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. 

Decked Out Detroit

Sunday we had stake conference. I was going to ditch and just watch it from home with Ruby but at the last second I guilted myself into going. I wish I hadn't. We sat by Mariah's family so I had to keep on my kids to not rile up her kids. Then Ruby's schedule got all mucked up and she slept horribly that night. And the talks were not super uplifting. We had one lady who spent at least 15 minutes talking about the whole experience of being asked to speak. Way more details than needed. It just felt like I probably should have followed my first instinct to watch it from home. 

On Tuesday Ruby had her 4 month doctor's appointment. She is a whopping 15 pounds now, growing beautifully! I love the doctor and the nurses there but was not thrilled about being there for over an hour because of waiting. I seem to have bad luck in the waiting dept with appointments lately. We were getting close to nap time so Ruby was getting fussy near the end. Ruby also did not react well to her 3 shots. She took her nap when we got home but then she woke up very upset. She was super sensitive to any movement or touching of her legs for the rest of the day and into the night. That night I had a zoom meeting about early enrollment into College for Steven and Ruby was a pretty noisy partner during it. We still haven't 100% decided to enroll Steven in this program. It'll be hard for him to keep up with extracurriculars and it'll delay his mission and I can't decide if it's worth it... I really want him to make the decision but he is so blah about big decisions. 

Wednesday after the kids did school work I ran a couple errands with the girls and we encountered a "Karen". I was in line at Target returning diapers that Ruby had grown out of when Lucy realized she had forgotten her purse in the car. She really wanted to buy something so I told her that she could go get it, as long as her and Penny stuck together. Just as I finished up the return the girls came huffing and puffing back in. Behind them was a "Karen" who started shouting at them. She told the girls that they needed to be more careful because she almost ran them over twice. She also told them that she had rolled down her window and told them to stop and they hadn't listened. And according to the girls she also got out of her car yelling at them but they just walked away. Which honestly was probably a smart move because I wouldn't want them to be alone outside with an unknown Karen. Honestly, I know they are not always smart about looking both ways but almost running them over twice? How does one do that in a parking lot? Like once she saw them, shouldn't she have been aware of them? And Lucy isn't exactly short. I also don't love that she was yelling at my kids. I would rather she had just talked to me and asked me to talk to them about safety. The whole situation was super uncomfortable and totally deflated the girls excitement to shop at Target. 

Wednesday night Lucy had a volleyball game. Mariah and her kids came to watch too. Tyler was at church activities with the rest of the kids so it was nice to have company. Lucy's team won 2 out of the 3 matches. Lucy was sometimes really awesome at diving for the ball and serving and sometimes not so much. Just have to work on her consistency.

Thursday was the first time in a long time that I didn't have a massive to-do list to accomplish while the kids were at school. It was so nice to have a chill at home day. I was able to take a long shower for once. I was also able to do some cleaning in the girls and boys room where they tend to both harbor trash. And I even began the present wrapping. 

Friday after school work we went on a fun outing to The Monroe Street Midway in Detroit. Steven had plans with a friend so he ditched us. There was a lot of free things to do on Monroe Street and also some not free things to do and we did a little of both. We started off going down the free "artic slide". After that we did the free Puck-Putt which was like minature golf but hockey style. It was more tricky than I expected. I was not great at it but Ben got himself a hole in one at one of the holes. After that the kids played on the teeter toters and the swings. Then we went into the warm arcade tent and that's where we spent some money. I think it was worth the money though because the kids really had a blast. The games were pretty cool. The game would take their pics and put them on the screen with their car or score or whatever they were playing. We did some basketball, skee ball, racing games, air hockey...It was fun watching everyone get real competitive and giggly with each other. When we used up all our points, the kids did the slide again and then we got some hot chocolate and doughnuts. After we finished our treats we were headed out but this super hyper lady had the kids go in this "virtual portal." It was apparently just a person talking about other countries. Glad I missed that and instead hung out with Ruby. The last thing we did was check out the big Christmas tree by Campus Martius. 

Saturday morning we found out Mariah was in the hospital having an emergency c-section. Her sweet baby was born 7 weeks early, weighing 2lbs 6oz. So itty bitty. Her in-laws happened to be in town so they took care of her kids and she wasn't up to visitors. So far her and baby are doing ok. Baby just has to go to the NICU because he is so small. Such a scary situation. Meanwhile we went to see Mariah's daughter's ballet recital. It was adorable but not super synchronized, lol. 

Saturday night we had a plethora of kids over for a "Home Alone" night. We had pizza, watched the movie and then pigged out on ice cream sundaes. After the movie, the kids came up with their own battle plans for protecting thier house from an attack. They had a lot of fun with that. 

And we will end with a pic of the girls at school and a pic of Ruby making rude hand gestures.

Santa! I know him!

Sunday I had to teach the Relief Society lesson at church. I was super nervous- so nervous that my heart rate was 110. I felt like I was running a marathon. Overall the lesson ended up going well. People were nice and told me I did a good job. And my mention of Arizona got me to make a connection with a sister missionary who also graduated from Highland High School. Just like 20 years after me. The only real issue was a couple people with lousy comments. One person said that Christ told her to basically exclude someone. Uh, doubt that. And the other one kept jumping ahead and quoting things that I was going to get to. The annoying thing was that the quotes she was giving didn't have any thing to do with my questions so she was literally jumping ahead for no purpose. As much as I love teaching between the nerves and annoying comments, I am not sure I am cut out for being a Relief Society Teacher.

 Monday I went out to lunch with my friends. We all had a good vent and ate some good food but a part of me would've rather not have gone because I had lots I wanted to do that day.  Afterwards I went to pick up groceries from Walmart and it turned to be quite the fiasco. All the spots were filled plus several more. I parked and watched as nobody moved. After a half hour and watching more cars line up and only seeing 2 cars move I decided it was not worth the wait- there were at least 12 cars ahead of me and I really needed to get home to feed Ruby. Instead, I decided to go into the store and see if I could cancel my order. The lady at customer service was extremely unhelpful and told me that grocery pick up was a seperate entity and she couldn't help me. I asked who could and she said she didn't know. So I went to see if anything had changed at pick-up but it was even worse. Eventually after messing around on the app and internet I called someone who said they would cancel it but when I checked my account later, it just said pending approval. Later that day I got an email saying my order was still watiting to be picked up so I sent Tyler to scout it out again. It was still a mess. That night as I was nursing Ruby an employee called asking me to pick it up. I tried to confirm that it would indeed be ready at arrival but she was shifty. But I sent Tyler anyways because I still wasn't sure they were going to cancel it and give me my money back. He was much more patient than me. He waited almost 3 hours before finally getting it at 10:45pm. Insane. I will never do grocery pick up on Cyber Monday again. And I definitely have some trust issues with Walmart now.

Tuesday I worked on some photo gifts for Tyler's family. I made a collage thing for his parents to put on their wall. It was such a hassle getting pictures from all his siblings and I don't know if she will like the style, it's a little old school, but whatever. Hopefully it's the thought that counts. I also ordered some pics for my own wall. I had just bought pics for this wall but I bought the pics before having Ruby and this deal just couldn't be beat. I might just update every Cyber Monday. 

Wednesday Tyler and I ran a few errands around lunchtime with Ruby. One was to go to Best Buys so we could get Steven a Steam giftcard. That place was pretty dead, pretty sure it's not long for this world...But we were impressed with how cheap TV's have become. Maybe it's time for a new one? We also went to Costco and got an amazing wreath for our front door. I feel like my compromise for having a fake tree, is that I always get a real wreath. 

Thursday I attempted to spend my Kohl's cash but their stock was low and the lines were long. I feel like they should start restocking after Black Friday or I should do all my winter clothes shopping before because it's just hard to find cute stuff after. I also went to Hobby Lobby and got some wrapping paper to give as neighbor gifts. I have run out of non-food ideas for neighbor gifts and am recycling old ones now. Thursday night was a rare night with nothing happening and I was tempted to go do the drive thru Christmas lights we always do but it felt too early and honestly, it was just nice to have a chill night with everyone home.

Friday the kids got their December 1st packages- a new tradition we are trying out. They got a Christmas shirt, Christmas socks, an advent calendar, Christmas tie/church outfit, hot cocoa packets, candy canes and then we got a new game, puzzle,craft and Christmas book for the family. I think this will work better than the countdown.

Later, after the kids finished their school work and Steven got home from school, we went to see Santa at the Bass Pro Shop. None of the kids believe in him anymore and so they said they didn't need to go see a fake Santa but I convinced them to go for Ruby. It was funny that even though they didn't believe, they still were asking me what they should ask him for before we got there. I love the Bass Pro Shop. We had no lines and walked right up to Santa and he was a really friendly Santa. Lucy commented to me afterwards that she liked this fake Santa. We ended up not having Ruby sit on his lap because I guess I just wanted to avoid the trauma but the picture turned out really cute. After seeing Santa we went to a couple shops in the mall so Lucy could find a gift for her friend. We ended up in a super long line at Burlington Coat Factory. I was glad Tyler was there to take Ruby on a walk or we would never have survived. When that was done we were all hungry so we got some food at Chili's. There's not one close to us anymore so it was a nice splurge but yeah, a definite splurge. It has gotten so expensive to eat out. The kids all did good though. I have found asking them random trivia questions helps pass waiting time.

Saturday Steven had an archery tournament in Portage- 2 hours away. I had wanted the whole family to tag along because there was a really cool market on the way there but Steven ended up making plans with Max for after the tournament so he did not like that idea. My kids and their social lives are ruining my fun. Anyways, he did better at this tournament- 225 (last time was 204). I hope he keeps on improving. Back at home everyone else got social too. Ben had Andrea over and Lucy went over to her friend's house. Penny and I got a smoothie to make up for being left out of everything.

Ruby was pretty awful this week. She went through a major sleep regression and we had several nights of her sleeping like a newborn, up every 2-3 hours and not napping well at all. It was so painful and I thought I might die. Thankfully she seems to be righting herself- hopefully I didn't just jinx that by saying that. However, instead of frequent wakings, after a feeding Friday night she was wide awake and just lay in her crib cooing for ages- not crying so eventually I fell asleep and apparently she did too. That wasn't super fun either. She is lucky she is so adorable.

Thanksgiving

The younger 3 were all off of school for the week and Tyler didn't have seminary. It was nice to not have to worry about school stuff and for Tyler to not have to prep lessons.  Poor Steven had school all the way up to Thanksgiving though. Monday I was able to do some cleaning and start on the path of making our home Thanksgiving ready. 

Tuesday Lucy had a dermatologist appointment all the way out in Troy. I ended up taking Lucy and leaving Ruby with Tyler. I had regrets though because we ended up waiting for over an hour before even being called back and then a good 20 minutes more in the room. It was a long time to be away from Ruby and both Lucy and I were super aggravated. Finally we saw the dr. He was a quirky guy with a bow tie and he gave us the history of warts and then put some beetle juice on her 8 warts and covered them with tape. We are supposed to put Compound W on them and then come back in a couple months. I'm not very optimistic that this was worth all the energy. Her warts seem determined to thrive and multiply. 

Wednesday morning I woke up and got moving. Usually I struggle getting up and at it, so I was proud of myself. I was able to run a couple of errands before the stores got too crazy. Later I made some snacks for Thanksgiving day- muffins, pumpkin bread and my bean salsa. I also got started on the Thanksgiving decor- I decorated some brown paper "tablecloths". It was really nice to be crafty. My hobbies have died since Ruby and I've missed them. Lucy also helped with some Thanksgiving decor. 

Wednesday night Lucy had a volleyball game. Her friend Claire came with her mom. They are good people. It was nice to get to chat with Claire's mom since usually we are just dropping off kids with one another. Her mom is also not in love with Renassiance but her kids don't want to leave their friends so she said she will stick with it. I still don't know if I will stick with it or if we will do electives next year. My girls are also attached to their friends...

Thursday was awful. It is too hard to be my perfectionist, punctual hosting self with a baby who needs me to eat and sleep. I put out snacks for the kids, made sweet potatoes and made fancy Mac n cheese, and finished setting up all the tables and with the baby...I was not ready when everyone arrived (I needed to pump and Ruby was fussy) and that left me feeling like an anxious mess. It didn't help that Tyler felt the need to go outside and work on his shed for quite awhile. He did make the turkey so I shouldn't complain too much. Anyways, the tablecloths were a hit and the food was all good and I think everyone else had a good time, even if I was a stressed out mess. I think next year I would like to not host. But Ruby will be older so maybe it'll be less exhausting. Here are some pics from the day, some stolen from my friends Instagram.

Friday Lucy woke up ready to decorate the whole house without me. I had to calm her down because I'm a bit particular about where things should go BUT then it didn't take too long before she quit on me. Since all I did was decorate, it was a chill day. That was exactly what I needed after a stressful Thursday. Saturday was basically finishing up decorating and getting count downs ready for Christmas. We also watched Mariah's kids for a quick bit but it's always just a quick bit. She worries too much about being a burden. What she doesn't seem to remember is that we totally burdened her with babysitting our kids back when she was a teenager...