New Year

This week felt like a very busy week for a break, mostly because I was trying to keep the kids entertained. Monday we used Grams and Poppy Brady's Christmas gift- a year long membership to Chuck E Cheese. They can go any day and have a hundred play points to share. It's not a ton of points when divided amongst the 4 (Steven has no interest in going) but it's enough to get out and kill some time. Tyler came with us which was good because it was snowing and the roads weren't great. I'm glad I didn't have to drive. All the kids seemed to have a good time. There was a 3 person game where they could play together to defeat a spider boss which they loved. Ruby actually spread her time pretty well between "rides" (like the police car) and games where she could press a button or throw a ball. 

Tuesday Asher was supposed to come over but he got sick so they canceled. That was a bummer but also a relief because I really needed to clean the house. With Tyler home, I was able to get it cleaned pretty quickly. Then I went and dropped off birthday gifts for Caroline and Melissa. Neither one seemed interested in a get together for their birthday this year and that was ok with me. Caroline and I chatted for a long while and I got caught up in all the things going on in her life. Melissa was a quick chat because she was sick and I wasn't super interested in getting her germs. 

Tuesday Ben had Andrea over until dinnertime and Lucy had Jenna over for a sleepover. Those are easy friends to have over, they get along well with my kids and are pretty polite to me. The house was louder but everyone was entertained and happy.

I had to go to a primary mtg in the evening and it was long- we got sidetracked chatting about our lives. They are such a variety of personalities in that presidency. The new secretary told me that primary should be less noisy because my child wouldn't be in it anymore. Ha. Penny could definitely be an offender but she was not the only one. I was annoyed by her comment. We did have a big discussion on behavior though and I now get to be in charge of improving it... I'm going to start by going over rules in the beginning,  we're finally going to have teachers sit with their class, and I will have a jar where we collect jewels for good behavior. We'll see if it helps. We have 3 new sunbeams coming in so Sunday is probably going to be rough no matter what. 

Ruby did not sleep well Tuesday night. She woke up gagging on nasal drip and then was very awake and couldn't sleep. Luckily her cries didn't wake up Jenna. I went down to get Ruby some water and Jenna was snoring very loudly. Lucy came up to me and asked if it would be rude if she slept in the guest room because the snoring was keeping her up. I understand that pain. 

Wednesday we did another run to Chuck e after Ruby's nap. This time I was driving and the roads were crappy. I didn't love that. After chuck e we had dinner and then did our New Years Eve tradition of taste tasting weird sodas and trying to guess their flavor. Once again there were not many loved flavors. I also forgot to refrigerate them so they were only as cold as the basement kept them so that probably didn't help with the taste. The flavors I had this year were: Doughnut, Dirt, Peaches and Cream, Banana Nut, Blue Cream Soda, and Vomit. To me the best was probably the peaches and the blue one. The worst was the dirt soda, it really tasted like what I would imagine Dirt to taste like.

After tasting soda we gathered all the quarters in our house and played left, right, center (everyone but Steven). It was our kids first taste of gambling, lol, and they didn't love it. Penny ended up winning all the quarters and then Ben and Lucy asked for theirs back. I don't think they understand how gambling works. 

After I put Ruby to bed, Lucy, Ben and I watched the Stranger Things finale (Steven is too cool for us and Penny watched another less scary movie in our room). Everyone got a Stanger things snack tray- Eggos, ice cream and Doritos. Not totally cute and authentic but all food seen on the show. The finale was about an hour of action and excitement and then an hour of wrapping up everyone's characters. There definitely should've been more excitement but it wasn't the worst ending. 

After the finale I went up to my room and fell asleep about 5 minutes before midnight. I blame Ruby for disrupting my sleep pretty much every night this week.

Thursday morning I had to get a few things from Walmart and it was nice and empty thanks to being New Years Day. Then I made a cake from scratch, something I rarely do but wanted to try again. It was a very particular recipe but I think all the details helped make it a great cake. That afternoon Geli and Luna came over for a sleepover. AJ also came over to hang out with Ben. Our house was very loud. We ended up getting pizza because I didn't feel like cooking for 3 extra people. We were going to get pizza at Costco and realized, just after leaving the house, that they are one of the few stores to close on new years. Failed outing. Anyways after eating little Caesars instead, the girls had a good time playing games with their friends and watching TV and even did a face mask. Don't Penny and Luna look great!? 

Friday, after Geli and Luna left, I took Lucy to Chuck E Cheese to meet her friend Mila. They were there for 2 hours so Mila's mom and I got to exchange our life stories. I learned that her family is very healthy eaters and would probably not approve of my family's diet. We are different in many ways but that made for an interesting conversation I suppose. Honestly though, I was a bit exhausted from all the noise and socializing when we left. 

Friday afternoon Mimi came over because we were having another date night at Grace's house with mimi's parents. I frosted the cake I had made the day forever because we were doing a little surprise birthday celebration for mimi's mom. The cake turned out pretty dang good and I feel proud of it. I also think we helped Nahoko feel special and I'm proud of that. The night itself was loads of fun. We played a game called Dixit and it was one I was actually fairly good at. I think my kids would like it too so I'm probably going to buy it. We also played one of Ben's games, Liar Liar. I am not good at that game because I cannot tell when people are lying to me, but I did learn some interesting things about everyone. 

Saturday the girls went over to the Mays to play DND. They seemed to have a have a good time. While they were there, I took Ruby to the library to get her out of the house. She had some good learning how to share experiences and actually was a good listener and didn't throw a fit when I asked her to share. It was nice. At lunchtime Ben had a soccer game. I didn't go but I was told he got creamed. Bit of a bummer. 

Saturday afternoon Tyler and I celebrated our anniversary by going to eat and doing a little shopping. We ate at our favorite burger place, The Filling Station. And we shopped at the great lakes crossing mall which was insanely busy so not a super fun place to be. But Tyler did but me a winter hat and some warm socks for our Italy trip so that was nice. After the mall, we dropped by sonic for milkshakes. It was a nice celebration but the true celebration will be next month when we go to Italy!!

Christmas

Our Christmas Sunday was nice. I like it when sacrament is mostly singing. The final musical number, a rendition of I Heard the Bells, was a big one- there was the adult choir, the primary choir, chimes by the ym and yw and a soloist.  I was anxious that it wasn't going to turn out well with so much going on but it ended up turning out really well. After sacrament I had a nice chat with Caroline- for once she was upbeat and it was refreshing. While I was chatting, Lucy took Ruby to the bathroom with her and had the joy of Ruby saying to her very loudly: "Lucy poo poo" "Lucy wipey wipey". Toddlers can be embarrassing. 

Monday was everyone's first day of break. I had thought about doing something fun but all my ideas required doing things outside and it was much too cold for that. Instead, I decided to just take Ruby and Penny to the library. Super exciting. 

Tuesday I made the crescent rolls for Christmas dinner and failed as per usual. They turned out very flat and were not delicious. I stink at making bread. I also ran to Hobby lobby to get a couple puzzles for the break. I've decided at this time of my life 500 piece puzzles are more my jam because I just don't have the space for bigger puzzles to sit out for days. Unfortunately I gave away all my smaller puzzles when I was on a big puzzle kick and only had 1000 piece puzzles so I had to go but a couple new ones. 

Tuesday night we decorated cookies for Santa. Tyler kept telling them that Santa likes red hots on his cookies so there are quite a few cookies covered with red hots.

Wednesday was Christmas Eve. Tyler and I spent the day making our fancy dinner of turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, mac n cheese,  banana pie and Christmas punch. It was nice not having anyone coming so I didn't have to worry if things didn't come out right or if timing was off. But also we had way too much food. Tyler got one of his Christmas presents early- a blue tooth cooking thermometer- and it was a hit. It made it so much easier for him to monitor the temperature. 

After we had feasted and the food had settled, we had pie and then opened up our Christmas pj's. This year we all had shirts with quotes from the TV show "psych" since the kids had binge watched it this year and loved it. Ben's was the most rude,  it said "suck it". Dad's was the most fitting, it said "c'mon son". Steven hadn't actually watched the show so he was confused by his, lol.  And all the psych shirts for toddlers were mucho expensive so I decided against buying her one and just got her footie jammies that matched our pants. 

Then the kids opened their gifts from each other. Ben was the most excited by his gift from Lucy, it was a gorilla that you can throw and punch. He had wanted one since last Christmas when someone stole it from him at a white elephant party. Ben got Lucy a really cool themed gift of Mike and Ike candy and socks. Steven got a Mentos watermelon car air freshener from Penny and it had a very strong fruity smell. Penny got a pink blanket and barbie socks from Ruby (she picked them out with a bit of help from me). Steven got Ruby a stick pony and she loved it!

When we were done opening sibling gifts we loaded up in the car to go see neighborhood lights. We ended up in a neighborhood across the street from us and it was actually a really good one. Lots of homes were decorated and the kids were able to get most of the things crossed off their Christmas light scavenger hunts. We ended our drive at a house in our neighborhood that has a light show with music you can tune into on the radio. It turns out one of Tyler's co workers lives there, he found that out earlier this month. 

That night the kids watched "Christmas Story" while I put out presents and filled up stocking. I went to bed fairly early, I was pooped.

Christmas Day Ruby was up at 7:30 so we all got up with her to go see our gifts. The kids had various little things in their stocking and Ruby got a baby doll. She didn't get super excited but she did seem to really enjoy opening gifts. She's become a pro.

Ruby got princess dresses (and is constantly having wardrobe changes), fake make up (she loves applying the lip gloss and doing her siblings make up), a fake cup cake kit, fisher price Moana, and her baby doll.

Lucy got a wicked lego set, a dr p shirt,  a teen cookbook, a burrito blanket, a snoopy doll and socks, a necklace, a volleyball desk buddy and fake nails. 

Penny got a new comforter and sheets, a necklace, a soccer desk buddy,  an angel lego set and fake nails. 

Ben got a sweatshirt with a quote from the TV show psych,  a soccer desk buddy, Mario socks, stranger things brickheadz, and a Zelda game.

Steven got a minecraft lego set, a computer microphone, Mario socks and cereal. 

Dad got the Harry Potter train lego set, a grilling kit, a blue tooth cooking thermometer, a minecraft cookbook and some mini fruity syrups. 

I got a sweater, an anti theft bag for Italy, a puzzle and new balance shoes (which weren't in time for Christmas, but came a couple days late.

After present opening, I made a cinnamon roll casserole and bacon. It went over pretty well, but the casserole was a little soggy on the bottom. Then I cleaned up all the wrapping and boxes and then went back to sleep because everyone was busy with their toys. The rest of the day was full of lego making, and rotting our brains with movies and stranger things. 

For dinner we had our traditional Bethlehem meal. The only problem was I bought our pita bread too early and it molded so I had to make some pita bread. It turned alright but I'd rather just buy it. 

Friday the kids finished the massive lego set that Tyler's parents had gifted us for Christmas- the Weasley house. There was some frustration from Tyler because the kids had alternated bags and Penny wasn't always the best at following directions so he had to fix some things she did.  But overall I think it was a great gift, they loved putting it together and it's a great addition to all our Harry Potter sets.

Also Friday I took down all of Christmas because I'm Scrooge- but really I just can't handle all the clutter. It felt good to have our house back. I did also go to a couple stores too looking for Christmas clearance deals (sweaters, books, crafts) but I only found a couple things, not much luck. Tyler was nice and drove me to the store because we had freezing rain all day and the roads were slippery. 

Saturday Grace and I went to Ann Arbor to go thrift shopping. We went to a new store called Kiwanis first. It was huge and I found a couple great sweaters and some good books for Ruby. But it was also a bit more peopley than I like.  After we shopped there we got some food at Dos Hermanos. Grace was nice and bought my food. It ended up being delicious, I wish it was a little closer to home. We ended up chatting for a long time about Legos, we are both obsessed nerds. After eating, we went to a nearby Salvation Army. I found some shirts for the girls there. Then we headed home. I really love thrift shopping and it was fun to hang with Grace. She's a good friend. 

That evening Ben had a soccer game. I didn't go, but  apparently Tyler confronted the dad who is always yelling loudly at Ben's team. Dad kept his cool but did not seem to get through to this man. He thinks his mean and unhelpful yelling is beneficial. It is not. 

When Ben came back from the game,  Ben, Lucy and me stayed up until 1am watching the latest batch of stranger things. That was way too late for me but now we're all caught up (we rewatched all the seasons for Lucy) and no one can spoil anything for us. 

And in light of stranger things I made these amazing stranger things pics of all of us in chat got. Only one I couldn't get was of Tyler because for some reason it was totally changing his face in the pics I gave it, even though I said keep his facial features.