December Things

Sunday Tyler stayed home sick from church so it was my first Sunday at church alone with all 5 kids. Ruby was fussy during the end of first hour so I ended up getting her to nap in the nursing lounge and we just hung out there for most of second hour. While in the lounge I heard the EQ's lesson instead of my RS one(since they have EQ's in the chapel) and have to say I didn't mind it. The comments in EQ were much more on topic than the ones we get in RS. I guess it's the women that are crazy in our ward ;). 

Sunday afternoon I went to visit Mariah in the hospital. She was being very positive and walking around extremely well for just having a c-section. I was a little jealous of how quickly she seemed to recover but as she kept saying, it was just her (Maverick was at a NICU in a different hospital). Maybe not having to care for a baby right away helped? But I certainly wouldn't want to have her experience. You could tell she just wanted to be with her baby.

Monday morning we had Mariah's kids over so her in-laws could have a break. Having 3 kids age 5 and under is always a lot but my kids are good at entertaining them so that helps. Her oldest, Jessie, was a little bit dramatic that morning and claiming to be too sick to eat but then she recovered quickly when treats were promised. Monday night Lucy had her parents vs kids volleyball game. Tyler still had a lingering cough but played anyways. The parents creamed the kids, it was a bit hard to watch. The kids literally just stood there while the balls fell beside them. I'm not sure why but they didn't seem to be trying at all.

Tuesday I did some baking, and gift wrapping. That afternoon we went to the kids school for their elective "showcases". Since Ben's elective is literally playing boardgames, the showcase was just me playing board games with him and one of his classmates. We played Sorry and I think I would've won if I had actually been able to finish playing with them :). Tyler went to the girls' elective which was Coding and got to watch robots dance. Tuesday night was Bunco. We don't actually play Bunco in December. We usually just do other games, like the saran wrap ball game and do some sort of gift exchange. Usually it's a blast but this one was kind of a flop. I think it was because two ladies were hosting and the one bowed out last minute because she was sick. I have a feeling she was the one in charge of the games. We ended up just doing pictionary, and then doing an ornament and cookie exchange. Pictionary was just not as fun as the saran wrap ball game...And for some reason the host gave us all aprons. I thought we were going to craft or cook our something but nope...I guess it made for a nice matchy matchy pic though.

Wednesday Tyler's mom flew in to help Mariah. Tyler was basically gone all day which wasn't quite the plan. He originally was bringing Mariah clothes and then was going to come back to take our kids with him to pick up his mom.  But then he didn't have time to come get the kids so he was going to get his mom,  do lunch and then come home. But then he ended up taking her to see Maverick at the hospital after lunch. It was almost dinner time before he got home so it was a bit of a long day. The kids were anxiously awaiting their grandma's arrival but occupied themselves by playing (messy) games and making (messy) robots. 

Thursday was the middle 3's last day of in-person class for a month. I was hoping to maybe do a fun date with Tyler but he ended up plumbing for someone in the Ward. Instead I ended up wrapping some more gifts and running a few errands. It's getting trickier to run errands with Ruby because she's finally on a schedule and if she takes a quick car nap it ruins the day. That means I have a very small window to run the errand before there's a risk that she'll sleep in the car. I love and hate the schedule,lol.

Friday was a nice weather day and Saturday was as well so Tyler worked on his shed. He now has all the walls up and just needs to finish the door and trim. He is pretty excited to have a place to store all his tools in. Friday was my final day of Christmas errand running--- hopefully. I started off the day with Lucy and me getting haircuts. Hers turned out fine but my hair was butchered. This lady did not know how to cut an A-line and it was so bad/choppy that I attempted to fix it myself. My friend Grace is nice and said she will fix it better for me Monday. I just have to suffer until them. Later I went to the mall which was a mad house but there's a store that sells these interesting flavored sodas. I want to start a new tradition of blind tasting the sodas and seeing if the kids can figure out what the flavors are (unicorn vomit, Christmas, red velvet...). I also had to go to Hobby Lobby to get more wrapping paper for all these gifts I keep getting. I will have you know that I am still coming out under budget though. Yay for sales. That night Lucy had a volleyball game against her friend Jenna which meant I got to hang out with Jenna's mom Stacey so that was nice. I feel like she sees me as a crazy lady with too many kids but I guess that makes me interesting to her...

Saturday I spent most of the day watching Mariah's kids.  Ben was a good help with them until his friend came over. Lucy had friends over as well. It felt like a long, overwhelming and very unproductive day. We had the Ward Party that night and I just wasn't feeling it. Grace didn't come, Caroline got stuck at another table and Melissa seemed busy chatting with others so I didn't really have my buddies to make it more bearable. The music program after dinner started off fun. Penny sang a verse of a song with a friend (and they forgot the lyrics). Then a men's choir did a fun "Samuel the Lamanite" song. But after that it got sleepy. Lucy was up there posing as Mary and long, quiet Christmas songs were being sang by a choir. Lucy did great but I could tell she didn't love just sitting up there with all eyes on her. I get it.

Ruby has been doing alright. Nights have been mostly good. There have been a couple that she even slept until 4am (instead of her usual 2am). She is on a pretty good schedule during the day-- she wakes and eats and then about 2 hours later she takes a 30-45 min nap. However, she still has awful, stinky, frequent, slimy/mucousy poop. I messaged the doctor about it and she thinks it might be the formula I've been supplementing with so we will be trying a new kind this week. I have just been pumping during the day and breastfeeding at night. It has helped open up more time for me to get things done.