Friday, December 29, 2017

Keeping up with...Family (Weekly Wrap 12/22 - 12/28)

Friday (12/22) Last day of school for two weeks!!  Everyone was super excited to get up and get moving today since they all had parties and special events at school.  AJ had a great time watching the spelling bee, a chorus concert and then having a party with his class.  Daniel had a "snowed in" day where they watched movies, played games and had snacks.  And Zak had a party in his class that Adrian and I were able to attend.  We had a fun time helping with the "make a reindeer" station and visiting with Zak and his friends.  Zak's favorite parts were the snacks and the fidget spinner that he got in his stocking.
We took Zak home with us after his party so he hung out with us for the rest of the day.  He played video games while we got a few things done around the house.  Before we knew it, it was time to pick up AJ after school and then Daniel.  After school,  their friend Keaton stopped by for about an hour to play while I caught up with his mom.  Then we all had dinner and a pretty relaxing night.  The elf left us a gingerbread house so we worked on that together as a family.  It did not go great, but we got it together so that's something.  The boys seemed to have fun once we got started, but it continues to be my least favorite Christmas tradition.  Maybe we'll skip it next year.  We put the kids to bed at their normal time because we're all exhausted after the week.  And Adrian and I wanted to at least get started on some wrapping tonight.  It's going to be a few late nights for us to get this all done! 
Saturday (12/23) Zak decided we should start our break at 5am.  Thankfully Adrian got up with him and I went back to sleep for hours.  It was glorious!  I got up and started doing a few things around the house while Adrian took the boys to Krispy Kreme to get us donuts for the next few mornings.  Then we spent most of the day baking, cooking and cleaning.  The boys helped us, played together and watched video games.  It was a very productive day and I feel great about where we are for Christmas prep!

After a quick dinner, we headed out on our annual Christmas light scavenger hunt.  Our elf left us a list today so we loaded up the car and started looking for the things on the list.  We went to a bunch of neighborhoods around here and saw a lot of great houses.  I feel like a lot more people decorated this year than they have the past few years, and we loved it!  We went to a few big displays in Gahanna, including one set to music.  And after about 90 minutes we had found all but one thing on the list - the Grinch!  So we enlisted some help on Facebook and found another neighborhood that had a display with the Grinch.  The boys were so excited to finish the whole list!
When we got home, we had a snack and watched the Toy Story Christmas special before putting the boys to bed.  They decided to stay up as late as possible so they will be tired tomorrow night and go straight to sleep for Santa.  This is a fine plan except that it means we have to wait longer to start wrapping our many presents tonight.  So we watched some of the Survivor finale until they fell asleep and then wrapped until we were nearly asleep ourselves.

Sunday (12/24) Merry Christmas Eve!!  We all slept in a little and then had a relaxing morning before getting ready to head to the 11am service at our church.  We had an amazing service with great music (including a TSO song & the BNL version of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen), informative sermon and a beautiful candle-lighting ceremony.  It was great to see so many friends there as well.  After that service, Adrian took the boys home and I stayed to volunteer in childcare for the 1pm service.

After church, we loaded up the car and headed to my brother's house for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner with them.  We found two different Grinch inflatables on our way out there which made us all laugh after last night.  We had an awesome time eating, drinking and relaxing with Carl, Sarah, Isabelle and Vinnie.  The boys got awesome gifts - light sabers, beyblades, R/C cars and the Despicable Me 3 movie.  Isabelle and Vinnie loved their gifts from us as well.  And we also opened our ornaments from my Aunt Sue.  I love our ornaments this year, they perfectly sum up our year!
After gifts and dessert, it was time to head home to get ready for tomorrow.  It had snowed while we were there so it made for a pretty, if a little slow, drive home.  We got home and sprinkled our lawn with reindeer food and set up milk and cookies for Santa.  The boys were eager to get to sleep so that Santa would come.  When they fell asleep, we finished up the wrapping and set everything up under the tree.  When we were done, we finished watching Survivor finale while enjoying some wine and a snack and then headed up to bed since we knew the boys would be up early in the morning.
 
Monday (12/25) Merry Christmas!!  We were pleasantly shocked that the boys slept until almost 8am.  Daniel and Zak were the first two up and we headed downstairs and waited about 30 minutes until AJ woke up as well.  As soon as he got up, we divided up the presents and got to work opening.  The boys loved everything they got, but they were most excited about their new Switch and fidget spinners.  We spent the day relaxing, playing games, playing video games, eating junk food and enjoying our time together.  We got to video chat with both my parents and Adrian's parents which was nice for all of us.  And we finished our night by watching "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."
Before bedtime, we all had to say our goodbyes to Doctor Donkey until next year.  I know most elves go back to the North Pole with Santa on Christmas Eve but this year Daniel made a special request that our elf stay thru Christmas Day so he could see us open our gifts.  We all thought this was a great idea so he got special permission to stay and fly home to the North Pole tonight.  Unfortunately this caused a little breakdown for Zak who realized that Christmas is over and there will be no more presents until next year (also possibly caused by being over-tired, over-stimulated & over-sugared).  He was so upset that Adrian had to sleep with him in the spare room to calm him down.  It seems like this happened once with each of the other boys as well, it must be this age. 

Tuesday (12/26) We all slept in a bit today but then I had to get up and moving right away to head to my Silver Sneakers class.  I had a great group, but I'm glad I only did one class.  After class, I came home and had a quick lunch and picked up Daniel and we went to see CoCo.  Unfortunately, it was sold out when we got there so we turned around and headed home.  We had a relaxing day of playing games, video games, eating and relaxing.  We put away all of our new things from yesterday and I set up my brand new instant pot.  I couldn't wait so I made risotto in it tonight for dinner and it was awesome!  I can't wait to cook more in it!  After dinner, we watched Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and then got the boys to bed.  Adrian and I finished cleaning up and then watched a few DVR shows before calling it a night as well.
Wednesday (12/27) Adrian had to go back to work today, but the rest of us were still off.  We all slept in and then had a very lazy day around the house.  The boys played a lot of Beyblades and Monopoly while I did a few things around the house.  Then I joined them in a few board games.  We were going to go downtown to see some of the Christmas stuff down there but it is super cold and Daniel has a really bad cough so we decided to skip that.  We enjoyed tacos for dinner and just relaxed for the night.  After we got the kids to bed, Adrian and I watched a few more things from our DVR and then headed to bed since we both need to work tomorrow.

Thursday (12/28) The boys and I had to get up and moving sooner than we have in almost a week today and it was a struggle.  But we managed to get up and out to my Silver Sneakers classes on time this morning.  After class we came home and were honestly super lazy.  The boys watched video games and I played games on my Kindle.  It was super relaxing and lazy, I think this is exactly what we needed this week.  Adrian worked late so we decided to change our plans for tonight and just stay home.  We hung out, played with the boys, watched TV and relaxed some more.  Adrian and I started catching up on "This is Us" tonight since we have 6 or 7 episodes to watch.  Such a good show! 

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