Random Ramblings: It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

The long holiday weekend was over it it was so nice to send everyone back to school. It was quiet and I could clean things and they stayed clean until 3:30. One thing I cleaned up was a puzzle that we have been working on. This one was too hard. But it is kind of fun to put a puzzle out and have everyone work on it sporadically.

Monday I made my list of stuff to do and have worked on it all week. I did not get too many things done. But I have done a lot more things than I put on my list!

Monday was the last day of November and I wanted to organize the month of December so we have time for the events and activities we want to do. I also wanted to bring elements of Christ into the festivities every day. I found a song, a scripture, and a picture or meme about Christ for every day of December. I hide them and give the kids a clue and they go looking for them. This took hours monday and tuesday.

FHE was kind of crazy because Andre was home late because he was looking for cars, and we had not really planned a lesson (as usual) but the church came up with a great video to watch called, "A Savior is Born". That was perfect in my attempt to bring more Christ into our Christmas. (NO Elf on the shelf even though Chase begs me). We made a fun dessert! It is basically white chocolate on brown chocolate with sprinkles.

Tuesday Andre bought a new car! We have had a lot of trouble having anyone at Travelers insurance call us back. We leave messages and messages and they never call back. They are helpful if we actually talk to a person. But they don't call back. Anyway, we finally got the news from them on Monday that they were totaling our car so we had one day to find and buy a car. Andre got a Hyundai Sonata to replace his Hyundai Sonata. He wanted to get the dark grey to replace the silver, but he only found black. So it looks awesome, but he will have to wash it a lot more. Black cars look dirty more often. We also returned the beloved rental car and made sure we had everything out of our old car.

Wednesday I had lots of errands to run during the day and then I came home and hurried and got ready for webelos. Then I picked up 2 of my kids, brought them home and then turned around to pick up Tanner. He likes to go to the game club after school on Wednesdays. Super fun for him, inconvenient for me. Then we had webelos, I hurried and made dinner, I helped with homework, and went to a cub scout meeting. Andre and I have been watching the show Fringe. It is cool, yet disturbing.

Thursday I finally got Andre's Christmas present. I knew what I wanted to get but I had to shop around and decide. Shopping around is fun because you find other things that you need. Then I came home and made a spreadsheet for the cub scout budget. It took way longer then I thought it would. Dinner was hurried because Alex started his basketball practice that day. Jr Jazz has started. I put my kids in West Jordan leagues. I felt like in South Jordan every kid that plays basketball is a super star- like they have had private lessons since they were 2 years old or something. I felt like my kids who are just average players did not have a chance. But in West Jordan, it seems like the kids are just kids who like to play. It is so much better. I'll tell you how it goes as the season progresses. Here is a picture of a typical sight. Homework. We love homework around here. Ha!

The Christmas activity was to make a treat. These are pretzel dipped in chocolate and decorated with sprinkles. It is way different than the Monday treat. It has pretzels.

Chase's tooth was just hanging by a thread. He really really wanted to tie a string around it and yank it out with a door shutting. We had done this with Alex a while ago. Well, it was super hard to get a string around it. It is the worlds tiniest tooth. It took forever. Then we lined him up and I took this video. (I need to learn not to talk in videos).

Oh, well, we tried. The string just slid off the tooth. Then I told him to just pull straight done. He did and it just popped out! I was going to get that on video but he was too fast. Here is a picture of his sweet smile. He really wants the other front tooth to fall out before Christmas so he can sing that song, "all I want for Christmas is..."

Friday I made lots of lasagnas to take to families that just had babies. It was a lot of lasagna. Jaxon went to his Magic club thing and the rest of us were going to deliver the lasagna's. When I had a new baby we didn't ever go anywhere. (We still don't go anywhere). Of the four families, no one was home! So I'll have to take them tomorrow. So instead of that, we went to get donuts and to see Christmas lights.We are trying to do a Christmas activity every night. This week we had, make count down chains (sad that 2 of my kids are too old for that), and eat dinner by candle light on the nights that I am too busy for anything else. We have a Jesus wall that has picture of Jesus so we remember why we are celebrating Christmas.

Saturday Junior Jazz started! Andre took the boys to both their games. I had to deliver the Lasagna's that did not get delivered the day before. The boys liked their games. They are learning a lot and it is fun for them. Then we went to Applebee's for dinner. Andre had won a gift card- awesome. Then we headed to Thanksgiving point. We wanted to see their light show.

First we stopped at the main building and they had a few things going on, a reindeer, ice sculptures, music, hot chocolate. Andre and I told the kids about our engagement because he proposed right there when we got off of a carriage ride. the lights were awesome the other night 17 years ago.They used to decorate a lot more around the main building and it was for free.

Now they charge you to see their drive through lights. It was ok. I think I would like to walk through it. But it was good driving also- definitely warmer.

Here are the kids in the car looking at lights.

They had some good areas.

It was a fun night with the family.

Sunday was good. I keep busy. I cut 4 people's hair so that they would look presentable. I again played around with church clothes. I moved the suits that Tanner grew out of and now they are Alex's and Chase will wear the one that Alex grew out of. Tanner still has nothing really nice. He has to wear his Khaki's which he hates because he wears those every day to school and they hurt his waist. He is super slim so he tightens his pants really tight- then they are uncomfortable. Tanner was wearing his size 14 pants and they are too short. I just bought them in September. I think we may be starting the whole growing thing with him. The problem is that he can't wear Jaxon's hand me downs. He is just too slim they fall off of him- or we have the belt issue that hurts his waist. So I am going to have to buy slim pants I guess. Andre had meetings all morning and then we met up for choir practice. Then we went to church. Church was good as usual. I learned some scriptures that help me understand stuff and I was reminded of the Christmas message and the need for a Savior. I am so grateful for Him.

After church the kids fit as much Dungeons and Dragons in as they could. They had wanted to do it in the morning but Tanner had to go and do fast offerings. So here is a picture of Dungeons... I wish it was a video so you could hear the fun they were having. The picture does not show it.

After dinner my parents came over and we had a car show. They bought a new car on saturday and we bought ours on Tuesday. It is really dark, but we have church from 1-4 and it gets dark at 4:17 so I can't help it. They got a CRV and we got a Hyundai Sonata. Both 2013's. Here are some photos: