Go, Go, Goers!

Merry Christmas! What a wonderful week this was...the days just flew by! Darn it, we have to go back to work in two days. At least we’ll be refreshed and ready to go. We spent a very nice Christmas Eve at my parents home...We all enjoyed the traditional butterball soup, except G (and Grandma) who decided he didn’t even want to give it a try. His loss, which turned into an extra butterball for Ava...lucky girl! We ate so much food...all good, but boy, I was ready to sleep it off when we got back home. Instead, we opened the traditional ONE gift on Christmas Eve...Ava has caught on and knows that it’s always new pajamas, but G thought he was going to get something cool, and he wanted a redo. Haha! And of course we left a cookie, fudge, carrot, and eggnog out for Santa and Rudolph. G was very adamant that the carrot was only for Rudolph, and not any other reindeer. He insisted that Rudolph isn’t very big or strong, which is why he needs the carrot more than any of the other reindeer. ...

Each of the kids had a school-suggested, holiday planned wardrobe, every day this past week...it’s amazing how easy it was to get G dressed each morning. He had pre-approved all of his clothes, and was excited to be dressing with the theme that his daycare put forth. I think I need to pick out his clothes every week, in advance! Pajama and Polar Express Day was the absolute best day for him...he talked about it leading up to it, and then told me several times that it was his favorite. If only every Thursday could be so much fun... Now that I think about it, though...Ava’s school also had a pj day recently, and she said it was the best day, too. I’m now wondering if I can get away with wearing my pjs to work?! It would be guaranteed to make it a great day! Besides the five-days-of-clothing-fun, last week was pretty good, in other ways, too. I got through a big milestone at work, and wrapped up things so I could be out of the office from Dec 22-Jan 1 (woohoo!) We also had our holiday...

It's amazing how much more I am enjoying the holidays now that those darn gifts are wrapped, and the Christmas cards are sent! I took this past Friday off and enjoyed a leisurely day, where I was still productive, but wasn’t crushed under holidays to-do lists. Amazing! G had his Christmas concert on Tuesday. All of the kids, from the toddlers up to the pre-schoolers, gathered on stage, and sang four different songs. We could recognize the songs, for the most part, and the kids had a blast performing for us. Ava even had a friend to hang out with while we were there (Ava is in a class at school with a girl who has a little sister in G’s class. I get the feeling we’ll see that family at many events in the future!) Walking down the aisle, heading up to the stage Jingle Bells! Proud Grandma Looking good in G's reindeer hat!    During “Here Comes Santa Claus”, guess who walked down the aisle and caused general disruption of the concert? If ...

We’re making progress on our holiday to-do lists. This past Friday I mailed out all of our Christmas cards, and spent 4.5 hours wrapping gifts. Ugh! I had the day off of work, so it was best just to power through and get it all done while I was the only one at home. There has already been much rearranging of the presents under the tree as the kids are taking stock of all of the gifts. And I have just two gifts left to buy...easy peasy! I braved the lines at the post office yesterday to mail out the gifts to our family member who aren’t local to us. No peeking until December 25! And yesterday afternoon, Grandma Karen came over to help us make all of our Christmas goodies for the season. We now have frosted sugar cookies, fudge, Kris Kringle red and green cookies to snack on, and today, we’ll be making more dipped pretzels.  Ava, G, and Grandma Karen managed the sugar cookie portion, while I focused on making the fudge (I managed to drop the candy thermometer in the fudge mixt...

We were busy this week with Ava’s performances (and work and daycare...but the shows were the most fun!) The fourth grade class at Ava’s elementary school had their annual performance on Thursday night. The theme was “Get in the Game” and it was all about trying different sports and having fun being active. She had volunteered for a speaking part, so we had been practicing for a few weeks. No concerns, she nailed it! I wasn’t able to get the full video of her part, but during the bowling song, she went up to the mic and said, “Strikes, spares and turkeys just get me all confused!” I've added an arrow so you find her on stage! Grandma Karen and Grandpa Doug joined us so she had a nice cheering section. Now that G is older, it’s a little easier to have him at these shows. He was super flirty with the family behind us...and in fact the mom informed me that he has the best smile and she’d like to take him home! G also spotted one of his daycare friends in the audi...