caught the 6 pm session.  I saw Dad there but missed seeing Sally as she was on the 7 pm session.  That was a nice, peaceful interlude.

one of the old fire engines.

 Jack the fire fighter!

He was nervous sliding down the pole but he did it!

Dec. 8 (Thu).  I ran some errands and organized all the hand me downs I'd gotten lately for Jack.  I spent a good deal of time this day learning about dyslexia and talking to Jamie and others about how it manifests in kids.  I'm pretty sure that Brooke is struggling with dyslexia to some degree.  She can read but it's a struggle and her writing and spelling is not where it should be.  So I had a phone conference with her teacher and got her referred to the school's dyslexia coordinator.  I watched kids for Ashley at naptime.  Dan had a stake meeting that night.

Dec. 9 (Fri). Jack had playschool in the morning and I decided to re string lights on our pre lit tree.  That was a PAIN!  But now it has lights that work :).  After school Megan and Brooke had some friends over to play and when they went home we headed over to the Tracy's to hang out.  We had dinner with them and let the kids watch a movie while we played Settler's.  Then we put all the kids to bed and watched a movie too.  It was a late night but lots of fun.

Dec. 10 (Sat) We had a quiet morning.  Dan got the tires rotated on his car, topped off the power steering fluid in my car and then got 2 new tires for my car.  I trimmed up our front bushed so they'll be ready for us to hang Christmas lights on them in the next few days.  Dan went to the priesthood meeting for stake conference at 4 pm.  I took the kids to a Christmas party down the street at 5 pm.  Then at 6, Dan came home and watched the kids so I could go to the adult session of stake conference.  He watched our kids, the Tracy's, and the Ashcraft's too (our usual babysit swap) so now they really owe us this month!  The meeting was really good.  I especially liked a talk about the history of the Provo tabernacle--he showed how it looked the day after the fire when it was nothing but a shell filled with debris and then a picture of it when it was dedicated as a temple.  He compared that to us when we are stuck in sin--we may feel as empty and burned out as that building looked, but just as Pres. Monson saw in the wreckage a future temple, Christ can see in us the potential to be as whole and beautiful again as the rebuilt building.

Dec. 11 (Sun).  We went to stake conference in the morning.  Dan had to help with ushering at the other building in our stake, so we watched it there with him (it was broadcast to that building).  After church Candy and I went to a convert baptism.  It was for Angie, the lady who the missionaries brought to our 4th of July breakfast and who I went to a discussion with a while back.  She and her 11 year old son were baptized.  They are so excited, it was great.  Brooke is running a low fever today, but seems to be doing better this afternoon (she was freezing at stake conference). 

It's hard to believe this is the last week of school for the kids til the new year!  And only 2 weeks til Christmas

December!

Our week after Thanksgiving was good.
Nov 28 (Mon) we had a quiet day, grocery swap and a family night lesson by Brooke on kindness. 
Nov 29 (Tue) I had a few visitors in the morning.  I was working on ornaments for a party that night when Carrie came to say Hi after her first few patients cancelled.  Ashley came to say hi too and to tell me they were getting ready to accept a job offer in either Portland or Seattle (boo hoo!  I'm so sad!).  It was our last day before our zoo membership expired so I took Jack and Emily and we had a blast.  It was muggy and about 80 degrees but there was a breeze and lots of shade.  My friend hosted her annual ornament exchange party that night which was really fun. 

Nov 30 (Wed) we had playgroup at the park in Fall Creek.  It was amazing weather (upper 60s and sunny) and we had lots of firends come.  Megan had her 6 month check in with the ENT.  She STILL didn't pass her hearing screen and had actually gotten worse.  Our ENT referred us to a specialist ENT at Texas Children's to see what is going on.  We decorated the tree that night.

Dec 1 (Thu), Dan flew out early for his committee meetings/recruiting at BYU that he goes to twice a year.  Ashley came over in the morning and I embroidered the names on the stockings for each of our 5th kids.  Ali came over next and we did the name on her baby's stocking.  Then I got the vinyl all cut out and put on our wood blocks. 

Dec 2 (Fri).  Jack had playschool and I mostly did laundry and ran errands.  Jack's buddy Max came to play for a bit after playschool.  Then after school it was time to make pizzas and host babysit swap.  13 kids and me!  It was fine.

Dec 3 (Sat)  I hosted my primary class party at lunch time.  They wanted pizza, hot dogs, and chips.  We originally planned to do a hot tub party at one kid's house but it was rainy and 48 degrees so we moved it here.  We played charades and pictionary and ate lunch.  They are a really nice group of kids.  Megan and Brooke played in their Christmas recital after that.  Dad and Sally met us there and we facetimed Dan when it was one of their turns.  They played beautifully!  Megan did "Up on the Housetop" and Brooke did "Silent Night".  That evening I embroidered 8 more stockings!  A family in the ward with 6 kids hired me to put on the names and with Dan gone it was a good time to get it done.

My primary class

Brooke and her friends after the recital

Dec 4 (Sun) I was later to church then I'd been in years--we made it during the sacrament hymn and sat in the overflow.  That's what I get for wanting a few pictures of the kids before we left :).  It was my day to teach (my last time teaching for the year! and it was about Moroni's promise.  It was such a good discussion with my class about how to gain their own testimonies.  After church we had choir at 3 pm, picked Dan up from the airport at 4:15 pm, ate dinner at 4:40 pm and I took Megan, Candy, and Jack down to Carrie's Christmas party after that.  Then home again at 7, listening to the Christmas fireside as I drove and watching the end with Dan and the other kids.