It's hard to believe how close we are getting to Christmas! And thankfully, I'm ready. Mostly. I just picked Seth up from school a little while ago; they had a 2 hour early release today, so it is officially Winter Break for him. But first...let's go back to last Friday.
Friday the 13th: When I left off last week, a friend of Seth's was coming over soon. Turned out his younger sister came too. Their mom was picking up a friend at the airport and the plane was delayed (no big surprise--it was super foggy that night!) so they were here until pretty late. I had them lie down and the little girl was sound asleep before her mom got home but the boy managed to stay awake (he was lying down quietly though). Before they had to lie down, though, they watched some television and Frank played Uno with all of them for a while. Plus, he made hot chocolate for them.
Meanwhile, I was addressing and stuffing Christmas cards the whole time and I managed to get the last one done right before their mom came to pick them up. So they went in the mail the next day...hooray!
Saturday the 14th: Frank went to supervise the cleaning of the church in the morning--thankfully, he got lots of help so he didn't have to do much and his back wasn't hurting the rest of the day. He ran errands and did some work for clients too. He put up the Christmas tree on Friday evening (right before the kids came over) and we discovered that two of the strands of lights don't work anymore. (It's a pre-lit tree). Oh well, we decided to make do with it for this year...it doesn't look too bad. What do you think?
Just a few dark spots! Maybe if we see one on sale after Christmas, we'll get a new one. Anyway, we didn't get it decorated on Friday night but we did that later on Saturday. Frank put the outside trees up too. Meanwhile, I invited my ministering companion over to make treats that we could take to the sisters on our ministering list. We had fun making and decorating cookies:
I had purchased some black and some gold gel frosting that week to try out, and she used the black to outline a lot of the cookies she was decorating. I never would have thought to do that, but they looked really good! Here's a bunch of photos of our masterpieces:
And here's one that Seth decorated:
After we finished with the cookies and decorated the tree, Frank and I took all the decoration boxes back to the storage unit and then went to look for a new tablet for me, since my tablet had bit the dust. I mean, actually it works fine unless I push the power button, but unfortunately I have to do that pretty frequently. It's five years old and almost out of storage space so we decided it was time for a new one. I ended up getting one that is a bit bigger than my old one; I would have preferred the same size but the larger one has 4 times the storage space so that won me over. It was also on sale and then when we went to buy it, Frank had them check to see how much store credit he has and since he's constantly buying stuff at this store for his clients, he had a lot of store credits. So it ended up costing less than $40 to get me a new tablet; I was happy about that!! (Can I just take a minute to take note of all the things that have been breaking around here lately? The ice maker {it's not working again and I've been buying bagged ice instead}, my tablet, Snickers's water bowl {it's a fountain type circulating water bowl--encourages him to drink and since it makes noise he can find it easier}, the lights on the Christmas tree, plus we just had to replace the tires on my car and one of the headlights on Frank's car...I'm
so grateful that at least the furnace wasn't truly broken and only needed servicing!)
I finished making the ornament that I had started in RS, and hung it on the tree. We have quite a few ornaments this year. Here they are:
It's a little blurry, but I got this one in Utah at Antelope Island. We didn't see any antelope on the island, but we did see some bison like this one!
This is one of the ones I made at the RS activity. And here's the other one:
Here it is on the tree, but it looks a totally different color because of the lights:
And last, because our year was dominated by weddings, I had to get something to represent that:
It's a little hard to see, but it's a wedding cake, and it says "2019" on that gold ribbon near the bottom. I added some details to the bottom:
Here it is in regular light; it's a little easier to see it:
Saturday wasn't over yet. I cleaned the kitchen floor and then spent a couple of hours going through medical receipts and submitting claims to get reimbursed from our flexible health spending account. These are all things that we should not have had to pay out of pocket, but we had to because there were so many problems with the account. By the time I was done with that, I was feeling super crabby! But we did get reimbursed close to $300 for medical stuff today so that makes it seem worth it. We're still having some dumb issues, but not as many.
Sunday the 15th: I had to be at church early for a last short song practice. Our ward had their big Christmas program a week early because most of our piano players are going to be gone this Sunday. Everything went well...all the music was beautiful!! I am happy it went so well and I'm even happier that I don't have to do that again for a year! I went to Sunday School for the first time in over a year; it was nice to go with Frank. One of my Primary class girls gave me a little plate of treats and a sweet card:
I love how she underlined "Christ" in Christmas both times, and it was so cute that she spelled the word "Primary" like "Primerry" instead! So sweet!! After church we were going to Skype with all the boys but Tanner fell asleep and Jared had to take Jessie to the doctor (pink eye) so we ended up Skyping with just Scott, which is funny because he's the one that calls us every week and we hardly ever hear from the other two. Scott was making us laugh, playing with filters:
That evening, I went to the "Washington DC Temple Choir" Christmas concert, which was at our stake center. I just loved it! All the music was so beautiful and it brought back so many good memories for me of both Christmas and of singing in choirs. They even had a small children's choir sing some of the songs with them which reminded me of singing in BYU Children's Chorus. When I was looking at the program, I noticed one of the tenors was a guy Frank used to work with at FSA, so afterwards I went looking for him. When he saw me, I was surprised that he almost immediately recognized me as "Frank's wife", and within a few seconds he came up with my name, too! He seemed kind of disappointed that Frank hadn't come with me.
Monday the 16th: It snowed in the night and since we were supposed to get freezing rain / sleet later in the day, school was cancelled.
I stayed home until late afternoon doing the usual stuff like laundry. I texted a couple of the sisters I minister to about bringing them the treats we made on Saturday. It turned out one of them needed someone to watch her daughter for about an hour, so she was really grateful I texted her just then. She brought her over and her daughter, who is 5, hung out with Seth and I for about an hour and a half. She was good, and Seth played really nicely with her too. By then, it was late afternoon and I had errands to run (put gas in my car, return books to the library, get a few groceries) so I got those things done. I also picked up my companion and we delivered some treats to one of the other sisters but she wasn't home. (She said we could bring them by, but then she ended up having to go somewhere.) I wanted my companion to meet her, since she hadn't met her yet, so that was disappointing but it turned out that later this week this sister needed a babysitter, so I connected her with my companion (who likes to babysit) so now they have met. For family night we got some donuts and watched "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" while enjoying the beauty of the Christmas tree. I love that show!
Tuesday the 17th: I worked on the tax course and did some more work with medical receipts in the morning, spent about an hour and a half wrapping presents in the afternoon, and did all the usual Tuesday chores in the evening. That hour and a half sitting / kneeling on the floor wrapping presents was not a good idea--my back was really hurting after that! I pretty much crashed and burned on exercising this week--only managed to do it twice--between waking up too late and my back hurting. Honestly, my back hurts almost all the time these days, especially in the morning. Frank and I keep talking about getting a new mattress--or at least a new mattress topper. We're hoping that will help (both him and me). I love getting old! I probably need to go back to physical therapy, or to a chiropractor.
Wednesday the 18th: My friend Wanda, who lives in a nursing home and is wheelchair bound, wanted to go shopping so another friend in the ward and I took her shopping on Wednesday. I can't take her by myself because I'm not strong enough to get her in and out of the car. I mean actually, she weighs more than I do so of course I can't do that. And having a bad back makes it even worse. I did wrestle her wheelchair in and out of my trunk, and that was almost too much for me. But anyway, we took her to Walmart and she got a few things she needed and also got all her Christmas shopping done, so she was happy about that and I'm glad we could help her. Then after taking her home and eating some lunch, I went back to Walmart to do my own shopping! Just groceries, but I had a long list. So I was pretty beat after all of that, but I still needed to make cookies that day, which I did after dinner.
Thursday the 19th: I spent the morning working on the tax course. Then I took Seth to his second counseling appointment, which went well. The counselor spent most of the time talking to Seth this time (which makes sense) so I was able to read scriptures while I was waiting. Seth got really upset on the way back to school because he thought he'd missed something important in his music class, but then it turns out he didn't miss anything. After the appointment I got regular chores done and wrapped a couple more presents that were delivered since my first wrapping session. That evening Frank and Seth went to see the new Star Wars movie. We are all going to see it tomorrow morning, actually...bought the tickets over a month ago...but then some friends in the ward had some tickets for last night and invited Frank to go. Then last minute they realized they had an extra ticket so they invited Seth to go too. They went to a 3D version but for some reason it wasn't working well so at the end they gave everybody free tickets! They still enjoyed the movie, though--it was just hard to watch. But they are under strict orders not to say anything about it until after I see it tomorrow! Meanwhile, I had Activity Days last night. We had a fun Christmas activity where we each shared favorite Christmas traditions from our families and then had treats. Many of the girls talked about traditions their families do from different countries. I told them about making paintbrush cookies, and I brought some to share (that's why I was making cookies on Wednesday evening). I also read them the story of Grandma and the Christmas Doll, which they all liked. After I got home, I worked on the tax course some more before Seth & Frank got home and we all went to bed.
Friday the 20th: Today Seth had to be to school early for a field trip. They went to see the movie Cats, and the show time was 9:00 which is the usual school start time. But of course they had to have time to get over to the theater and everything, so he had to be there at 8:15. Frank dropped him off on his way to work which was nice for me (especially since it was only about 19 degrees outside). After the movie, they all went to a pizza place. And since they got out of school 2 hours early today, that pretty much took up the whole day. Rough day, right??! (Btw, seeing the movie Cats was supposed to tie in with a poetry unit they've been working on.) Meanwhile, at home I got the budget done but that's about it. That's okay, though, because I don't have a huge list of things to get done anymore. All the cards and packages are mailed, all the presents are bought and wrapped, all the decorations are up, all the meals are planned, all the stocking stuff is ready, and most of the treats are made. I'm going to make some fudge either tomorrow or Monday, along with a few more cookies...but that's it! (And I did most of that in one week!) It's been nice to be a little less swamped this week, and to have some time to help other people instead of being self centered all the time. I have also really been enjoying the beauty of the Christmas decorations around the house, especially at night.
(It looks way better in real life than it does int he pictures.) I had to buy a bunch of those little white battery operated tea lights for Seth for a school project in October, so now I have a bunch of them and I put some out with the other decorations and I've been surprised how much they add to the overall atmosphere. (If you look closely, you can see a few little pricks of light in the photo above!)
We got this nice package of fruit and treats from one of Frank's clients on Tuesday:
They send us something similar every year and I was pleased that it wasn't all fruit because with only 3 of us here, we'd never eat it all. Then yesterday we got
another box from them, and this time it was pears, apples, and oranges!! Well, at least Santa doesn't need to buy fruit for the stockings now. And I just ate one of the oranges today and it was good. But we need to give some of it away because there's no way we're going to eat it all before it spoils. I hate to see food go to waste!
One more random photo...Snickers really likes the rug in our bathroom for some reason. He likes to scratch at it (he scratched a hole in the last one; I replaced it a month or two ago). Anyway, I found him in there the other day and he looked so satisfied that I laughed and had to take a picture!
Jared and Jessie will be landing here in Maryland in about an hour; we are excited to see them and glad they get to spend Christmas with us this year! They will be staying with Jessie's family this weekend but we will have them with us for Christmas Eve / Christmas morning (her family has a big dinner / get together in the evening on Christmas) and they will be staying here for a few nights after that too. Last year we only had Seth home, and that was okay, but we're glad to have a few more kids with us this year!
Everyone have a Merry Christmas!!
