December was an incredibly busy month. Every year I put a note in the Christmas decoration bin so that when I open it up next December, I will be reminded of things that worked and things that didn't work. A long-standing note that I continue to agree with every year is to not make Christmas cookies. I love baking, and bake all year long so for this chapter of my life, it just doesn't make sense to add that to our already full schedule. Someday I hope to bake more around the holidays, but I'm thinking it will be several years out still. We did manage to make meatballs in bulk on New Year's Eve for part of our New Year's Eve dinner, and I made chocolate chip cookie bars for Santa (a nice, quick and easy cookie as no time is spent forming cookies - you just pour it into the pan, bake and tastes exactly the same!) Will also surprised me one night and made rice crispy treats with the kids. I was busy making items to sell for the holidays for Harding Honey and so there was still plenty of time spent in the kitchen. We also got our annual order of a 1/4 of a cow delivered for our freezer and scrambled to make room for that. We know the farmer, and watch in amazement every year as this tiny woman backs up her trailer into our long driveway with no problem and hops out and lifts the heavy boxes like they are nothing. The first time the cattle trailer backed into our driveway, a neighbor came outside, worried that we were adding more livestock to our backyard. We watched this same neighbor get hooked up to city water and a new roof this past month, which provided lots of interesting things to watch outside of our windows.
Last year I wrote a note saying that it could be a good idea to take a longer break from homeschooling to be able to pull off all of the holiday traditions and festivities. I couldn't bring myself to get behind on our school schedule, but I did make sure to not include any new projects or introduce any new topics. I think next year I really do need to try and scale it back even more. Part of homeschooling is involving my kids in real life activities and being involved in gifts, cards, cooking and holiday parties IS learning. I did get creative to keep my exercise routine going despite our busy schedule though and I am continuing it now that the holidays are over - spelling, handwriting and some reading are the perfect topics to accomplish next to me while I am on the elliptical in our basement! AND - if you get up too early, as my kids tend to do - the new rule is we start school straight away. As you can see in the bottom left hand picture below, Violet yawning in the background while her sisters work on their school and I burn calories on the elliptical. One morning we finished school before breakfast so I treated them to breakfast at the cider mill (top middle picture). It was too cold to eat outside, so we enjoyed our cider and donuts in the car. In the top right hand picture below, the girls are enjoying art class and in the bottom right hand picture below, I am enjoying a hike with Violet and a friend while our kids were in a class at the nature center.
In the pictures below in clockwise order from top left: Lucy and a classmate doing yoga, Violet trying out a yoga pose at home, Lucy doing the same yoga pose at home, Emma doing a handstand at yoga, Lucy and Emma at art class, Lucy working hard on her print making during art class, a line up of the prints made in art class, some socializing after art class, and finally, Emma and a classmate doing yoga. Not pictured was time spent in swim class, dance class, catechism, vision therapy and piano lessons!
We saw lots of friends this past month, and in clockwise order from top left: a friend's birthday party, a winter solstice celebration that was an absolutely lovely way to begin our winter, friends taking a brownie break in between putting on a show for us, Lucy with friends after watching one of the sisters ice skate performance, Emma and Violet cuddling our friends' baby, a friend making us lunch, and finally, Lucy and Emma with a friend, watching the ice skating show.
Lucy and Emma had their holiday dance recital this past month, and danced to It's a Small World. They did an excellent job, and much fun was had by all. In clockwise order from top left below: Lucy, Emma and Violet with their babysitter who also danced in the recital, Lucy and Emma with their classmates before the recital, Lucy and Emma with their beloved dance teacher after the recital, Emma representing Egypt, Lucy and Emma's cheering team for the recital, and Lucy representing Spain. In the center pictures below are the girls coloring with the fellow dancers while waiting for their turn to go on stage, and Lucy and Emma with their friends who also danced in the recital.
We also enjoyed a St. Nick party at our church this past month which is always a good time. The girls get a chance to tell St. Nick what they would like for Christmas and Lucy told him a heart locket and a snow globe, Emma asked for a surprise, and Violet held tightly onto me while she bravely told him she would like a chocolate Santa. Violet is not a fan of Santa, and so we talked about our meeting him in advance, and she told me she wanted to tell him what she wanted for Christmas, but didn't want to sit on his lap. I agreed to hold her while she told him what she wanted. I was so proud of her bravery as she held tightly to me and spoke clearly to him.
I felt like we were barely home this past month, but when we were the girls enjoyed fort making and bead art.
There was of course plenty of Lego play, reading stories and general sister annoyances. In the center picture below, we drove to a family holiday party about 25 minutes away. When we arrived and I opened Lucy's car door, she had decorative tape all set up on her door and a mini craft studio going. I couldn't help but laugh, but geez - it took almost five minutes for her to clean up enough so that she could get out of the car. That sums Lucy up though - using every spare moment to let her creativity flow and her uncanny ability to make any little space her own.
Emma lost her first tooth this past month and was super excited until she realized that the gap left by the missing tooth was bleeding. She did NOT like that, and in the top, left hand picture below, Violet was just as disturbed. Once the bleeding stopped, Emma was all smiles though. In the top, right hand picture below is Emma at a hearing test. She needed a recheck from her five year well checkup and we finally got around to having it done. She passed no problem, which was great news. Our Emma seems to have entered a new phase of her personality though, and I swear it began when she lost her tooth. Our sweet and easy-going child has become somewhat of a trouble maker, and enjoys annoying her sisters for attention, not caring that it is negative attention. The bottom right hand picture below showcases the piece of gum she got in her hair and then made worse because she tried getting it out herself. I used peanut butter to get the gum out, but had to fight the urge to just cut off that piece of hair as earlier that same day...
...I was trying to get the girls ready for a mini holiday dance recital at our local senior citizen community center when I found a pile of hair in the garbage can in my office. I called all three girls into the office and asked whose hair it was. Lucy immediately started acting dramatic and shocked and so I pegged it for her right away. Emma stood there, saying nothing. Violet came in shortly after I was about to launch into Lucy about her being old enough to know better. Violet then announced, "It's ME HAIR!" Sure enough, there was the missing chunk on the side of her head. This made me so sad, as Violet is already hair challenged, and for that much to be just cut carelessly off, really made my heart sink. So I started lecturing Violet about how she is too young to use scissors and from here on out the scissors will be off-limits for her unless I am with her. I also reminded her that scissors are for paper and that only certain people are skilled enough to cut hair - and that does not include any of us! Flash forward a couple of hours, and I am showing a friend of mine the side of Violet's head while we wait for Lucy and Emma to come on stage for their dance recital. I told Violet, "Tell Ms. Bonnie what happened to your hair today." And Violet responded, "Emma cut my hair!" Picture me, seeing Emma's sweet, smiling face on stage moments later as I try to process exactly how and what will be done when she gets off that stage! To me, the worst part is that she had no remorse about her little sister taking the blame. We had a conversation about bravery, and how it is always better in the long run to be brave FIRST and to tell the truth, as scary as it can be. Emma's consequences lasted for several days and were much worse than if she had been brave FIRST.
My sister was in town from the east coast for the holidays, and got here in time to join us for our yearly tradition of decorating Luke's grave blanket. This year we made sleds out of Popsicle sticks.
The girls helped stuff, stamp, seal and mail our Christmas cards and we also continued a tradition we started last year of taking each sister out shopping individually to get gifts for the family. I had the fun and fortune of taking Lucy and Emma out and I loved seeing the differences of their shopping styles. When Emma and I went shopping, she had a plan and was a girl on a mission. Each time I paused from the mission to browse at something shiny that caught my eye she would tell me, "Mom, I can tell you are really in to that, but let's go!" A couple of days later, Lucy and I went shopping and I realized that Lucy and I shop the exact same way. We ran super late from too much browsing, and then had to go back out again another day as one of the places on our list closed before we got there. Shiny objects were our undoing apparently and we had no one to keep us on track!
Will took Violet shopping, and her style was that she picked out something for everyone, including herself. The best was when Will helped her wrap it, and she had him write on the gift, To Violet, From Violet. And man, did she love those chocolate whoppers she got herself! I did most of my shopping online, and was a little worried when all of the packages seemed to arrive on the exact same day. I thought it would be better to just let Will know (I was being brave!) in a text so that he wasn't so shocked (and I didn't have to feel like I was hiding anything) when he came home. What did spouses do before texting? It is such a great way to let someone in easy on a piece of news. Every year Will makes something with wood for the girls' Christmas present from him. This year he made doll high chairs and they turned out great. I sewed little cushions for the chairs as my contribution.
Lucy performed in our church's Christmas pageant and was so excited when she was given the role of Head Angel. Will and I had a laugh in the pew as we watched our girl smiling so big that it made the shepards around her uncomfortable. They kept stealing surprised glances at Lucy's big grin and Will and I pictured them wondering why someone would happily participate in this willingly, without the pressure of their moms making them. Our angel definitely shown brightly, and confirmed what Will and I have already suspected - she was made for the stage!
Later that day we went to my parents house where I discovered that my sister's text earlier in the week asking "can you do potatoes" meant, can you bring them to Christmas, and not, can you eat them. And so my parents frantically peeled up some potatoes they had on hand and I tried not to be too embarrassed as the memory of bring an empty pie shell to Thanksgiving was still weighing on me. We enjoyed Christmas with Will's family earlier that week as well as a Christmas party on my dad's side of the family where we lined up the great grandkids for a picture. We had lunch out with my brother after Christmas and then on New Years Eve enjoyed lunch with Will's dad's side of the family.
After our New Year's eve luncheon with family we headed home for our own little New Year's Eve party. We usually play games, watch a movie and have a picnic dinner of appetizers in the living room. Things started off great, as Violet even took a nap on the way home from the family luncheon party, buying us more time that evening of her being happy and not cranky. We had a lovely picnic and enjoyed a movie and then decided to bring Charlie in for a little bit before we played games. It was at this point that we realized Charlie had a wound on his shoulder and we needed to get him to the vet as soon as possible.
I spent the last couple of hours of 2016 with Charlie at the Emergency Vet in town and thankfully had my sister-in-law who is a vet in Florida on stand-by so that at least I knew the vet who looked to be no more than 18 years old was doing right by Charlie. He ended up needing extensive surgery as the wound was a cat bite and had festered and created an infection that wrapped around his shoulder muscle and went down into his leg. Thank God we got him in and they were able to fix him up. Our sweet and loving cat purred the entire time and was a very good patient. The ten days after when we had to lock him in the garage until the drainage tube, sutures and cone of shame came off of his head were another story though. He wanted out so badly and by the time the ten days were up, the upstairs of our garage only needed some strewn red solo cups to make you think a ten day frat party had just played out. Spilled liquids, dumped boxes and buckets, kitty litter everywhere... I would like to say some of the mess was because Charlie was clumsy with the cone on his head, but we could hear him throwing fits to get out whenever he heard us below him in the garage. We made sure to visit him often throughout the day, but as the days went on it became harder and harder to leave without him escaping.
2016 ended with a bang, that is for sure. Two days before Christmas, Will had taken one for the team when Violet got up before the sun and he took her shopping so the rest of us could sleep. I got a call around 8 am when his car wouldn't start and he and Violet were stranded in the grocery store parking lot. We picked them up and over $600 dollars and a couple of days later our car was fixed. Will also washed two weeks of dress clothes - which is all of the dress clothes that he owns - with two pens. He found a pen after he pulled them out of the washer and threw it in the garbage and then his unmarked clothes in the dryer. When the dryer had finished, he was shocked to see that some kind of twisted blue ink spin art had taken place and ALL of his clothes were covered in blue ink. There was a second pen in one of his pockets apparently and we found it broken and still leaking ink in the dryer. Thank God for Pinterest, as I found that rubbing alcohol takes ink out of fabric and then, thank God for Costco, as it took a full bottle of rubbing alcohol for each shirt and pair of pants to soak in for about a half hour. It worked, and it was under $4 for a pack of two bottles of rubbing alcohol which is cheap compared to buying an entirely new wardrobe. I was a little self-conscious when all six two-packs of rubbing alcohol were on the belt at Costco, but the cashier didn't seem phased.
2016 definitely did not go easy on us, but I will not say that it was a terrible year. How can I, when I got to celebrate my babies turning 8, 7, 5 and 2 while watching my three youngest children grow, learn, laugh and love? And I was able to spend another year of growing, loving and laughing with the love of my life, Will. My little family is so incredibly blessed and 2016 only served to bring us closer together and to help us not take a single day with each other for granted. Our lives are not perfect, and the challenges sometimes can seem so exhausting but there is always hope to be found and I have been given a life in which I can't help but be so very grateful. I can honestly say that there is no place I would rather be, and I am ready for 2017. Bring it on!
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