Completed portrait
Original photo
Tuesday morning I had Kate to myself for a long time because everyone else slept. She and I had breakfast and then went outside to watch the sunrise.
The others started stirring around 8:00 am and Kate, Ava, and I began working on Christmas cookies while listening to Christmas music.
Making cookies with Kate was really fun! She mostly wanted to be held (by me alone), but was okay to sit on the counter some too.
That would be butter down her shirt.
(She played with it too, though not down her shirt. That was mostly for the picture.)
Mia helped a little too and Gabe...was around.
A rare moment when I could scoop cookie dough with two hands.
Cream cheese cookies ready to bake.
Kate played in the living room some.
The Christmas music coming through the Bose was intriguing.
This was four batches later...
Then we moved on to Butterfingers.
Of course we had to take a break to feed Kate and she went down for a nap a little while later. At that point everything was ready to be cleaned up and put away. I think the three of us probably made around 300 cookies in a little under four hours. By that time I was baked out.
Kate took a great nap! I was so excited! Then she ate her lunch and some of mine. I think she grew, she seemed heavier to me this week. And she is communicating so well! Not talking, but she has her own words and she understands a lot of my questions, like about food, and napping, and blocks, etc. She even, in her own way, asked for a second nap in the afternoon!
Mom was pretty tired and so stayed in bed a good portion of the morning and early afternoon. Dad had a few meetings.
After lunch all the kids (and one adult, and Kate) cleaned the downstairs and prepared everything for small group that night. Then we had rest time.
Kate didn't actually sleep for her second nap (I don't think), but she was very pleasant for a long time in bed. Then I got her up to play in my room.
Kate took her first steps for me! I texted her mom right away really excited but hoping it wasn't really her first time since that would mean that she'd missed it, but that was her first time! I got Mom to see if we could get Kate to do it again and video it, but she was done. (And hungry.)
So I fed her and everyone came to play with her until she had to leave and I had to get myself ready for group.
Baby Tips:
-If you have to climb on the counter to get something out of the cabinet, put the baby down.
-If you are going to let your baby crawl around in the kitchen, make sure there is nothing on the floor that you would be upset or worried if they ate.
Despite the fact that it is dark the entire time, the kids all still play outside, and barely stop even to eat. They wouldn't miss the food, though, because they are mostly little boys and the food is always very yummy.
After dinner some of us went next door to carol for Nana and Grandfather. Someone had suggested we go around our neighborhood, but the driveways are a little too long and we have a lot of kids...
Our time of sharing was very sweet. Mom and Dad started it by asking everyone if they are a maximizer or a satisficer decision maker.
A maximizer typically likes to research things a lot, look at something from every angle, weigh all the pros and cons, and make the very best decision.
A satisficer usually looks to make a decision relatively quickly, finding the first thing that meets most of the necessary criteria and going with that.
For our group, all the men are maximizers or lean more towards that than they do towards being a satisficer and most of the ladies possess more satisficer qualities.
I couldn't deicide which one I was, because for some things (like eating at Babe's, or going to Maui, or taking any opportunity to care for a baby, etc) I can quickly decide 'yes.' But for other things (like buying a car, or moving to Hawaii to be a nanny, or where I should eat breakfast on my birthday, etc) I take a long time to decide. Since I was looking at all the options and trying to make the "right" decision I concluded that I must be a maximizer.
Once everyone had shared their thoughts on that fun topic, we moved on to sharing praises and prayer requests. Several in the group were in physical pain and at the end we all gathered around to pray over each other, first for physical things and then moving to the other requests.
We didn't finish until almost 10:00 pm, but it was so incredibly special. I know, I probably sound like a broken record, I feel like I say the same thing after every small group, but it's true!
Wednesday morning Ava and I were to go babysit for Nana's Bible study, but Ava wasn't feeling great, so Gabe went with me. We ended up just having two little girls and two babies, so Gabe was a bit bored. I enjoyed a more restful babysitting job and of course the time with the babies.
We got home in time to have lunch and then I left for the afternoon to go finish my Christmas shopping.
I learned from three very reliable sources that being an adult has benefits like, if I want a cookie, I can have a cookie. Aside from that, being an adult is hard and I don't even know half of it I'm sure.
That night we all watched "Christmas Hope." It was really good, but kind of sad...
Thursday morning Mom and Grandfather took us to go ice shake skate at the Galleria in Dallas. There was almost no one there for a majority of the hour and a half or so that our ankles held out. Around noon a couple school groups arrived, though, so it filled up fast.
Last year Mia found ice skating very difficult. She stayed on the side by herself and didn't want any help. Every time I asked if she was having fun she said "no" but she didn't want to get off, she wanted to "conquer" it. This year, by the end, she was out in the middle and the whole time she had a blast.
Gabe was very adventurous and was in the middle the moment his skates hit the ice. He fell pretty much every time I turned around, though.
Christian, Ava, and I are the confident skaters in our family. Chloe admittedly has balance issues, but still enjoys it.
I'd forgotten what good exercise ice skating is!
Mom and Grandfather drank coffee and watched us. Then we got lunch at "Five Guys." There was no Chick-fil-a.
At home everyone had rest time and Mom and I looked at my high school transcript. As we'd suspected, I have all but two of the credits I need to graduate in May! Then we looked at Chloe's. There was a possibility she might graduate when I do, but she still needs too many credits, more than is realistic to expect that she would complete in the next few months. *Sad face*
Dad enjoyed having a quiet house during the time that we were gone and had left for a meeting before we got back. We were all home for dinner.
Chloe and the littles watched "Frozen" after dinner and the rest of us watched "Valkyrie."
Friday morning Dad got to take Chloe and me to see the little house in Ponder that Mom and Dad are purchasing as a family project for all of us to fix up and rent. I love it! I think it's absolutely adorable and it'll be fun to work on it and make it even more cute.
It was a pretty quiet day aside from that.
I had to purchase running shoes the day before so I can learn to play soccer in January (our new friend from church is planning to teach us). They had to be broken in at some point so I decided to go pretend I can run.
It was nice and sunny and I did run plenty so I wasn't cold. It was a good workout too. I wish I really was a runner. I don't think I hurt myself this time, so hopefully I can do it again.
The littles did a 75 item challenge (went through all their stuff to see how many things they could get rid of) in the afternoon to earn hot chocolate and a cookie.
During dinner we watched a house show, "Flip and Move," and then after clean-up we got hot chocolate and cookies and watched "Here Comes the Boom." Boxing, hmm, not my thing. The movie was pretty funny though.
Saturday was Christmas celebration number one with Nana and Grandfather at their house. We about drove the littles crazy by sitting down to visit before exchanging gifts. They really did wait very patiently although they were visibly vibrating.
We took turns opening gifts, going from youngest to oldest, one gift at a time.
These are some very excited kiddos.
Ava with her new origami paper.
Amelia and her new "Amelia Bedelia" book.
Mom with her "old person socks."
(They have sticky stuff on the bottom so you don't slip.)
Enjoying their gifts.
Nana had made us all lunch and after that we went back home to rest and get ready for church.
I don't typically love it when the sun is setting everyday at 5:30, but the plus side to that right now is that our drives to church are filled with stunning sunset displays.
We got there plenty early so that Chloe and I could be a part of the secret santa gift exchange with the other teen girls in our church. (There are about seven.) We also had a little time of sharing and prayer before the service started.
This was our church's Christmas service as next week will be the day after Christmas and many will be out of town. Afterwards there were cookies and other desserts to enjoy while people visited.
We hadn't necessarily been planning to go eat at Rosa's, but we were soon convinced otherwise and very much enjoyed additional fellowship and getting to know some visitors better.
Sunday after brunch Mom headed out for a girls' overnight with three other ladies in our church.
Dad, Chloe, Christian, and Gabe left soon after Mom did to brave Costco and Walmart as some needed to finish Christmas shopping and we were in need of something kind of important, namely- food for the next ten days or so... They were gone for almost three hours.
Ava and Mia enjoyed playing together and we all three had rest time.
When the others returned we did round two of Christmas cookie baking. My estimate would be about 400-500 cookies in 4 ish hours, including more cream cheese cookies and butterfingers, as well as pecan sandies, chocolate covered pretzels, and oatmeal craisin white chocolate chip and chocolate chip cookies (all four of those things in one cookie).
Here is a blurry picture of some of them.
That Moment When...
You still have to climb on the counter to get stuff out of the cabinet.
Mia asks Mom if girls can be boxers.
The Herd: Quoted
"If you help us with the item challenge you can have hot chocolate and a cookie." -Gabe
"Not this time...I can have those things anyways." -Me
"What? Why?" -Gabe
"Because I'm an adult and I take care of my things so I don't have anything I need to get rid of." -Me
"Ahh, I broke my arm." -Gabe not very dramatically.
"Move it." -Mia
"No, I broke it." -Gabe with minimal moaning.
"Gabe, it's not deformed or anything. It's not broken." -Ava
"Mom gets a gift? Did she buy it for herself?" -Me
"Yes." -Mom
"Oh I'd forgotten about these!" -Mom opening another gift she'd picked out for herself.
"I want to see! It's for all of us-es." -Mia
"Just making sure that was all." -Gabe checking a gift bag.
