Christmas

I gotta say, I love Christmas on a Sunday, especially with 8:30 church. We got up (some earlier than others, ahem), did stockings, ate breakfast, then got ready for church. Sacrament meeting was 50 minutes then we were back home and into pajamas and ready to open presents. It really stretched out the day, especially compared to last year when we were done opening presents by 8:00 a.m. (no lie).

We lazed around the house playing with presents. Some of us napped because some of us were up until 1 a.m. And then Chuck's brother and family joined us for an easy Feliz Navidad. I love easy Christmas dinner.

Gift highlights for Rhett: German nutcracker, camera, Guinness Book of World Records (he seriously loves this book), new Harry Potter book.

Gift highlights for Ollie: stuffed Piggie and Gerald, spooner board, magformers, pinpoint impression thing (he seriously loves this toy--I think it was the last thing I added at Target).

Gift highlights for the adults: trampoline for the boys. Seriously. They spent so much time out there. I know I'm going to love it. Unfortunately it has yet to result in sleeping in, no matter how worn out they get on it. But still. I even showed them a few things! That is, before I started peeing my pants from all the jumping.





Oh. They kept telling me how cold their faces were. So I made them some balaclavas.

December

This was a hard month. I really want to blame it all on the boys' school schedule. With them not getting home until nearly 5, and with a 7:15 p.m. bedtime, it didn't leave much time for family Christmas activities. We were realistic and cut out a lot of stuff we normally would have done, but that didn't mean I didn't feel guilty about cutting them or that the boys didn't continually ask why we weren't doing things.

We did do some things: temple lights trip, cookie decorating, sleeping under the tree, cutting snowflakes, blah blah blah. But it was hard.





This restored Rhett's faith in magic. All because of the physics-defying balanced pancake.

Random Thoughts

Two years ago I bought a heated mattress pad for our bed. At the time, we had a down comforter. The two together totally made me sweat at night, so I would use the mattress pad to preheat my side of the bed and then I'd turn it off when I got in. Perfect. But this year, I bought a new quilt for the bed. (I'm so over duvet covers.) And guess what? I am learning just how much heat the down comforter captured. Because now I have to keep that mattress pad going all night long...on a THREE. It should be noted Chuck turns his side up to a six or seven.

I know how late I am to this, but that's just like me. Anyway, I've been listening to Hamilton pretty much non-stop for the past six weeks. When everyone is home, I keep Christmas music on, but otherwise, it's this. And if I have to admit it, sometimes I even listen to Hamilton when the little boys are home. Rhett likes to follow the story. Maybe I'll make him read the biography.

I find Christmas gifts as an adult really hard. Whatever I don't want to buy (new dishwasher, updated closet doors), I have to do it. Which leaves very little for things I actually want. If I knew what I wanted, that is.

Ollie. Sigh. In the interest of not oversharing Ollie's troubles, I won't. But just know that we are REALLY struggling with this boy. And I mean really.