Thursday, December 27, 2018

7QTs - Christmas-ish Things

Linking up with Kelly ... pre Christmas happenings


---1---

M and A had their preschool Christmas program 2 weeks ago: 



Don't you love a good bowtie? 


A was a touch under the weather but looks a lot worse because he ran and tripped and fell so his forehead was a bit swollen.

My favorite memory of the night was him singing Jingle Bells and jingling the hand bells (that were in his right hand) but jingling both hands (because he is left handed).

---2---

Meet Polly!


We have a friendly opossum that patrons C's scraps in the evening. We have seen her a few nights in a row and read the riot act to the kids about not opening the door for Polly (like they would - because 3 are terrified of all things with fur)
---3---

Target has this really AWESOME snowflake lights... 



Except the team in charge of R&D failed because they do NOT string together like the icicle lights do. You know, you want several snowflakes strands strung together to line the porch.... NOPE. There is only a plug on one side of each strand so basically it is terrible and I was stuck with 100 boxes of snowflakes and I was super annoyed 


Until Lee put up hooks (those 3M things are worth anything) and then got a million extension cords and made my vision come to life. I promise a better picture but please note there are at least 6 extension cords just making my snowflakes light up : )

GO TEAM!

---4---

Little C is a full 18 months


And already for swim team! Gosh I love her!!! Even though she's kind of a mess

---5---

E and R had their Christmas program... 


It was cute. The best part was going to the dress rehearsal and not fighting for a seat and not having to mess with A and C who hung out with me during the evening performances. 

---6---

The kids came together and unwrapped 9 bags of hugs this year



It was a good amount. Not manageable on the oven side but not too bad for them 


I told E I'm putting her in charge of pretzels next year because I never got into a good rhythm of loading hugs while the hugs/pretzels were in the oven


So the whole process took way longer than I would have like BUT... it's all good. 


These are the best fresh out of the oven... my OCD cannot handle my color error



Batch 5 of 6 


My batter taste tester


Ready to pass out the gifts

---7---

Two Sundays before Christmas we went on an exhilarating tree hunt...



There should have been about 15 vendors with trees. 

There were 3.

I'm quite sure there were more people looking for trees than were available trees so there were very few deals to be found which was a bummer. I think we passed through every spot at least 3 times. I called Lee (who wasn't tree shopping with us) and was half convinced we'd end up with an artificial tree. But we didn't and I caved on a long needled tree that looked like one side was hacked up and missing and the other side was immaculate. 

Sunday, December 16, 2018

The Last Snow of 2018?

It snowed a week ago. It was pretty. It was wet. It was short lived. It was fun. 


There is this iconic picture of my dad and his siblings I would love to reproduce. 



My version didn't come out exactly as I was hoping but it was a valiant attempt given we don't have 4 sleds. 


Anyhow, we dragged out all the snow gear and found that for the most part we are pretty well covered from head to toe with amazing hand me downs and stuff from years past. I will say after Christmas I plan on getting a pair of ski pants for me because I'm the outside snow parent and Lee's the insides snow parent (which I love and works great for us but I don't have good pants for being outside) also I need to add a pair of boots to the footwear because A and M could be wearing the same size and M was falling out of her boots - which was no fun. 


It had started snowing in the middle of the night


And snowed nicely until about 9:30 


The temp was just at the freezing mark - which was kind of a bummer because it turned to freezing rain/rain/sleet 


Had it actually snowed all that precipitation instead of rained several hours of it - that would have been amazing 


But this is the earliest snow we have had in a while. We had a 12/26 snow within the last 8 year


Everything was cover and it was really pretty


She was not happy about making a snow angel


But I did it anyways and sent her in to hang out with Papa


The girls really wanted to sled but this was really not sliding snow so disappointment abounded. 


We made it up to our neighbors and there were some snowmen and snowball throwing 


Then we went in for the day. The snow turned to rain and it was just not fun and cold


But that didn't stop E and R from getting in on a snow swimming challenge that was circling the swim team. 

Hopefully next snow will be the same volume or more but about ten degrees colder. 

Thursday, December 6, 2018

St. Nicholas Day!


I LOVE the peacefulness and the silence in the candlelit chapel... if only a bit of incense were burning


Lee and I did matins AFTER we got all of the things that the kids (and parents) designated for St. Nicholas put away and a few treats from St. Nicholas out. I was worried E or R might wake up and catch up but they didn't. (Lee PROMISED me the dresser would be out of the chapel by the end of the year - here's to hoping he'll keep his word!)


There were some gold coins left from China but the kids didn't notice which was a bit disappointing but whatever


The great race...


The excitement they had was contagious and all week they kept on talking about St. Nicholas and how he was coming and can you believe it? 


Gold coins, sugary cereal (I never buy), toothpaste, mouthwash? - we live on the edge -, gum, chalk, books, Christmas outfits - they were thrilled. I had picked up some socks at Target but then I realized we have a million socks so I thought better of them


Then we headed downstairs and found St. Nicholas had left us some chocolate milk! to go with the cinnamon buns. It was Jesse Tree readings over breakfast. 

We were all supposed to go to Liturgy tonight BUT C has a nasty cough and I had to get her from school early sooooo.... It was Lee and the big girls. A and C and I (if we ever had an I kid name then I would have to be careful about typing that out - because you know everyone is A. asking when's the next one coming B. R and M have talked about me having twins for a month C. but no, no, no) held the fort here for the evening and are hoping to kick this crud by the weekend!

Wednesday, December 5, 2018

Moms Swim 2018

Gosh this seems like a long time ago but I suppose it was only about 6 weeks ago yet I am finally getting around to it...


Back in October the girls had an evening swim meet. It is definitely a fun meet for them so to add to the fun I thought it would be even more fun to get some moms involved in a moms vs coaches relay. 

Let's just say it was loads of fun and even though we lost and it taught our kids a thing or two about what their mamas can do. 

I must admit I'd been hatching this idea probably since the end of summer because I knew I need so swim savvy moms if we were to even have a shot at this. After pitching the idea and a little bit of pleading we were in. 

Next thing we needed was a team cap. Well apparently #swimmoms or anything related to moms swimming cannot be found printed on a silicone swim cap (though there is an array of nice shirts). So the next best thing is... typing 'swim mom cap' into Google and seeing what appears. Wouldn't you know these were the caps that came up.



I mean they had flowers and hearts on them and they seemed fierce enough and the name of them is La Vengadora - Lady Avengers so here we were. 

Then it came to the morning before the race. We assembled at 5:30 (in the morning because everyone knows that's when moms really have quality time for themselves) to practice diving off the blocks. Ummm.... let's just say having not dove off one of those blocks in 20 years - they were really high. And here we moms are telling our kids they have nothing to worry about and get up there and just do it. 

Riiiiiiiiight. 

Well then it was race day - which was kind of hilarious because there was this series of serious texts about our order but also included who was going to be in our cheering section because word had gotten out about the #swimmoms and even non swim friends were wishing us luck and then dying to see the video of it after the fact. 

I mean Lee and my mother in law even stuck around until 7:30 with all the kids - hello past your bedtime A and C - to watch. 

Anyhow we lost and it wasn't even close which was a bummer because none of us wanted to lose because we are all THOSE kind of mamas. For me personally, I can tell you that the take homes for me and my swimming girls are this:

A. I probably can and should swim (when I get around to it) faster - because I can and I just don't push myself. That in and of itself was worth all this 

B. R couldn't believe that I was ACTUALLY going to swim. So I am glad that I publicly showed her that her mother can, in fact, swim even though diving off the blocks is not as easy as you kids make it out to be

C. E saw how we lost. We were good sports. Disappointed but still having fun as a team of moms. It is fun to win but sometimes it is not about winning and losing - it is about just doing something for the fun of it (and winning next time)

D. One of teammates rang in her birthday swimming on the relay team - which was AWESOME!

On that note, I cannot speak for all the #swimmoms but I hope that we can have a rematch next year. Hopefully next year the coaches team will have a closer median age to our as they were about 7 years younger than us on average OR we need a handicap based on the number of kids we have. Once the race was over, we looked around at each other and determined that there are 15 kids between the four of us! 

#swimmoms