6 days to go! (Mom’s turn)

Prayer has been doing an amazing job at blogging. I’m so glad that she decided she wanted to do it for the month of December, because there is no way I would have kept up with it! But seeing as she’s at a friend’s house for a Christmas party with my other older girls, the boys are out with Grandma, Ella’s out on a date with Scott, and I’m home with the two littles… I thought I’d sub-in for tonight.

Yesterday was one of those days that you don’t really blog about. I got up and tried to get the house in order before dropping some kids off a friend’s house. Then I took three kids and went grocery shopping. After that I had to run over to Target and pay for a spatula my three year old stole. She’s on a roll this week! While shopping the other night, she was sitting in the cart holding onto the spatula. She kept dangling it over the side threatening to drop it. I told her to stop and didn’t think about it again. We got to the checkout and the spatula was nowhere to be found. I asked her why she dropped it after I asked her not to and she replied, “Oh… I sorry, Mom. We can go back and get it!” But at that point, I was in no mood to walk back across the store for a spatula, so we left without it. We got home and she was showing Ella the doll that she bought with her birthday money when the spatula fell out of the box. So… back to yesterday… I went BACK to Target to pay for the spatula. Then I picked up a vacuum that I bought on Varagesale because ours has a broken plug and we haven’t had time to drive it to the repair place and we really can’t go more than a few days without vacuuming in here. (Also, if you don’t have the app Varagesale… you NEED the app Varagesale! Can’t tell you how much money I’ve saved on gifts this year using it!) Ok.. then to pick up kids and rush home. Then we clean, vacuum, scrub floors, make dinner, and head out to violin lessons.

Let me tell you, by the time we’re on the way back home from violin- the last thing I feel like doing is some advent activity. Funny how once I decide to force myself to do it- I always enjoy it! So we decided to grab some donuts from Timmy’s and drive around the neighbourhood looking at all the Christmas lights. We usually pick our favourite house and bring them a Tim’s giftcard before Christmas.

So the kids oooh’d and ahhh’d over the lights while I enjoyed a donut and felt my blood pressure return to normal. Thankfully, yesterday was an abnormal day for Christmas break. My favourite part of the holidays is definitely the loose schedule that allows us more time.

Time for family and friends.

Time to play with the kids.

Time to read books and draw pictures together.

Time to sit and enjoy breakfast with my hubby in the morning. We actually went on our first breakfast date since Addy was born this week. The girls babysat and let us sneak out for 45 minutes while she napped! That was refreshing.

Time for a break.

As I get older, and my kids get older, I’m practicing taking my time more. Rushing less. (I did say practicing- I’m not there yet! See above… ha!)

(Patiently waiting for my daughter to finish feeding the “poor pigeon” a cracker in the middle of a parking lot)

I’ve always loved Christmas time, but hosting use to stress me out. I would be a frazzled, short-tempered mess while getting ready for people to arrive. I’m learning to enjoy it more. To let the girls help in the kitchen, to keep the menu simple so I have more time to spend sitting with family…  I only have so many more Decembers with these kids at home- so I’m doing everything I can to make memories.

(After tobogganing in the dark!)

That really is the whole point of our advent activities. To make memories together, and to take time to talk about why we celebrate Christmas. To take time to be thankful for everything God has given us.

If this blog does anything this month- let it be an encouragement to spend time with loved ones because you don’t know how many more times you’ll get to spend a Christmas together… and remember the reason we have this holiday. Take a moment to give thanks for the gift of a little baby born in a manger and all that He has already done for you.

 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights…

-James 1:17

8 days until Christmas!

Yesterday was a normal day I promise. Well, normal for us.

So yesterday morning we ate oatmeal for breakfast. And we all ate vitamins. (Yes, some of us are still sick.)

Then we learned that some of  our good old friends were coming over to play. Yay!

So we cleaned the house a little bit, and made sure that the bedrooms were done.

At about 12:00 they arrived! The first thing we girls did was play Barbies in Ella's room. That wasn’t for too long. Then me, Ella, and Ella’s new best friend went to play in the basement. We decided to have rollerblading Olympics. While Eve, Ashley, Brooke, and Charity played figurines upstairs.

One of the younger girls was playing with Eve’s reindeer  figurine from Frozen and she accidentally broke off one of his antlers!

I thought it was funny when I heard about it.

(The boys were playing Lego in the basement) After a little while we had lunch. I wanted a picture of this troublemaker but he was hiding behind his sandwich and I told him since he was hiding I would post a picture of him hiding.

 

After lunch we hung out a bit until Dad left for work, and then Elijah and his friend played a game on the computer and laptop, and the girls played Barbies again.

Their princesses had the power to fly, to talk to animals, to just know when someone is the bad guy… they were very imaginative!

The boys were going to play Wii but they wanted to stay on the computer instead. So we girls played Mario Kart. You will never guess who played…

At first four of us older girls played. Then one of the younger girls and Charity got on one team, Eve and the youngest were on another team, and me and Ella were on a team. What I mean by team is that we had to share a remote because there was too many of us!

We older girls assumed that the two younger girls wouldn’t do very well. Boy were we surprised!

Charity’s special team mate got first place on a race! And Eve’s teammate got third!

Oh, and did I mention that the 3 year old can play Temple Run better than I can? On one race on Mario Kart she thought she was my racer and so when I won, she thought she won, when really she was in last place. I cried laughing at her reaction at the end of the race. I mean she wasn’t upset or anything she was trying to prove to Eve that my screen was her screen.It was really funny.

At about 4:00 they had to go, but we had lots of fun!

Then we had dinner. Mom wanted to go out with Lily so she could spend her birthday money. So we did chores while Lily and Mom went to Target. When they got back Lily had another baby doll! Yay!

The doll talks when Lily spins it  so she likes that about it, and it looks like her…

 

 

She loves her babies! Hopefully none of them swallow batteries though.

Now, the advent. I think this was very interestingly fun.

Jed found it.

 

Here it is!

So we played hide-and-seek in the dark except you have to try to make it back to the living room without the counter seeing you. It was very hard with Lily.

It was fun though, I only made it back to the living room once.

One round where I was hiding beside Mom’s bed with Lily and Mom rushed in and hid under a blanket  on Dad’s chair. I left Lily with Mom and went to hide somewhere better.

Lily was so obsessed with the flash-light that she wouldn’t do a round without it!

So on one of the last rounds Charity had a good spot in the kitchen…

Yah, she got really dusty, and she was wearing my pants and shirt!

After Lily went to bed we were going to watch a show but spent that time chatting with Grandma. She stopped by to lend us her vacuum. (Our plug broke.)

That about sums up our night it was really awesome!

She is so cute, right?

-Prayer

1 Week Until Christmas Eve!

After I finish this post you will understand why we didn’t do an advent…

Maybe you will be able  to tell what happened from the X-ray.

I’ll start from the beginning…

Yesterday morning I woke up like any other day, and we ate breakfast.

Then me and Mom ran to Osh-Kosh, and grabbed wrapping paper at Target.

When we got home we cleaned up a bit, then Lily went to nap and the other kids did stuff downstairs.

I was on the computer and I heard Lily crying. I thought, ”Oh, she’s probably upset that we can’t fix her nightlights.”

Then Mom went up to check on her, and Lily said she had swallowed a battery!

(She found Ella’s flashlight that Mom told her to throw out and took it all apart.)

Everybody started freaking out. Ella started to cry, Mom got Lily dressed right away and we girls got Addy in the car seat.Then Mom texted Dad. Mom told me to get my shoes on and help Lily into the van. Then Mom put Addy in the car, and she drove us to the hospital.

On the way I sat with Lily and we had a very long conversation about why you don’t eat batteries, and you don’t put anything into your mouth that isn’t food.

I kept telling her that she shouldn’t put things into her mouth and she said “If you say that again I will not listen to you.”

Oops. She was very tired.

Once we got to the hospital, we waited in the emergency room for about 10 minutes, and then Mom and Lily went in to get the registration form. After that we went to wait for Lily to get an x-ray.

I waited with Addy while Mom took Lily in to get her x-ray.

While I was waiting Addy got fussy. So I took her out of the car seat. A little kid tried to touch her but I moved because the poor kid was sick. Then mom and Lily came out. Mom said Lily would have to see a doctor.

So we waited in the first waiting room for about an hour and a half.

At one point while we were waiting Lily held on to Mom’s face and said, “I like you, Jaclyn.”

Haha. Mom explained that she doesn’t call her “Jaclyn” and Lily just said, “Oh, I thought that was your name…”

Then the nurse called Lily out.

So we went to see the doctor and he said that the battery had passed through the esophagus.

It was in her stomach. So we just have to wait for it to pass.

It was a very long wait at the hospital.

When we got into the car the first thing Lily said was, “When I get home can I put on pyjamas ?”

Me and Mom laughed.

When we got home the first thing she did was put on her sleeper.

Then Dad took her to the bathroom while Mom and I ate dinner.

Dad called up and said, “Lily says she is just sad ‘cause its raining today.” Poor exhausted 3 year old.

Then Lily ate dinner. By time we were done everything it was too late for an advent. So we watched  a show instead. We’ll have a fun advent today I’m sure.

That about sums up yesterday.

I will blog again either tomorrow or tonight.

-Prayer

10 days until Christmas!

Wow… we are actually a day behind on our advent! Great that just totally knocked down my inspiration!

Just kidding!

So yesterday we woke up and rejoiced! We had no school! YES!FINALLY!

It’s awesome!

So that meant we can use video games during school hours!

Not that we did…

OK, I did, Jed did, pretty much everyone did.

Anyway, afterwards around 1:00 we decided Mom decided that it was time to do something else.

So we went downstairs to rollerblade.

Eve is amazing at rollerblading and spinning and jumping and…well, she is just so graceful on rollerblades! (Though her rollerblades are the only ones with smooth wheels.)

After that we went upstairs to draw and Mom was going decoration crazy! She wanted to fix up chipped spots on the wall, take the “ugly ribbon” off the tree, even out the ornaments, and we did all that and more!

We also put decorations up outside, that way we wouldn’t be the only house on the street without any.

After our amazing dinner of pasta and ground beef with mozzarella cheese on top, we had time for the advent. While waiting, Lily, Eve, and I drew pictures. You’ll never guess what Lily drew…

(Top left: Mrs. Brown, top middle: Mom, top right: Dad, bottom: Justus)

Lily drew Justus’ tail in the middle of his body!

It is so adorable!

Then Mom called us down for the advent. Charity found it AGAIN!

So Mom was impressed with her poem, but I think Eve could’ve done better.

We looked on Pinterest for ideas.

We girls were all so excited about this, until Mom said we couldn’t paint our own nails. It was very frustrating at first but then Mom and Keona did a better job than I would have, so oh well.

Here is a picture of all our nails.

I think Keona’s look so nice!

Pretty right?

These ones are mine.

 

After we were done we ate kinder eggs and watched our Amazing race.

Then at about 11:00 I finally fell asleep.

Awesome, right?

Anyway I’ve got to go, Mom said I’m taking too long.

I think that as long as there are emoticons I would blog forever.

I LOVE EMOTICONS!

Okay, bye!

-Prayer