...was such a nice day! We started out with good devotions with lots of questions and interaction. I love that. :-) The kids have been eating cereal for breakfast for weeks now because we received a whole bunch of great cereal in a pounding several weeks ago and because their Mom has been staying up way too late at night to be up to cooking anything for breakfast in the mornings. So it was General Mills and Kelloggs again today. ;-) I had a piece of pumpkin pie, personally. It made Joe pretty sorry that he hadn't thought of it and he'd already had cereal instead.
From there the kids who could find their coats headed out to play in the snow. We got another inch or two last night. :-) It is just soooooooo cool to live in a place that actually gets SNOW! We haven't had a real deep snow yet, but we've had several little ones that definitely count. I just love it here!!! James went into Albuquerque this morning and called on the cell phone to tell me that once he got into town he could see blue skies. Where we live, maybe 20 miles away, it was snowing and I couldn't even see the mountains--just cloud cover. Have I mentioned that I love it here??? God put us in JUST the right spot. :-)
The kids had received a game... oh, wait! I forgot to mention our amazing church people the other night! When we had our ABM service up here the church gave us a card they had all signed. It was so sweet. And INSIDE the card were gift cards. 5 OF THEM. A Home Depot one for James in the amount of $62.50, one for me from Wal-Mart for the same about, and each kid got a $25 card--the boys from Wal-Mart and Kate from Barnes & Noble. CAN YOU IMAGINE?! We were just overwhelmed. I never would have expected anything like this--and from such a small group. God's people never cease to amaze me. They are the most loving and giving people on earth. What an honor to be a part of them!!!
Okay, as I was saying... the kids also received a game box thing from Pat Graham (Sister Grimes' daughter). It has a checker board on top of the box, then a drawer to store pieces and a bunch of other games; I think there are 8 total. So this morning the kids and I sat down and played each game one time. Did you know that Crazy 8's is the dumbest game ever invented? I don't remember playing it as a kid, although I do remember having the cards. Now I know why we never played it. It doesn't even make sense--there is no way for the game to end except by a fluke; some bizarre twist of fate that could happen about as often as a heatwave in Greenland. I realized soon enough that the structure of the game made it nearly impossible for anyone to win (and thus, for the game to END), so we quit and moved along to the next one. All of the others were enjoyable. Except checkers. ~sigh~ Katie just can't seem to learn how to win gracefully. I'm not so great at it myself, but at least I don't burst into tears over it! Ha! She even tried really hard to buck up and deal with it today, but she just can't pull it off. She ended up in a little, quivering pile in my lap while I hugged her and laughed heartily and cried my own tears for a completely different reason. ;-) She is soooooo funny!
I looked up the Claymation Christmas special I used to watch when I was a kid (they have the entire thing on YouTube) and let the kids watch it while we ate lunch. They LOVED it! :-) I always loved it as a kid, too, but I don't remember laughing as hard as they laughed today, especially at this part...
Joe just about laughed himself off the chair. It was GREAT! :-) Sam and Katie especially like the camels on "We Three Kings." Mom, be sure to show this to Dad. I'm sure he'll enjoy it for old times' sake, if nothing else.
Then James printed out some Christmas worksheets for the kids to do for "school" today. Spelling sheets and math sheets and a creative writing assignment and who knows what all. They had to write a story on who stole the stripes from the candy canes and why. Katie's story was especially good, I thought!
I was able to grab a little nap this afternoon, so that was GREAT. We had a nice, relaxing evening after that. The biggest excitement of the day was the loss of Katie's tooth. She had been working on it for a while, then came to be begging me to please help her get it out because if it wasn't out by the time James got back from getting the mail HE was going to try to get it out. She HATES it when he works on her teeth! Ha! It really wasn't loose enough to be able to just grab and pull out like the others, but I played with it for a while and finally did the string thing. I've never actually used a string on a tooth before, mine or my children's, and I wasn't too sure what to expect. We didn't tie it to a doorknob or anything, I just made sure it was good and tight around her tooth and told her to tell me when and I'd give one mighty yank and see if we could get it out of there. She took so long before saying "ready" that I got all nervous and shaky by the time she was finally prepared! Ha! I worked up my nerve and gave one good tug and it popped right out! Wow! Who knew!? Anyway, here is the end result...
From there the kids who could find their coats headed out to play in the snow. We got another inch or two last night. :-) It is just soooooooo cool to live in a place that actually gets SNOW! We haven't had a real deep snow yet, but we've had several little ones that definitely count. I just love it here!!! James went into Albuquerque this morning and called on the cell phone to tell me that once he got into town he could see blue skies. Where we live, maybe 20 miles away, it was snowing and I couldn't even see the mountains--just cloud cover. Have I mentioned that I love it here??? God put us in JUST the right spot. :-)
The kids had received a game... oh, wait! I forgot to mention our amazing church people the other night! When we had our ABM service up here the church gave us a card they had all signed. It was so sweet. And INSIDE the card were gift cards. 5 OF THEM. A Home Depot one for James in the amount of $62.50, one for me from Wal-Mart for the same about, and each kid got a $25 card--the boys from Wal-Mart and Kate from Barnes & Noble. CAN YOU IMAGINE?! We were just overwhelmed. I never would have expected anything like this--and from such a small group. God's people never cease to amaze me. They are the most loving and giving people on earth. What an honor to be a part of them!!!
Okay, as I was saying... the kids also received a game box thing from Pat Graham (Sister Grimes' daughter). It has a checker board on top of the box, then a drawer to store pieces and a bunch of other games; I think there are 8 total. So this morning the kids and I sat down and played each game one time. Did you know that Crazy 8's is the dumbest game ever invented? I don't remember playing it as a kid, although I do remember having the cards. Now I know why we never played it. It doesn't even make sense--there is no way for the game to end except by a fluke; some bizarre twist of fate that could happen about as often as a heatwave in Greenland. I realized soon enough that the structure of the game made it nearly impossible for anyone to win (and thus, for the game to END), so we quit and moved along to the next one. All of the others were enjoyable. Except checkers. ~sigh~ Katie just can't seem to learn how to win gracefully. I'm not so great at it myself, but at least I don't burst into tears over it! Ha! She even tried really hard to buck up and deal with it today, but she just can't pull it off. She ended up in a little, quivering pile in my lap while I hugged her and laughed heartily and cried my own tears for a completely different reason. ;-) She is soooooo funny!
I looked up the Claymation Christmas special I used to watch when I was a kid (they have the entire thing on YouTube) and let the kids watch it while we ate lunch. They LOVED it! :-) I always loved it as a kid, too, but I don't remember laughing as hard as they laughed today, especially at this part...
Joe just about laughed himself off the chair. It was GREAT! :-) Sam and Katie especially like the camels on "We Three Kings." Mom, be sure to show this to Dad. I'm sure he'll enjoy it for old times' sake, if nothing else.
Then James printed out some Christmas worksheets for the kids to do for "school" today. Spelling sheets and math sheets and a creative writing assignment and who knows what all. They had to write a story on who stole the stripes from the candy canes and why. Katie's story was especially good, I thought!
I was able to grab a little nap this afternoon, so that was GREAT. We had a nice, relaxing evening after that. The biggest excitement of the day was the loss of Katie's tooth. She had been working on it for a while, then came to be begging me to please help her get it out because if it wasn't out by the time James got back from getting the mail HE was going to try to get it out. She HATES it when he works on her teeth! Ha! It really wasn't loose enough to be able to just grab and pull out like the others, but I played with it for a while and finally did the string thing. I've never actually used a string on a tooth before, mine or my children's, and I wasn't too sure what to expect. We didn't tie it to a doorknob or anything, I just made sure it was good and tight around her tooth and told her to tell me when and I'd give one mighty yank and see if we could get it out of there. She took so long before saying "ready" that I got all nervous and shaky by the time she was finally prepared! Ha! I worked up my nerve and gave one good tug and it popped right out! Wow! Who knew!? Anyway, here is the end result...
After dinner tonight we all loaded up and went to get Hershey some dog food (failed to noticed he was getting low when we went shopping the other day) and to look at Christmas lights. James stopped at the gas station and got hot chocolates for the kids and a cappaccino for me. Yum! We weren't all that successful at finding lights. There were some here and there, but being more in the country you just don't see the displays that you do in town, you know?! Oh well, it was fun anyway.
Came home and got the kids to bed, then I spent my evening finishing up on the laundry and doing all of the ironing. That means I didn't get anything done on the calendars tonight, but it just seemed like the right thing to do, you know?! Got to pace myself and stay on top of the house stuff or I'll be buried in it before I know it. After the ironing I went ahead and made the corn chowder that we'll be having for our Christmas Eve dinner tomorrow. We usually have clam chowder on Christmas Eve, but we've already had that three times recently so it seemed right to make an adjustment to the tradition this year. AND... Sister Galaviz is coming to join us! I'm so excited!!! I've got a few other things I need to make tomorrow in preparation for Christmas dinner and I need to mix up and chill the dough so we can make our traditional gingerbread men tomorrow night. :-) FUN!
1 comment:
What a GREAT Christmas Eve Eve. I hope you guys have a great day today and enjoy your guest. I'm hoping we'll have a guest or two. We'll see. --Gotta go make some Christmas cookies just in case.
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