The days following Christmas are always fun with new toys. We take it easy, sleep in, and usually go down to two meals a day with healthy snacks interspersed.
Mom did a lot of cleaning and rearranging while the kids played and read new books. We declared Friday a "game day" and played some of our longer games. Mom was once again the winner of Ticket to Ride (shameless house champion!) and Ameliya won Frozen Monopoly. We played it according to the actual rules and shockingly I didn't hate it as much as I usually dread Monopoly!
Racking up the miles on his new bike already.
Mike's folks got us new bedding for the king size bed we bought a month ago. Looks so fresh. I told the kids to stay off. Ha.
I took her picture by the tree before I took it down because she was very sad it was coming down. But mom was ready to clean!
Game day! My Ticket to Ride buddy!
After Zayden sat through two long games that he's not fully able to participate in, we had him pick a game. We all played several rounds of Pop Up Pirate with him.
The slack line's maiden voyage...
On Friday I also cut everyone's finger/toe nails. Silly, but it takes a solid 30-45 minutes of my time to do all 5! I haven't cut Xavier's in at least 4 years because he had been so bad about biting/picking them. It seems to be no coincidence that he quit doing that around the time we moved up here and he has more time with his dad.
Snuggles...
These pants...
We ended our Friday watching Abominable.
On Saturday we missed Mike's grandma's Christmas. We had several sniffly noses, some bad attitudes, a couple sore throats, and we were worn out. We are thankful she was feeling up to coming to Granny and Papa's Christmas the Saturday before, and Mike and some of the kids had a nice long phone chat with her on Friday evening. It's not easy, this new gig of not living right next door. If we still lived in town we could have gone for awhile maybe and come home for rests as needed, but it's a new phase for us and we're all still learning. It's not easy to make sacrifices, that's for sure.
We tried to make the most of the day. Daddy and Mia did nails and he chalked her hair and let her chalk his beard.
I had to run to the store for a new necessities, and when I came home these two had dressed up and fashioned a dance for me. They'd cut confetti into the shape of hearts and both had on Mia's dress boots and Zayden's suspenders. I don't know if it was supposed to be a comedy but I was laughing.
Today as the children readied for church, there was a malfunction with Natalee's glasses. It took over an hour for Mike to make a temporary repair and no one made it to worship. There was disappointment, but we are thankful for the Wal-Mart eye center that opened at noon and fixed them for us. She has an annual exam in 3 weeks so I was glad I didn't have to buy glasses, only to need to buy again after her appointment.
The kids played Legos, Dad made homemade pizzas, and we tried to get them to nap (only the oldest 2 slept!). After naps, I planned to send them all with dad to walk the indoor track at the campus PAC across from our house, but in the end I went with and I'm glad I did. The exercise was great to lift my mood and it felt really good to get moving. We all got at least a mile in.
Natalee started taking breaks after 2 laps and wanted to quit after 4 laps. I pushed her and encouraged her to do all six and in the end, using the stroller to lean on, she got her mile in. We can't really fathom how hard her body has to work to do the things that the rest of us do "easily" (in quotes, but the only reason it's not "easy" for me is because I'm overweight and out of shape).
I hope to push ourselves to take advantage of the PAC more and more over these winter months!
We are winding down the evening with a light supper and baths/showers.
The ones who didn't nap need to go to bed early, and dad is going to play chess with the older ones. I'm sure loving having Mike home.
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