First Busy Holiday Weekend

It's December and the Christmas festivities have begun. Yesterday we got a 5 am phone call from the school district to let us know that school was going to be starting late because of snow. Not nice of them to call us soooo early to tell us. Katharine and Peter weren't great either, we've had a few rough nights, so my lack of sleep is catching up to me. Peter had scary dreams almost every night. Yesterday morning his little frown just melted my heart, poor kid. I took a little video of him to capture a little of what he thinks about this challenging stage of  his toddler life. I don't know what to do about his nightmares other than pray that they won't happen. We pray with him that he will have nice dreams. This article caught my eye last month - maybe I'll get a recording of some C69 chords to play all night for him. 

We were going to have an early date night, so that we could go to bed early to try and recover, but we only made the usual bed time. Date night didn't start that early cause Corey was out being festive and taking Abi and Lily to Christkindlmarkt after they had a GMS holiday rehearsal. 

I had a recital with Sophi and Natalie too - apparently holiday concerts are coming up. Corey and I went out to Blue Lemon and then went to the Sandy Momentum real quick for a few climbs. It's fun, we're learning. 

Today the kids finished putting up the new white tree that I bought on Monday. They do a pretty good job. 

I paid bills, school fees and lunches (all the kids were like $-50 in the hole). We registered Sophi to go to Churchill, so I guess we're still going to do that. I have been hating it for the past year, but climbing at Momentum seems to have cured me. 

Corey is talking about FSY camps for the kids next summer. We decided that Wes and Abi had more than their fair share this past summer, so we only registered Lily, but he is having Abi and Lily both do Summerfest. My BeReal for this morning - after washing my hair and ready to do dishes. 

Abi and Lily had a GMS Studio recital tonight, Corey took them to that, I took little kids out to Corey, they stayed at his parents house during the recital, then I took Sophi and Natalie to the dollar tree tonight to do some gift buying. Natalie wanted to cash in the $18 bucks she earned from me for cleaning back in July (when all my other helpers were gone on the rafting trip.) The kids drew names for Christmas, but Natalie still wanted to get EVERYONE a gift. So off we went, and they bought a lot of junk. Three ninja swords for her little brothers and I don't remember what else. 

I got some stuff too (cookie platters) for the cookie exchange next week. Have I mentioned that? I had an idea on Wednesday, when I was feeling brave and on top of things, I thought it might be fun to invite people over, something with our neighborhood - to give us a chance to socialize in these cold months of hibernation. I didn't think our house could hold the whole neighborhood (if we even had a big turnout...) So I invited the new neighbors (been here for just over a year) across the street to host it with us, if they were interested? She said yes and she made such cute invites so it will be fun! It's next Saturday at 6pm. I have since learned that we have a few conflicts - a hockey game in Park City for Wes, a GMS concert thing for Abi, and a basketball game for Sophi, so I'm not sure how we'll pull it off, but I scheduled this first and we're committed, so we'll see. Natalie wrapping swords. 

Katharine helped her, haha. Oh yeah, that's something else that we bought - Santa hats.

She's a little Christmas elf.

I also got a few more winter hats and kid gloves. 

She's not used to having stuff on her head. 

She's so cute. 

She's been practicing planks!

Oh no, she's working on her core muscles! She's going to be crawling before we know it. Part of me wishes they wouldn't grow up so fast, but it's also so fun to see them trying and learning new things. After Natalie did a quick wrapping job, we went out to join Corey and the little boys at Momentum.

We're doing pretty good at making sure we're getting our money's worth. It's pricey, but Corey says if it keeps the kids busy doing good things and helps them be strong and have fun, and the benefits of the mental health lessons of "I conquered my problem!" (33:50) that it gives us all, well that's all worth it!

Owen up realllly high! "MOM! Take a picture!"

You're up so high, the camera can hardly see you!

Katharine was good for her cousins - they put her to sleep while we were climbing. Beautiful Katharine - 

Beautiful Katharine - 

Ok, well yeah, it's been a crazy busy weekend, but I guess that's good to have a warm up before the December festivities really kick into gear. Concerts and parties are on their way, fun fun.