Seems like I blinked and December was over. We've taken a bit of a break from working on the house and it has been so nice! I just wanted to enjoy the Christmas Season. Last year was such a fiasco I did NOT want a repeat of that. And so I didn't overplan, didn't commit ourselves to every party invite and didn't worry about the house being perfect! I just enjoyed being "us".
Last year during the Spring the girls and I were at JC Penny when we saw these sweatshirts on clearance. They were both under $4 a piece. I knew Kylies would fit her this winter but I warned Maddie the size 12 would be to small afterall you are 14 and wear some14/16 and womens small. Emily wasn't interested in it and Maddie didn't care. She said she'd wear it anyways. It would just be a 3/4 sleeve sweater and so it was! Anyways they were so excited when the temperatures finally dropped and they could wear their matching sweaters.
Uncle Rich has been sending us a Christmas Book every year since we lived in Arizona. It's a package the kids anxiously await for. It's something they know they can open that night and read as a family. I love our little Christmas Book tradition. All of our Christmas Books are wrapped and placed in a wire basket near the tree. Each night starting about the night we decorate the tree till Christmas the kiddo's get to pick one to open and we read it as a family.
I helped in Kylies Christmas Party at school. We got to decorate a gingerbread house.
Every month since school started Brayden has brought home a bag of groceries about once a month. After asking several questions and calling the school I discovered that these bags are from the Food Bank. The Food Bank comes once a month and the kids are given the opportunity to fill a bag full of food they like to bring home. Kory and I both have explained to him that this food is for kids who don't have food at home. Kids that don't have a mom or dad at home at night to fix them meals. It's for the kids that go without. Most of the food he brings home is stuff we don't eat anyways. It's canned ravioli, spagehettio's, chicken noodle soup, hamburger helper. Sometimes he's brought a box of cereal or two or a box of apple sauce squeezes. Last month was the 3rd bag he brought home. I got after him and told him to stop, no more! He's opened those cans of "nastiness" to eat them and doesn't like it. So it's fed to the chickens. Our family just isn't use to eating those kinds of things. So essentially he's wasting food that could have gone to another little boy or girl that may have gone without becuase he brought it home. After a long talk he said he wouldn't bring it home anymore. To my astonishment he got off the bus carrying another bag of food this month. What the heck? The second he got into the van he said, "Mom, don't get mad! I can explain!" And so he proceeds to tell me that the "man" giving away the food told everyone at school that he had lots and so he wanted one kid from every family to come get a bag. Brayden says, " So it's o.k that we aren't poor. We still get one." And so I start to repeat our conversation we've had several times now about how we don't eat that kind of food. It's still wasting it. Brayden pipes up and says, "You know....I'm just trying to help with the 2nd coming!". I'm like what???? He then tells me this food is for our food storage when it's the 2nd coming. It's for when I can't go buy fresh fruit and vegetables and feed our family. It's for when we have to eat out of our cans that we have downstairs. He's just helping supply those cans we'll need when the grocery stores are empty. "I'm just trying to help you Mom!" How the heck am I suppose to respond to that?
The youth in our ward was asked to help with the city's 1st Nativity this year. Not very many kids from the ward wanted to participate and so I forced my kids to do it. It will be good for them right?
Emily was an angel.
Maddie played Mary. Anthony Ballard from our ward was Joseph.
Hunter, reluctantly was a shepard.
They all did great, it was only one night. No one had to speak. They just followed the narrative that was playing in the background.
One tradition that the girls look forward to each year is helping with Kony Coins for Kids. In the past the boys have come along too. However, Hunter's church group had planned to go shooting that night. Kory had been invited to come along and was able to take Brayden. And so the girls went shopping and the boys went shooting.
The next morning the Maddie and Emily skipped school to help me wrap some of those gifts that had been purchased the night before.
They usually have their sign out front that say's Kony Coins for Kids but we couldn't find this year to take our picture in front of it.
We were still plenty busy this month even though we cut back and didn't attend every single function we were invited to. Hunter and Emily both had a orchestra concert on different nights and Maddie had a Jazz Band and her regular Band Christmas concerts on 2 different nights too. We also attended our Wards Christmas Party. All these events kept us plenty busy but we also had some awesome relaxing nights at home with just our little family. It's been a great month so far!
0 comments:
Post a Comment