Christmas and 8 Weeks Visits

As per usual the kids are not allowed to wake us up until 7am but they were definitely up and about around 6. Once Tyler and I came out at 7 we made them take pictures at the top of the stairs and then released them to the presents.

The presents were torn through quickly and all was done in a matter of minutes. It's crazy all the work and planning and build up and how short lived the actual event is. Below is Penny with her gifts: a locker for her dolls, a glamper Lego set, a Pop-It backpack, a bracelet maker, beanie boos, a squishmallow, and a fashion design book. She said her favorite gift was the bracelet maker, although she wore the Pop-It backpack pretty non stop for days after Christmas.

Below is Lucy with her gifts. She got a Taco Truck Lego Set, a travel set for her dolls, Beanie Boos, a squishmallow, a Unicorn Painting Craft, cat headphones and a Pop-It Backpack. Her favorite gift was the travel set for her dolls. 

Below is Ben with his gifts: Pokemon cards, Harry Potter Lego chess set, Stranger Things books and Mad Libs, and Happy Little Dinos Game. His favorite gift was his HP Lego Chess Set. His dad wants to glue it together so he doesn't lose pieces. Since Christmas you can often find Ben versing himself in the games he got for Christmas.

Below is Steven with his gifts: a Samsung Galaxy Watch, a fidget magnetic pen, Harry Potter Brickheadz and lots of soda. His favorite gift was his watch, he's been wanting it forever. That first day he could not stop messing with it and drained the battery so fast. 

Below is Tyler with his gifts: a Nerf Gun, 2 Harry Potter Lego Sets, and he got Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the illustrated version. His favorite gift was the Nerf gun and he enjoyed shooting his kids with it all day. He also got this puzzle cube from Mariah that him and the kids have enjoyed making shapes out of. 

Below is me with my gifts: Lego Orchids, pour paint and a hair blow dryer (to use on the pour paint). I also got a cool puzzle from Jezerea. Ben helped me work on it this week and it was a lot of fun- it had different pieces that at the end you were showed how to rearrange and then given more pieces for the middle. Sounds more confusing then it was. 

Other gifts...all the kids got new towels and drinking mugs. My parents got the kids a shaved ice maker. It makes the ice so thin- like Bahama Bucks- and the first flavor we tried out "Tiger Blood" was sooooo good. I mean it's basically water and sugar so what's not to like? I think it will got good use from us. Tyler's parents got the kids a giftcard to MJR and then another kid's kayak. Now we all have a kayak...except for this new baby that's coming. I also got the kids the game Hookey. It basically has numbered hooks and you try to ring the hooks and get the most pooints. It's been a lot of fun to compete with each other. I am hoping it is something they can play with their friends too.

After all the gifts were opened, the kids got to play with them while I attempted to tidy up some of the disaster. Then I went and got ready for church and then it was time to get all the kids ready for church. Once again I had to force them to take pictures but this time Tyler stood by with his Nerf gun as a threat to all those who wouldn't cooperate. That threat actually worked really well.

Our church service was only an hour long and it was really nice. Some really good musical numbers and short Christmas themed talks. I wish we had more musical numbers in sacrament in general, they're nice.

After church there was lots of Lego building by the kids- Steven even made my Lego flowers for me. And the kids generally just enjoyed their new gifts. They also enjoyed chatting with both grandparents and showing off all their new things. Tyler enjoyed building his Legos as well and threatening the kids with his new Nerf gun. For dinner we did our usual Bethlehem meal- fish sticks, fig newtons, grapes, pita bread, hummus and grape juice. I love what a simple meal it is and it was made even easier with our double oven- I could cook the fish sticks and the pita bread chips at the same time. This holiday season was the first that I could to truly utilize my double oven and it's been great.

After dinner we went to the Bloomfield's house just to hang out and have treats, the Eakins were there as well. It was a low key night and felt good to get out. Melissa gave Jason cornrows on his hair (he's got long hair). It was pretty funny and everyone worked hard on giving him a thug name- in the end it was Lil' Jay Swag. 

The rest of the week was so chill. It's been a couple years since we have had a Winter Break here in Michigan and we have had absolutely no plans. It's been nice. Especially since I am pregnant and queasy and low energy. I worked on my new puzzle, have been reading "The Shining" and binge watching "Emily in Paris" (lots of drama and not appropriate, have to fast forward often) and I have been taking lots of naps. The kids have been playing with their new things, driving eachother crazy and having more screen time than ususal. Couldn't ask for a better break :)

Also this week I have had a lot of pregnancy related appointments. I had my televist with the nurse practioner and she was really nice and answered some questions I had. Then I had my first ultrasound. I was super anxious and my bladder was super full and uncomfortable but the ultrasound tech was really nice about it and having Tyler there was really comforting. Baby's growth is good- was measuring 8 weeks and 4 days (which was a few days ahead of schedule) and the heartbeat was 167 which is good. She commented that the baby looked like a Gummy Bear and I couldn't deny it. My baby did look like a little gummy bear up on that screen. It was really comforting to have everything go good but I do still feel some anxiety. I think it will take getting through that first trimester for me to truly embrace this pregnancy.

I also had another visit to the obgyn for some excess discharge (gross I know). Not sure if it was a yeast infection or something else. Apparently the test came back negative so it might just be one of those fun pregnancy things. Boo. I met with a midwife for this appointment because that's just who they had and I liked her. She was really sensistive to the fact that my previous pregnancy had been a miscarriage and she told me she had 5 kids and we talked a bit about teenagers. So far everyone I have met at this practice have been great, I hope I like my actual doctor too. After that fun visit I went and got my lab work done, blood drawn. After he drew my blood the guy wrapped the gauze around my arm so tight that I thought I was going to lose circulation. Then when I tried to take it off I could not find the end of it. So fun.

The only other real thing I did this week was celebrate Melissa's birthday. She was getting an ear piercing for her birthday (it's supposed to help with anxiety and migraines) and she had asked Grace and I to go with her. We were her moral support although neither of us are the hand holding type. We just stood outside the door and said encouraging things, lol. It was a quick piercing though and then we were out. 

Afterwards, Melissa, oh sweet Melissa, requested the mall food court for her birthday dinner. I ended up with an amazing smoothie and then got a sandwich, my only issue was the sandwich place was soooooo slow and I ended up waiting for at least 15 minutes (there was only one person in front of me). Anyways we sat and ate and chatted. It was a heavy conversation. Grace basically wants to leave the church but is staying for her husband. Melissa talked about some trauma she had growing up. And I am so vanilla I had nothing to contribute but I listened. I did suggest Grace at least read "The Case for Christ". She basically told us she doesn't believe in Christ or God or anything. I think this book has some pretty solid evidence that Jesus was real and did do the things the Bible says. I dunno if she'll read it but I hope if anything she can at least gain a testimony of Christ someday.

Anywho that was my week and here is a pic of my Lego set, our shaved ice, a painting I did this week and my complete puzzle: 

Graham Cracker Houses and Christmas Eve

 On Sunday we held our annual Graham Cracker House Party with our neighbors (old and current). It's really the only party that we genuinely host each year. We started off with the kids decorating graham cracker houses and this year Tyler worked hard and made trophies for the top 3 houses.

He put in a lot of work on those trophies and not one of our kids won one- I think he was disappointed that none were staying with us. We let everyone vote for their 3 favorite and Eva won first, Beck won second and Jenna won third. 

I think we need to find a more refined voting system because everyone just picked similar pretty houses and I think there were more creative ones that didn't get the credit they deserved. But anyways here are my kids (and Jacob) with their houses. 

When the decorating was over, the kids all played the saran wrap ball game. I wasn't going to do it this year because it was so intense last year but my kids were all requesting it so I gave in. I don't think it was quite as intense as last year. My kids (Penny and Steven) ended up with the big money prizes inside which was sort of lame ($10 bills). I would rather other kids benefited from it. 

After the saran wrap ball game, they played "Don't Eat Pete" and then they ran around outside in the freezing cold. Meanwhile us adults socialized and munched on candy. It seemed to be another succesful party.

The rest of the week was fairly uneventful until the weekend. We didn't have seminary this week so that was nice but we still had to take Steven to school, his last day was Thursday. Tyler was nice and did 3 out of the 4 mornings, he has been very helpful. He's even helped with making dinners some because raw meat has been making me nauseous. 

The younger kids didn't have in person class this week but they still had work to do. They spent the mornings doing their classwork. Penny doesn't have as much so she started on work from the other at home weeks (there will be 2 more). I might have to come up with some extra stuff for her for when we actually have those weeks.

The girls also had their friends Angelica and Luna over twice this week. I am not sure about Luna and Penny as friends. They had a lot of drama and I am not sure if Penny is the dramatic one or if they just don't mesh so well or if this is just what girls are like....but Penny insists that she loves Luna and wants her over all the time so here we are.

The girls also got to go to Sharon's house (the neighbor) and learn how to make cream puffs. I am glad she invited them over. It was nice for them to get out of the house and I know she enjoys the company.

Friday the weather plunged and it was so cold (real feel was -15) with a dusting of snow. I did not leave the house at all that day. I made Tyler run some last minute errands, although I think he was happy to get out of the house. He doesn't mind the cold like I do. That night we made cookies for Santa, Jacob joined us. The kids had some fun candy addition- eyes, bows, carrot noses and Christmas lights- so that made for some pretty interesting looking cookies. I think Steven's yellow cookie looked like a chick- but Steven called it "Big Boy"? Teens are weird.

After decorating cookies, the boys went to Jacob's house for a late nighter while the girls and I finished the latest season of Lego Masters. I also finished my "Elf" puzzle that I had out for way too long.

Saturday was spent cooking our Christmas feast. Tyler did the turkey, Christmas juice (also called Dragon Blood) and the crescent rolls. I did the mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and banana pie. I also made some chocolate chip muffins and cinnamon bread for Christmas morning. It was a good feast at dinnertime and probably the only point in the day where the kids weren't all weren't bugging each other. We had a nice conversation about Christ and that somehow led to a conversation about the baby and them all wanting to know what they were like as babies. The kids really are excited about getting a new sibling. Meanwhile I have my worries and anxiety and am constantly sure something is wrong. I think I will feel somewhat better once I get an ultrasound. I am hoping that will get on the schedule for this coming week.

After our Christmas feast we all had some down time and the boys ended up watching "the glass onion" with me on my phone- it was a murder mystery. Not super appropriate for them but I was too lazy to shoo them away. Then it was time to open jammies. This year was a Minecraft theme. Nobody was happy about taking pictures, they just love to pest each other when they are all next to eachother, but it is tradition and I managed to threaten them well enough for some good pics.

After pics we ventured out to go see Christmas lights. Tyler drove faster than I would like on not great roads but he's such a pro *eyeroll* There's still the cool house in our neighborhood that has lights that go with music. We also went to this neighborhood off M-5 which always looks like it's decked out. I was slightly disappointed because it looked like they all got their lights done by the same professional service. Almost to prim and proper. When we got home from seeing lights we all opened the gifts that we had gotten each other. We had gone to 5 Below earlier that week and the girls had picked out the boys' gifts and the boys had picked out the girls' gifts. So the girls got Dad a "Home Alone" hat, Ben a card game, and Steven a shirt that says "Unathletic Dept". The boys got me a cactus light, Penny a horse toy and Lucy gel pens.

They played with their gifts for a bit, ate some pie and then it was time for bed. Thankfully there were no gifts to build this year but I stayed up too late watching "It's a Wonderful Life" becuase it's tradition. (Honestly anything after 10pm feels late these days, I am lacking in energy) The boys were so nice and helped eat the Santa cookies and fed their piggies the reindeers carrot ;) The boys also helped get all the presents out from the basement and put them under the tree. I appreciated the help.

6 weeks, Santa, Wayne County Lightfest

It's time to officially announce my news to my blog- I am 6 weeks pregnant! I never got the chance to really announce and celebrate my previous pregnancy and since we've decided this will be my last one, I just want to have that opportunity. I even told the kids last weekend- that was funny. I said I had some news and Steven said, you're pregnant! And I said, uh...did dad tell you? And he responded, what!? I was just making that up. Jokes on him. They all seem excited, although I can tell Penny is reluctant to give up her baby position. This was definitely not an expected pregnancy. I really didn't think it was in my cards and recently we were even considering having Tyler get a vasectomy...but here we are. The age gap is crazy big but I am excited for a baby to hold. I am hopeful this baby stays with us. The kids have been keeping the baby in their prayers.

Monday after school work was done we had one last hurrah with the Mays. They left a couple days later for Utah and will be there for a month. They are my easiest path to entertaining my kids since I am such good friends with their mom so I am bummed they won't be around for so long. We'll have to branch out more over the break.

Tuesday started our 12 day countdown to Christmas! On Tuesday they got Christmas shirts....shirts they couldn't wear because they had school and have to wear uniforms but I just wanted them to have the shirts for the max amount of days before Christmas. 

Tuesday morning at seminary we had the teens make their fav family tradition out of Lego's. That was a hard ask I guess because they struggled to come up with traditions. Even Steven. One teen made their family fighting at Christmas because he said that was a family tradition. Honestly I believe that with his family but also, that's prettty sad. Another teen said it's tradition that they breathe everyday. Haha. Oh teens. 

Later that morning, after I dropped everyone off at school, I had breakfast with Stefanie. I am on a biscuits and gravy trend since Legoland introduced me to them and they were good. But then I made my bbq biscuits for dinner and then they had biscuits at Bunco that evening and now...maybe I'm not so into them... Besides the food, the conversations was good. I like our monthly catch ups. I also told her I am pregnant because as I said before, I am just trying to celebrate this pregnancy and she is one of my close friends.

Tuesday evening was our Christmas Bunco- we never actually play Bunco in December but instead we do a sock exchange, and a saran wrap ball. My stomach was really unhappy that evening so I didn't have the best time. I was also a little grumpy because the games were not my jam. Everyone stuffed their socks with way more stuff than I did, making me feel cheap. Then I could not for the life of me unwrap a prize from the saran wrap ball. So IDK, just not my favorite bunco. And then somehow I got roped in to hosting Bunco for Jan which makes me anxious because if anything goes wrong with this pregnancy, it would probably be around that time.

Wednesday, as part of the countdown, I took the kids to see Santa at the Bass Pro Shop. Steven was still at school but he said he didn't mind if he missed it, as long as he still got a candy cane. Teenagers. The younger 3 behaved really well and we had a good outing. We did a bit of shopping after we saw Santa and had some pretzels because that's a must. 

Thursday was kind of a funky day. I had to wake up earlier than normal to make breakfast for seminary. My eyes decided they did not like that and my contacts felt like sandpaper. I don't know if it was the bad eyesight, the sleepiness, the pregnancy or what but I had several not great moments. First I almost pulled in front of a car at a round about, I genuinely didn't see it. Second I managed to knock off and break a mug I had just bought at the self check out at Meijers. Third I shut the corner of my trunk right above my eye- hard enough to make it bleed. Not my finest moments. My day turned up after that though. Grace came over and dyed my hair and gave it a trim. That was nice of her and it was a good hang out. Made up for the bad start.

Thursday evening, as part of the count down, we went to the Wayne County Lightfest. Doughnuts, juice and drive thru lights are generally a good time... only hiccup was when Steven and Lucy decided to fight over her opening the window. Those two clash so much. But overall I think everyone had a good time.

Friday morning was our last day of seminary for the year. I am grateful. I have not been feeling great in the mornings and the waking up has been hard. I am ready for the break. The class itself was nice and chill. We did a little gift exchange, and then ate crepes (my favorite) and chatted. The rest of the day wasn't super eventful. We passed out our neighbor/friends gifts (meat seasoning that says "seasons greetings"). Ben only dropped and dented one jar...but he was also the only kid to help me make them so I guess he earned that right. And Lucy had her last volleyball game. They won 2 out of 3, it was a good season for her. Not a good pic at all of her team but the best that I got.

 

Saturday was even more uneventful. Just cleaning up the house and getting ready for our annual Graham Cracker House competition that we are having Sunday night. Tyler is making trophies this year for the best decorated houses so it should be an extra special competition. 

Florida Day 4 and Home

On our last day I woke up early and tried to watch the sun rise but the balcony wasn't quite facing the right direction. It still was a nice view to wake up to. Mike was nice to document.

Then we took a walk to McDonald's for breakfast. Not quite as good as Legoland's breakfast but it had a view of the beach (and construction, yay). After we ate, we strolled the beach looking for sea shells. Seriously could spend so much time just strolling the beach and looking for shells, super relaxing.

Then it was back to the hotel to chill. Everyone but us had a flight at noon and since the van rental was in Mike's name, that meant we were going to be without a car. The airbnb hostess was nice and had a room (more of a closet) that we could store our bags in, that helped a lot. We stashed our bags there and then they dropped us off at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium on the way to the airport. 

I had wanted to do an extra experience since it was just us two but we ended up choosing wrong. The first one they offered was $200- clearly out of budget but would have been awesome (learning how to get dolphins to do tricks). The second experience offered was to make a salad for a sea turtle. This was much more affordable but Penny didn't seem interested (I don't think she wanted to chop veggies). The third was the Behind the Scense Tour. It sounded cool, like hey we get to go see animals behind the scenes. False. They took us to the ICU but made us stand behind lines so we couldn't even see the sea turtles in their tanks. Then we went to the kitchen where food is made but no food was being made. After that they took us to their salt water filteration place- wahoo. Lastly we went in the dolphin enclosure but again, we had to stand behind a line and the view was not any better than at the windows. Sigh. Not worth the money.

But the aquarium itself was super cool. We got to see dolphins doing tricks for food and swimming around and playing with their toys and I just love dolphins. We also got to see sea turtles and otters playing around and great white pelicans. We learned that this aquarium is where the movie "Dolphin Tale" was filmed and that it used to house the main character- Winter- until she passed away. They still had her prosthetic tale- displayed in a case- and that was kind of cool. They had a bunch of dinosaurs everywhere which was a bit random. They also had two rough toothed dolphins which are only at one other place in the USA so cool for us for the rare sighting. 

After visiting the gift shop (of course) and Penny buying an otter stuffie (named Boomer) we took the long walk back to our airbnb. It was about a half hour walk which felt like a lot after all the walking we had been doing lately. On our way we saw coconut trees and we stopped at one point to get some cold water by the dock that houses various boat tours. 

Once back at the airbnb we grabbed our luggage and sat at one of the outside tables to wait for our Uber. This was my first time using an Uber and I was pretty anxious about the whole thing. It didn't help that the first driver who was going to take us cancelled last minute and I got stressed that I was going to have no ride. Thankfully, just as I was about to lose it, someone else picked up the job- Jesus (Ironically the first driver's name was Christian). He did not speak to us the whole way and listened to some questionable music but he did not try to assault, kidnap or murder us so I'll count that as a win (I should not have googled how safe uber's are before getting on one). Then Penny and I had a long wait at the airport. She was exhausted so she just watched a show and I listened to a story while saving all the awesome pics Mike took to my phone. 

After about 2 hours of waiting it was time to board the flight. There was a funny moment where Penny said "Ok Boomer" to her otter and the people in front of her turned around like- who are you calling boomer, lol. In the plane I ended up next to a man who was very ill. He kept disappearing to the bathroom and then, when he couldn't because of the food cart, he puked into the paper bag. I had to concentrate real hard on my show and look towards Penny because I do not do well with those sounds and smells. It was not the best flight of my life but somehow I did not do any sympathy puking. And when we got to Michigan, Tyler was outside the baggage claim waiting for us and it was off to home. It was a really good trip (and warm) but it was nice to be back with the rest of my family. 

Waking up for seminary Wednesday was hard. That whole day I felt so dang tired and kept falling asleep. That evening I took the kids to their activities at the church while Tyler took Lucy to volleyball. We are currently trying to drive my car as little as possible since the brakes are not doing so well and the part for my csr hasn't come yet. That means I usually get to drive the Suburban- not my fav car to drive. At the activity the girls stuffed the pillows they had been working on. Since Lucy wan't there, Penny stuffed her pillow for her. So nice of her.

Thursday I went out to breakfast with my friends. Then I picked Lizzie up from school along with my kids so she didn't have to tag along to like a 7 hour concert with her older siblings. She was mostly ok to watch, until I had to try to get her to sleep (her mom wasn't coming until 10:30). It took a bit for her to finally give in and in the meantime she tortured my birds at least once. 

Friday Steven got his Level 1 License from the SOS. We had an appt so we didn't have long to wait, it all went smoothly. He doesn't want to drive the Suburban though so we really need to get my car fixed so he can get his 30 hours logged. I did make him drive the Suburban in an empty parking lot and boy was he slow so I didn't get nervous at all. It'll be interesting to see how anxious he makes me when he drives me on real roads.

Saturday evening we had the Ward party. The food was really good (ham, cheesy potatoes, rolls) and I got to sit at a table with all my friends so that was nice. After dinner they had a little music program- various people singing. Tyler sang 2 Christmas songs with a mens chorus. I think he enjoyed getting to sing. The first song they did really well. The second songs was a complicated rendition and it had a few rough moments (especially at the high points) but overall it was nice listening to my hubby sing. After the songs Santa made an entrance- rather dramatically- and scared a few children to tears. Oooops. My kids quickly grabbed their candy canes and left so I didn't get any pics of them with Santa.