December 7, 2020

(click here for today's pictures) 

• Today was a light day of school for everyone. I had assumed that the kids would be awake and ready to start, but instead they were all snoozing when I went upstairs to get them. That seems to be a pattern lately-I think they are already on Christmas vacation.
• We did our morning reading, and then the kids started on their school work. I will say that everyone was pleasantly pleased with their lack of school work on our easy day. The little three all had super fun and different math. Whitman begged me to find more for him. I would, but it was too easy-good for a break but not for everyday.
• After school, I ran a few errands to get a few things knocked off of the Christmas list. Then I hurried home to do Bible study with the littles and then to take Reagan for her driving test. We practiced some and parked...
• Then we went in only to find out that I had the wrong date. Ugh, how disappointing. I quickly found another appointment on my phone for Wednesday. I am not sure how was more disappointed Reagan or me. 
• We did run to Walmart on the way home and I bought her a box of candy canes which made up for my mistake-well, kind of! Then we did some parking practice near the house before going home. 
• Once at home, it was soon time for supper. I worked on camper food for this next week while Robby worked on supper-pancakes and sausage. After we had finished supper, we did some of our Santa pulling and ornament guessing. 
• I did a bit of wrapping tonight, followed by smoking Whitman, Keaton and Campbell at a game of Ticket to Ride New York. Then there was blog writing and even some camper packing.

Christmas Ornament Countdown 2020: 18 Days Until Christmas

2020 was supposed to be our Year of Disney. Robby had dreamed of being Disney World passholders for years, and this was finally the year. Now then silly Covid happened. We debated for weeks and possibly months trying to decide what to do with our passes-go back to Disney despite the madness, new rules and scale backs at the park or to cash in our passes for an unknown refund. We eventually chose the refund and were pleased with the amount.

However, we are still a bit bummed about not being able to celebrate this year with lots of trips to Disney. Despite us missing out on quite a few trips to Florida, we don't have too much to complain about because we were able to visit the parks 44 times with our passes. Here is the first day of our month long trip this February. 

December 6, 2020

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• Sunday morning an when I tried to wake everyone up, I didn't get very far at all. I took my shower while Robby went back up to try again to wake up the kids-this time Anderson was the only one awake. It took a while but we finally did get the crew moving for church.
• Near the end of church, Whitman asked me if this was all or if there was more. He wasn't sure if we were having Sunday school or not. Unfortunately, we aren't having Sunday school right now. 
• We had lunch at Grannymom's house and celebrated Dana's birthday. Dana picked Mexican and apple dumplings for her meal of choice-this is also my favorite meal so that made me supper happy. 
• The kids played kick ball after we ate, which was good since we were in the car for a little bit before making it to Grannymom's house. Robby dropped me off at Walmart and Sams while he ran by Target, Kohls and Kroger. We were rocking the errands this morning.
• After lunch, Reagan and I headed to practice her driving a little bit more. Her test is tomorrow-fingers crossed that she does fine! When we came home, I helped her with her essay before taking a bit of a nap.
• I also found some time to move the table of my grandpa's into the house. It is grey, and I love the way it looks-though I don't necessarily love where it is in the house!
• Some of the kids and I played a game this evening before the Wilsons came over to eat. The meal would have been easy to cook if my oven worked-it has been acting up and yesterday was probably the last good cooking day-Robby had to use the broiler to heat our pizza, but today we had to use the toaster oven since the real oven said it was at 390 but was cool enough that I could grab the pans with my bare hands. No oven for me for Christmas! I refuse that gift.

Christmas Ornament Countdown 2020: 19 Days Until Christmas

Well, I found this ornament in a pile of Nonna's garage sale stuff. No, she wasn't selling my ornaments, she was cleaning out and getting rid of a few things-an old tin cup with a picture on it. It was a cup from the Bonanza ranch in Nevada. The ranch has since closed, but I do remember the huge breakfast that we had there. Now, I have never seen the show Bonanza, but the ranch was still pretty. 

We had only been married for 2 years when we went on this trip, so I probably wasn't into collecting ornaments like we have been recently. If I had been, I would have taken one of those cups and hung it on my tree 18 years ago. Better late than never! Here is the link to that trip's entire post.

December 5, 2020

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• This seems to have been a pretty busy Saturday around here. Even though I slept a bit late, mission control was going strong upstairs-mission control is my new nickname for the boys room. Devices, tvs, controllers are everywhere in their room so they were going strong with Eli playing along early this morning.
• Whitman slept in our room last night, so we pulled him into our bed for a bit when he finally did wake up. Usually in the mornings, the big boys are playing their devices in the dark room while Whitman still snoozes away. I guess it was quieter in our room so Whitman could sleep longer.
• The first big even of the morning was Reagan driving Keaton and I to Sams to pick up a present. Then we ran through Walmart grabbing things that we needed. I really should try to work on Christmas shopping all year long-that would be less overwhelming for me and a lot less overwhelming for Robby and his pocketbook.
• We made it home in time to watch the rest of the ball game. It didn't end the way that Robby wanted, but during it I sat down for a little bit, napped for a little bit and even did some work around the house.
• I slowly got things ready for the party today, but also worked on painting my table along with wrapping presents-which I would like to be completely finished with my Tuesday night (ha! ha!)
• Anderson and Graham left right when the Hogs started their game to go to the Bryant game. They enjoyed that-even ate a ChickFilA and hung out at Harrison's house for a little bit.
• They showed back up in time for a little Christmas party tonight. Campbell had invited some of her friends to come over to celebrate the holidays. They played our game of Telestrations, ate pizza, made cakes in mugs, played dirty Santa, and ate popcorn with lots of toppings. 
• I think that everyone had lots of fun-I know that I enjoyed seeing all of the kids hanging with their friends. After everyone left, we took a few folks home and then came home to clean...we had asked everyone that was still at home (Whitman, Keaton, Anderson and Reagan) to do a little bit of cleaning while we were gone and they really did a great job-we just had to work a little bit and the house was back to normal!

Christmas Ornament Countdown 2020: 20 Days until Christmas

This ornament doesn't have a official blog to go along with it, but it already has a lot of memories attached with it, plus I know that there will be many more memories to go along with this ornament. My folks saw this ornament on one of their trips and knew that we needed it. The ornament reads Happy Camper and is hanging proudly on the tree this year. Here is the post of the day that we bought the camper.

December 4, 2020

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• I am so tired tonight that during my Hallmark movie I had to pause it so I could take a little nap....I'll try to stay awake as I write this blog.
• The day was fairly light-and wonderful. I started the day with dishes and then with taking a load of groceries and presents to Nonna and Pops. 
• They needed the groceries and then I needed to get the presents out of my attic. For some reason, my nice straight attic that I used to could lay down to take a nap in has become a horrible hazard. Some of the problems are the presents, but some of it is just life is collecting in that attic. Robby said tonight that we needed to have an intervention in that attic-after Christmas it will be high on the list.
• Soon I was at home waiting on the other half of my groceries to arrive. It took most of us to put away all of the groceries-when we have a delivery order we always make sure that we buy the huge things. Cases of water and 2 Liters of cokes were on the list today-that delivery man probably wondered why this house needed 20 2 Liters, but now I don't have to cart them out of the store for a long, long time.
• The kids and I worked together before it was time to get ready for the Sugar Club. Keaton and Campbell have been so excited about the Sugar Club coming over. Today, they made apple crisp to give to their parents, pumpkin bread and banana muffins to pass out....except I left out an ingredient in the bread so they weren't edible! Ha! 
• That was fine because the girls had a great time playing, baking and then passing out the muffins. We were able to drop things off at the Fergusons, her brothers, Nonna and Pops', and their neighbors house.
• After delivering all of our goodies, I dropped everyone off. Meanwhile, Robby and Anderson went to pick up Eli and pizza. When we came home, we ate and then the boys migrated upstairs to play on their xboxes.
• And that is about when we turned on the Hallmark movie. Now, in my sleepy defense, I did look over and see that Robby was taking a nap so I thought that I might as well too!