Merry Christmas! It was quite the week. Every day the anticipation built for Christmas. Despite the all the excitement the kids did well with being kind and not driving me crazy. I have come to really appreciate two kids during the day. Any time all three are home, I'm off my groove. I am going to attribute some of the success in kindness to something I think is going to be a tradition from now on. We read a story in the friend about a family doing kind things and putting it in a gift for Jesus. I had heard of writing down your gift to Jesus for the next year, but honestly that's like making a New Year resolutions...I never do them. Every night we reviewed our day and wrote down kind things to put in our gift. The kids really seemed to latch onto it.
Tim unfortunately worked nights. He's worked inpatient, had off, and now nights during Christmas. I think nights is my least favorite. He was able to participate on Christmas Eve night and Christmas day in the morning, but was absent for the rest. I'm not complaining...well kind of...I'm used to it. I would rather tackle Christmas craziness as a duo rather than a single. Oh well, one more year and maybe we'll get to be like everyone else. Tuesday morning he will be done and we are planning on leaving shortly after he gets home to visit my family.
Hyrum enjoyed not having to get ready for school in the morning. He read and played with legos every morning. He did well during naps and did well with the fact that most of the neighbors were gone. This means he didn't have anyone to play with. The weather was really warm, so we got out almost every day to play outside, minus the first couple of days of the week when it rained. He also got to learn how to make pancakes and quesadillas. He did really well and enjoyed being an adult.
Lila was my errand buddy. She likes coming along and I enjoy having her come. We have been working on her saying hi to people in public. She usually hides and sticks her fingers in her mouth. I did get one high out of her this week. We also had another #2 toilet success. I keep crossing my fingers that she will keep getting better. She is so stubborn! She enjoyed doing preschool with Hyrum this week. It was a review week and we did some Christmas crafts that Hyrum got to do. He also enjoyed helping Lila with her ABCs.
Liam is a smart, stinker! I spent my week chasing after him. We have a weird staircase, so we don't have an official gate. He has figured out how to get around the barricade. Once the stairs are open, he climbs as fast as his legs can take him before he gets caught. He can go up and down by himself, but he's not quite good enough to do it independently. He is lapping the house on two legs. He doesn't really crawl any more. It's either walking or a crazy monkey crawl on his hands and feet. He is so fast when he does it. He had plenty of walking and playing outside this week, as we were hovering in the mid to high 60s all week. No white Christmas for us! Oh, and he decided that pulling the Christmas tree over was super fun.
Besides managing kids and Christmas, we also participated in a food drive. A family in our ward as part of their Christmas kindness collected food. We dropped of canned goods and they gave us super tasty homemade donuts. There were prayers of gratitude offered for the donuts by more than one child. It was a ton of fun and they did a great job. I also continue to work on helping a sister from church find housing. It's been a long and exhausting process that I had hopes of success this week, but ended up being a bust. The week was really a blur for me, nights usually equals me getting the basics done and nothing else, but we are almost done!
By the time we got to the last chain, the kids were about to explode with excitement. We did our night in Bethlehem dinner. Liam got to join us too on the floor which was fun. I decided to add flat bread to the menu. I typically keep it very simple, but added homemade flatbread with some homemade hummus for the adults. The bread was a hit, so I think it will stay for future Christmases. We also opened our gift to Jesus and reviewed all the things we done for Jesus. I was surprised at all the things that we had done and how proud the kids were of their efforts. There were off to bed and quiet in no time flat.
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