Christmas 2017: a lot more barf than I imagined

Well we survived it. I might have high-fived it... on its way out the door. That was a doozy. We surprised the kids with a visit from our friends from Minnesota. But before that I surprised the kids with a lot of cleaning because HOLY MOLY WE LIVE IN FILTH. Mostly because no one ever remembers to flush the toilet but also maybe because I can't stay caught up on laundry to save my life. So we cleaned and then our friends arrived. We played and played and played.

Hank snuggled Monica like he's never snuggled me!

Will caught Beau up on the latest happenings since we last saw each other in MN

We got everyone fed, bathed, and in bed. No small feat when there are 8 children and only two adults. That night though, things started to go downhill. Monica's oldest son was complaining of a tummy ache. He stood up from the sofa and started barfing. I instinctively grabbed a bag and ran towards it. (They say that's when you know you're a mom- when you run towards the barf instead of away from it. Almost like a firefighter runs towards the flames, police run towards the danger, soldiers run towards the battle. Like that but just way less heroic. The only thing at stake here was my carpet. So, still important to me obviously.) Anyways, as he's barfing (and hitting my arms more than the bag), I see a giant SPIDER out of the corner of my eye. I yell for Monica's nephew (12yo) to kill it. Except 12yo's are very literal and I didn't want him to smash it with his hand and possibly get bit. So I told him to kill it! But with a diaper! Or something! Anything! He threw the diaper at it. I seriously just started laughing. Covered in puke and now a killer spider is loose in my house. Merry Christmas. Can I tap out now? But just you wait, there was more fun to be had. A lot more fun. And when I say fun I think you all know by now that I mean barf.

Since our entire street has had this stomach bug for a hot minute now, we knew it would be a 12-24 hour deal. Luckily it was closer to 12 and everyone was playing nicely and vom-free the next day. We kept most of the activities outside since I feel better about fresh air and germs mixing.

Monica's truck proved to be a very effective, very expensive play pen

Watching a Christmas movie with Willie and his little crossed legs kill me

We had some really nice weather while they were in town, and one day we even let the kids go barefoot. They literally played outside all day long, and they all mixed well with the neighbor friends too. It was like a big ol' block party outside every day.

I tell you what, feeding eight children has completely turned me off to having eight children. Not that I was ever really considering it but holy cow. #1 we'd be completely broke. #2 that is a lot of work. #3 that is an impressive mess three times a day.

Molly has been d-y-i-n-gggggggg for the neighbor down the street to come over and bake Christmas cookies with her. Well the stars finally aligned and they made some sugar cookies. No one was more disappointed than Molly to learn that the dough has to harden for a few hours, but in the meantime they made a loaf of banana bread. And it was instantly devoured upon its exit from the oven.

So it turns out my oven cooks very unevenly

my little babushka

At some point, it started getting chilly. Of course, anything below 65* and we are all complaining of the cold, so I can't remember when we all started worrying about our impending frostbite, but it was probably premature. It didn't even seem to help when Monica's neighbors would text her weather updates from MN. "-34*? Shoot, it's 56* here but I swear it feels colder than MN."

All of these pictures are probably out of order. We pretty much did the same thing all week- make a crap ton of food, disperse food to hungry natives, throw clothes at children, shoo them outside, hours of playtime, inside for more food, prison baths, bed. Those kids played so hard and slept so well.

Rick arrived the night of the 23rd and was greeted with much enthusiasm.

Christmas Eve mood

Around 4am on Christmas Eve, I heard Molly bumping around in the hallway and finally came into my room. I was crossing my fingers and toes she was about to tell me just had a bad dream..... but instead, she had barfed all over her bedroom door and carpet. Lovely. We cleaned up the carpet and Molly and got her situated on the floor in the room with Hank and me. She threw up randomly for the rest of the morning. When I opened the bedroom door at 6, I was staring at Sam on the toilet (because why shut the door amiright) and he clutched his belly and said, "ohhhh I have diarrhea." Yayyyyyyy

He's like me and you can basically mind trick him into never throwing up, so luckily his illness began and ended with the diarrhea. Will "slept in" that morning (and by slept in I mean I sorta forgot about him and suddenly realized it was 8am and we were missing someone). I was terrified as to what I'd find behind his bedroom door. Surely it wouldn't hit all my children at once.... But surely it did. Will had not only puked at some point in the night, but he'd rolled over and gone back to sleep in it. (Molly used to do the same thing. Be right back, gagging at the memory.) AND he pooped! So that was a fun morning. I showered him and then started in on the cleanup and sanitizing process. I was suddenly grateful that we had fed the kids corndogs the night before and not tomato soup, like we originally planned. Cleanup would have looked a lot different. Luckily it seemed to be a one and done sort of thing. Will acted like nothing had ever happened and literally ate from the moment he got out of the shower until he went to bed. Molly lazed on the couch but I don't think that was so much her feeling bad as it was her milking the situation to watch tv. Whatever. The rest of us were outside and it was nice to not have to deal with that every 24 seconds.

So the worst had passed! Yay! We were done with the sickness. Until Rick came downstairs Christmas morning and told me that Monica had been up puking all night. Luckily she's a champ and the show went on, even though I'm sure she would have much rather been in bed all day sleeping it off!

Christmas breakfast (or snack, according to how you look at it)

I actually facetimed Steve while the kids were opening presents, so I don't have pictures of any of it. But they loved their new things, and they loved their friends' new things too, as evidenced by Will claiming most (if not all) of Beau's new cars.

We turned the kids loose outside after that because the neighbors were already out playing with their toys, and Santa was easily 10x more generous there than at our house. We also focused solely on outdoor toys this year since Louisiana livin' allows us to live outside 90% of the year. Thankfully our neighbors did too and got some fun stuff! (Like that roller coaster- Will is obsessed! Terrified me the first time he went down and hit that curb, but he loved it!!!)

Also not our toys

This one's mine

Hard at work on the new art set

We had minimal injuries Christmas Day, which was pretty much miraculous. Our neighbors got some of those bubble suits that you run into each other with, and between the crusty old mailboxes and the random (nonworking) light pole in the grassy area of our circle, I was almost certain we'd have to make at least one run to the ER. The worst to happen was Sam's chin made contact with the neighbor's tooth. Slight mark and bruising but nothing serious. We stayed outside all. day. long. We even skipped lunch. Will skipped his nap. It was insane. Around 2:30 I thought, oh haha I will go make some dip to bring out, and while I'm in there I guess I'll check and see how long I need to cook the ham for. It's been a few years since I've made one. Well the correct answer was RIGHTTHISSECOND so I ended up not going back outside and stayed in the kitchen to cook for the rest of the day.

Cooking would have not been remotely possible without all the extra hands to hold babies and referee big kids.

Oh my baby's first Christmas! Time, slow down! What's even scarier is that he is wearing the outfit Will wore last Christmas! (Size 18 months was only slightly baggy on him...) As happy as he looks, he noticed that I neglected to hold him myself the majority of the day and punished me that night. I remember stupidly thinking, wouldn't it be nice if he slept til 3:30 in the morning? Then I could get a solid 4-5 hours. But then ten minutes after I crawled into bed he coughed and woke himself up and ended up being awake UNTIL 3:30 in the morning, so joke's on me. I'll never wish for anything like sleep ever again.

This is what 7 years of no sleep looks like, folks. And my Christmas day sunburn.

Christmas Day was Will's last day of being 1. It snuck up on me so fast. I was still telling people he was "18 months"! (To be fair, I can't keep track and basically say "18 months" the day after they turn 1 until the day they turn 2. I like to ballpark it.) I seriously (SERIOUSLY) debated holding off on celebrating his birthday on another day. I was so tired. SO TIRED. But as I was showering that night, I realized that mothering is MY JOB and even though society tells us that the holidays are for "slowing down" and "vacation", it's like the Super Bowl in my line of work. So much cooking and cleaning and activities and laundry and celebrations and god forbid we don't make some mutherfuggin gingerbread houses and throw a birthday in there too (in addition to Baby J's birthday, of course) and it's pure madness. I did not want to skip one of my children's birthdays. Or postpone it. I needed to just suck it up and DO IT. So I finished showering and went and laid everything out for the traditional birthday waffle stack the next morning. Changed out the Merry Christmas banner to the Happy Birthday banner. Dug out the #2 candle I miraculously remembered to buy a week or two prior. Looked around at the destruction and called it a night.

Worth it. (It always is.)

It was super rainy and freezing cold that morning, and our friends were headed onto greener pastures. Or at least warmer temperatures. Florida, specifically. So we said see ya later, and stayed in our pj's all day. We watched Thomas and opened a few gifts, made a cake, and had hotdogs for dinner.

Oh my goodness this handsome devil

We changed into fresh pj's before heading to bed. And I attempted one more picture of my newly minted two year old.

He was too far gone with his choo choos though and couldn't be bothered. I love that boy so much I could burst.

After getting the kids in bed, I reheated some of the Christmas dinner leftovers and instantly regretted it all. Then I went to bed and prayed Hank would let me sleep a few hours. Then suddenly, at 1am, I woke up. Not to a crying baby. But to a gurgling stomach. And the only thing I could see in my mind was someone turning ham with a spoon. And let me tell you, when your stomach has ham in it, and it's gurgling, the last thing you want to do is picture more ham. And for it to be moving. Sadly, despite disinfecting everything in between making a cake and catching up on laundry and birthday fun, I contracted the dreaded stomach bug. I sat in the bathroom and attempted to talk myself out of throwing up. I can't. I hate it so much. There is no one here to rub my back. Or take care of the kids. Or listen to me whine. But then I threw up anyway. Hank was screaming by that point. I cleaned myself up and mixed a bottle. I can sleep when I'm dead, right?

A careless Christmas

Christmas is almost here! I am in shock and disbelief! I've had my shopping done for quite a while now. All thanks to the almighty Amazon Prime of course, and other online retailers. We haven't done too many Christmas-y things this year, mostly because the nap schedule reigns supreme but also because lugging these kids somewhere by myself is not all that appealing to me. And as selfish as that sounds, I am fully in this self preservation mode right now. My kids would almost always rather go outside and play with their friends or watch a Christmas movie before bed, so I decided I'm going to indulge their simple wishes and do exactly that. No need to ruin the bedtime schedule because we *need* to go look at a Christmas light display two hours from here. Or even 30 minutes from here. It's a shame there's nothing actually here. Ha! But who cares. Certainly not my kids. And I think we all know that I don't care. So there we have it. A careless Christmas.

A much more accurate representation of the Christmas spirit here this year

Will doesn't say very much (although he has begun randomly babbling a lot more lately) but whenever he sees a Santa, he will say "ho ho ho" and point. Between that, yelling "Daddy" every time he sees a photo of Steve, and obsessing over "choo choos", he is basically the cutest thing ever.

Molly is dying to make some Christmas cookies and I have been fortunate enough to outsource this task to an 11yo girl down the street whose mother also has no interest in baking. The cookie baking event was supposed to happen this past weekend. I made a comment about it raining on Saturday and the neighbor girl could come over then and bake. Molly was fixated on the fact that it needed to be raining in order for the cookies to happen. So she obsessively asked me for a weather update every 4.5 minutes all weekend long. Fortunately/unfortunately (?), it only rained one night while we were all sleeping and Molly was devastated. "He tricked me! The weather man tricked me! He said it was going to rain and it didn't!!" I reminded her that baking cookies was not a weather-dependent activity and our neighbor could come over whenever to do it. We just took advantage of the nice weather and played outside all weekend instead. Since the kids only go to school three days this week (kill me now), I figure they can bake after school or on one of their days off. Molly is scheduled to sort cookie cutters this afternoon. Will keep you all posted of our weather and cookie situation of course.

This past Sunday morning, I got to talking on the phone for too long with a friend and lost all track of time. Before I knew it, it was time to get everyone dressed and ready for Sunday school. Since this was the last Sunday school for the year, I had teacher gifts for the kids to give their teachers and helpers. Except I suddenly remembered that I never finished making them. So I was slinging clothes and trying to punch a hole in a card (ripped the entire paper) and Will pooped and Hank was screaming and Molly was trying to get the markers to color with and I slung those on top of the fridge because ABSOLUTELY NOT and knocked a bottle of bitters off the top, lid broke, bitters spilled, 50 markers came flying down too, and teacher gifts were still not finished. I lost my cool, y'all. Lost it. I decided to leave the markers and the spills on the floor and exit the house with the hastily put together teacher gifts in tow. We arrived to the church three minutes late. But as soon as we pulled up, I had a sinking feeling that Sunday school was cancelled. I knew for a fact that it was scheduled for that day (because I copied the schedule on the calendar, yo) but there were almost no cars in the parking lot. So we walked inside and sure enough, Sam's teacher was there and said that since only three teachers showed up, and not many kids, they decided to cancel it. I pretended like the man didn't just rip my heart out and stomp on it as we handed him the crappy gifts and wished him a merry Christmas. Sam excitedly said, "I guess this means we get to go to the commissary WITH you today huh!" Spirit = crushed. My grocery list was ridiculously long. I debated just waiting until Monday to do the shopping so that I'd only have the two little ones, but then realized that the commissary is closed on Mondays and there was no way our banana situation would hold out til Tuesday, so DUN DUN DUN..... we all went. And while it wasn't as bad as I initially anticipated, it was still mighty painful. An hour and a half... I feel like the first hour was spent impatiently waiting for the deli lady to slice 600lbs of meat for a single male. I'm not saying I wished listeria on this man but I did have plenty of unchristianlike thoughts towards him while waiting. We finally made it home and naptime was almost too far gone. I did trick Hank into a milk coma long enough so that I could down some wine and half a box of cheezits (omg cheezits and red wine make my heart sing). The big two and I colored with markers on our Christmas coloring sheet and listened to Christmas music and it was relaxing and fun (thank you, wine). A nice contrast to the beginning of the day. After naps we all went outside and the kids ran wild til dinnertime.

Speaking of Christmas things, I hung up lights and bought two (super cheap) inflatables for the outside of our house since Will is obsessed and I will forever feel guilt that he is slighted by having a birthday the day after Christmas. Anyway. So everything looks great, the kids love the decorations and we are very festive. Fast forward to one week of these decorations being outside and it rains overnight. Rewind to the last time it rained and my entire front yard basically turns into a swamp. I woke up and all of the extension cords were underwater and nothing was on. UGH. So I unplugged everything and took the inflatables into the garage to plug them in and see if they still worked. They did not. Defeated, I threw them in the trash can and cut my losses. I didn't take the lights down yet because, well, that's a lot of work, and I guess secretly I was hoping for some sort of miracle to take place and for them to light back up. Since that never happened, I looked at Christmas lights at Walmart one day and saw that they were $2 a strand. I knew I needed two strands and figured we could put the $4 towards some Christmas cheer. I got home and that afternoon, went to go test the new strands and see which outlets were still in working order. The outlet outside our front door (where everything had previously been plugged in) was completely dead. I'm not sure why this surprised me at all, but it did. So I thought, hmmm, well, I guess I could put the lights up in the opposite direction and run the extension cord into the garage and have the lights plugged into the same outlet as the deep freezer. It will be somewhat ugly but at least we'll have Christmas lights! So I went to plug the lights into the freezer outlet in the garage and they didn't turn on. I felt physically ill. I opened the deep freezer. No light. No chill. The m*&^%f*&^#@% underwater extension cords must have blown out both outside outlets somehow. Maybe they are connected- IDK I AM NO ELECTRICIAN. So instead of stringing up the new lights, I instead chucked all the food (and breastmilk! WOE) from the deep freezer into the garbage can. As I'm tossing the rotted food into the garbage can I realize that the two inflatables I chucked in the can last week were probably PERFECTLY FINE but since I plugged them into a dead outlet, were now headed towards the landfill. Merry Christmas. Holy shit. I'm done. (Send Cheezits)

Oh but wait, I have to tell you about my Christmas card debacle.  Almost forgot! I have designed our Christmas cards for the last few years and it's something I absolutely love doing, even though it stresses me out in the most manic way possible. I have had this guy in PA print them for me because he is crazy cheap, he resizes everything so that it fits perfectly, and his turnaround time cannot be beat. So I emailed him to see if he might be willing to print and ship them to me. He never responded. I thought, no matter, I can do this myself. Order cardstock and envelopes off Amazon, design infographic, request photo from Steve. I figured the kids and I had plenty of time to get a photo of ourselves for the card. No rush. Well the days drag on and one Saturday morning I got a little nuts and decided the photo needed to happen RIGHT THEN. The anxiety I had from these cards not even being halfway completed was making me crazy. So I got all the kids clothes together and told them they could all have a lollipop if they would just smile or look in the general vicinity of the camera for 30 seconds. We were going to do it behind our house. I just needed a neighbor to come push the button. So I called my nextdoor neighbor. She had just left. I called my neighbor down the street. She was out til that evening. Other neighbors were at sports games or not home and I thought, Hmm maybe this is God's way of telling me that I don't need to do Christmas cards this year. Maybe it's just too much. Maybe taking a break would make me feel better.
Then I remembered that Christmas cards are one of the very few traditions I've completed every year since Steve and I have been married and DON'T BE A LOSER AND BREAK THIS TRADITION!!! So the next weekend, it snowed. Snow! In Louisiana. I knew all my neighbors were stuck at home so I took full advantage of that and dressed the kids as quickly as I could. I threw on my dress (from China- holy hell it was way shorter than I was aware of.... must buy full length mirror at some point) and my neighbor's boots and ran behind our house. Set up the tripod and made sure the settings were just right. She clicked a few times and I thought, eh, as long as everyone is in the shot,  it should be fine. And that's about all we got. We also got this gem....

Molly has this thing where she uses her middle fingers for everything. She points with them and randomly has them out. I don't dare tell her not to do it because it's naughty because I think that would almost make it attractive and desirable to her, but I just ask her, "is that your pointer finger? No? Ok lets make sure we use the right one then," and she always adjusts to her actual pointer finger. This one didn't make the cut for Christmas cards (and our actual Christmas card isn't zoomed in like this photo) and it's pretty meh, but whatever. IT'S DONE. So I thought, ok I will print the infographics out, then get our Christmas photos printed at Walgreens, tape them to the back of the cardstock, and mail these babies out!! Got the photos from Walgreens and they were absolutely awful. Oh the color was terrible! The snow was yellowed! Then my printer ran out of ink after printing five cards. More ink was going to be about fifty bucks, the awful pictures from Walgreens were $25... the whole reason I started out designing our own cards was to make it more affordable!!! What a nightmare. I called Walgreens and asked if I could return the photos because they were hideous. Walgreens agreed. I cancelled my order with Amazon for more ink. I placed an order with Amazon for a generic holiday card (60% off) and paid $32 for 100 of them. I breathed with a bit of relief knowing that the card situation was going to look better and not break the bank, although pretty disappointed that I spent time making that stupid infographic for nothing. I death marched all the kids up the hill to mail the cards and check the mail on Saturday... only we got all the way up to the mailboxes and I realized I left the Christmas cards sitting on the kitchen counter. You win some and you lose some.....

Anyways, the Christmas cards were mailed this morning and I tell myself I will have a better handle on it next year. Probably won't design my own ever again, but at least I will have them mailed out by a respectable date. So if you get a card from me this year, now you know the backstory. Womp womp. MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM HELL! Where's the tylenol?

December, darling

New month! Yeah! Sam ceremoniously ripped the jam packed November sheet off the calendar this morning in his underwear, revealing a clean month of December. Except that one little reminder that Steve wrote me at the first of every month to change the air filter. %$&*! They could not have jammed our air unit in a more bizarre location, making changing the air filter damn near impossible. But I wrangled that thing in there this morning and got 'er dun.

I'm so happy that it's Friday, because although the weekends are usually more work, at least we don't have to be out past bedtime at some mandatory function. I think that is what I dread most during the week- the nights where Sam's football games and AWANA keep us out past our normal bedtime hours. Then I race home lickety-split trying to get the overtired baby to sleep while also trying to keep disgustingly dirty Will from touching every clean thing in the house before I can bathe him.

This was after one of Sam's practices- there is a playground at the ball fields and Will and Molly spend their time playing there while Sam practices. Which is great! They love it. I love that they're entertained and burning energy. What I don't love is the thick layer of black sludge covering the entire play structure. Because my kids come home covered in it. And while it washes off relatively easy, it's still gross. Will has it on his face here because the slides are just about six inches too tall for him to put his feet down when he gets off, so he has to do a little jump. And sometimes he gets a little top heavy and catches his fall with his face. These things happen. Luckily it doesn't seem to phase him and he gets right back up and keeps playing, blissfully unaware of how nasty he is. Last night as I peeled off his clothes before putting him in the tub I realized he had sock lines. His little feet were perfectly peach compared to his blackened legs.

Eh, that came out blurrier than I remembered but you get the gist. That dirty boy earns his bath every single night.

And sometimes before lunch too.

Before Thanksgiving "break" I made one final stop at the commissary to stock the pantry in preparation of feeding my kids like the starving monkeys they are for nine days straight. I would do almost anything to avoid the commi the week of Thanksgiving anyway, but taking all four of them during that mad rush seemed beyond the scope of my current level of sanity. So we went about two weeks until I summoned the courage (and ate the last egg) to go again. The boys were troopers and we got everything on our list after a full hour of shopping. As I pushed towards the checkout line, a worker came up to me and said that the card machines were down and they were only accepting cash at this time. The look I gave her....... it was shameful. And I know it's not her fault, but the card machines at this place crash daily it seems. And they make no effort to let anyone know until after they've loaded a cart full of groceries. What they want you to do is leave your cart, hope no one takes it, load your kids into the car, drive to the bank, withdraw money, unload you kids back out of the car, go back inside, check out and pay with cash. What I did: stood in line until they fixed the damn machine because ain't nobody got the sanity fo' all that! Luckily it was a quick fix and I was able to check out with my card because I don't often keep $150 in my wallet... (and by not often I mean absolutely never) so PRAISE JESUS. They are starting to make the local Walmart look desirable and that's no easy feat. Get it together, commissary!!

The weather has been extraordinarily nice out lately, like to the point where I might cry the day my children come home with homework because it's so much nicer to sit outside and play than to go inside and work. Gonna need an actual adult around here once homework season starts. Because I tend to justify the kids' need to play after being inside at school all day. Like the big kid that I am. We got some new neighbors down the street that have four children with similar ages and they love playing together, so the circle has only gotten even more fun lately. More kids, more sports, more toys strewn about- I could not be happier sitting in the 75* sunshine watching it all and bouncing that happy baby on my lap. (Well, I suppose I could be lots happier if Steve were sitting next to me, possibly holding the bouncing baby in his lap. But you get what I'm conveying here.)

It's RED Friday here, friends are coming over to play after school to add to the circle madness, pizza night, we will FINALLY (according to Molly) get to watch a Christmas movie, and maybe by some miraculous miracle, they will cancel Sam's flag football game on Saturday. Kidding...... (not really kidding). Happy December, folks! I'm looking forward to the end of 2017 while also not even believing that it's possible for this year to be almost over!

No shit November

Hiya friends,
Just finishing up Hell Week here aka nine straight days of fall "break." I don't ever remember getting that much time off as a child but the memory is a funny thing. Like I'm choosing to forget that Christmas break is twice as long as fall break. LALALALALALALALA We will cross that bridge when we come to it!!

We had a decent Thanksgiving. We had some plans with visiting friends fall through so we found ourselves on Thanksgiving with nothing to do. No turkey and no expectations. I'll admit, I was really bummed our friends couldn't make it. I was also really excited to not have the pressure of cooking and cleaning and wrangling kids. We were invited to a few friends' houses for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, but we opted out. My kids are heathens that might not even try a roll and I didn't want to deal with the headache of them being picky and obnoxious at someone else's house. So we didn't go anywhere. We watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade on tv that morning, facetimed with Steve, had lunch and put the small ones to bed, then played outside til dark.

Gahhhhh I miss this man!

Quite possibly my favorite onesie ever

It was then that I fired up the ol' electric oven and boiled some turkey dogs and cooked some oven fries. I dumped sweet potato chips in a casserole dish and sprinkled with marshmallows that were dangerously close to expiring. Rounded out the meal with some strawberry jello (that I poured into a can to give the look of cranberry sauce), snap pea crisps, and some rice krispy turkey legs/wings, and the kids thought it was fabulous. Some did not appreciate the jello so much (Will, my carpet) but everyone went nuts over the hot dogs so mission accomplished. I also had Thanksgiving paper plates! So clean up for Thanksgiving was at an all time low.

Meanwhile, both of my next door neighbors brought me plates (and plates and bowls and plates) of traditional Thanksgiving food, and another friend dropped off more turkey, and spaghetti with meatballs. To say I was taken care of on Thanksgiving would be an understatement. We watched Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving before heading up to bed and all in all it was an easy day. I enjoy doing our own thing every now and again for holidays. It's so much fun to not be tied down to any certain tradition or expectation. I won't lie though- I'm looking forward to celebrating the old fashioned way with Steve next year. And my corn casserole. I really love corn casserole. (Paula Deen is my spirit animal, yo!)

The day after Thanksgiving I lugged all four of our fall decorations out to the tub I keep them in in the garage, and started unloading Christmas decorations. I put up our sad little Korea tree and Will thinks it's the greatest thing he's ever seen. Luckily it's the only tree he's ever really seen so his expectations are set depressingly low. Ha! He loves it though and is enamored with the lights. Sam is concerned that it's a touch too little to fit presents under. Between the Little People nativity set and the tote full of Christmas books (omg yes an ENTIRE TOTE), the kids are mildly entertained when we're inside. I try to keep us outside though, because it's the most wonderful time of the year in Louisiana- we can sit outside, not sweat, and also not get carried away by mosquitoes and flies. I love it. Doesn't put me completely in the Christmas spirit but whatever. I'll take less Christmas spirit if it means more of this weather.

Not pictured: more kids, more toys

I asked the kids what they'd like for Christmas this year. Since we don't have cable, and we don't wander toy aisles at the store, they have no clue what is out there and thus, no clue what to ask for. Sam finally gave up and said, "surprise me." Molly agreed that she would like to be surprised too. I've tried paying extra close attention to the things they are gravitating towards and settled on getting Sam and Molly scooters. Will is getting a Radio Flyer metal wagon. Hank is getting some bibs and whatever other random baby stuff he might need that isn't being passed down to him due to his older siblings destroying it. I'm still trying to find some random gifts for Will to open on his birthday (December 26), so if you know of anything fun for a 2yo (preferably a toy that can be played with outside), send me your suggestions! Santa will bring them all new chalk and bubbles in their stockings. What am I missing?

Oh my birthday happened! I was expecting it to be a regular day, truly. But man my friends and family really went above and beyond in making me feel extremely special that day! Cards and gifts and flowers and boxes of goodies- I was spoiled! And felt so loved. It was a really good one, and I didn't think I would get to say that.

31: need eye bag filter

I took the kids to the zoo over fall "break". Prior to this I had only ever taken them to Petsmart and told them it was the zoo, so this was huge for me. The zoo closest to us is small and everyone says nice things about it, so I thought, what the heck, and we went. I might have also been motivated by a CFA lunch. I won't lie. The zoo was actually very nice. It was cool the day we went and the kids wore their jackets most of the time we were there. It was hilarious to see some native Louisianians decked out with hats and gloves and puffer jackets though. Fifty degrees is no joke, y'all. Bone-chillin' cold. Sam was enamored with the amount of bamboo in the zoo, Molly wanted to ride the train when are we going to ride the train is it time to ride the train yet when can we walk back to the train I am so tired is it train time yet, Will loved pretending he saw everything that Sam saw. In reality I don't even know that he saw the giant lion that walked up to the glass when he was next to it, but he really acted like he had a ball there. Stroller freedom is his jam. Hank was peeved that I made him sit in the stroller instead of being toted around like the royal prince that he is. We made it onto a train ride and then headed for Chick fil A along with 400,000 other people from the tri-county area. We had to circle the building twice before we were allowed in the official drive thru line. The guy directing traffic deserves a raise! We finally made it through and the hangry people were satisfied. 3/4 of them slept a bit on the way home and once we got there we just kept the party going and stayed outside to play. Kids slept good that night!

Last weekend was my unofficial (but pretty official) last weekend of church. Getting all the kids ready to go, then getting there on time just spend the entire mass chasing Will and pacify Hank only makes me irate. And I don't think that's what Jesus wants. So I'm keeping the kids in Sunday School and AWANA on Wednesday nights and calling it good. I can't handle church with no childcare for Will. This past weekend we spent a lot of time pacing the foyer in the back of the church. He finally acted ready to go sit back down so we rejoined Sam and Molly in the pew. Will scooted to the other end of the pew and then looked at me like he was ready to run. Since he always runs to the back foyer I told Sam not to grab him (and risk having him scream), I would just meet him back there and we'd keep walking. But instead of going to the back foyer, Will bolted to the front of the church. So he's running on the perimeter of the pews and I'm running up the center aisle with 20lb Hank in my arms trying to cut him off but he's so flippin fast that he made a mad dash across the alter and then darted into the hallway that leads towards the classrooms and parish hall. At that point I was completely over it. OVER IT. Everyone at church knows us so I wasn't embarrassed at all, I was just mad. Mad! Cancelling childcare during a deployment??! Who does that?! Saying you don't mind hearing children in church??? Ok??? And??? What about the parents who don't have to worry about the noise so much as the movement? I don't have enough arms to hold Hank and chase Will and I guess I'll just leave my eyeballs on the pew to watch Sam and Molly and while I'm at it I'll leave my ears too because then I'd have a slight chance of hearing some part of mass. BLUGH. Anyway. I know that's whiny. I'm sorry. I'm just irritated. I want to take my children to church. But not so much at the sake of my thin tiny shred of sanity.

Doesn't Will look extra naughty here?? He knows he's bad but he also knows he's cute.

I thought about creating an Advent calendar for us to complete circa Christmas 2012 but then I realized that I can barely handle macaroni and cheese night without losing my shit so maybe it would be best to just focus on surviving. We can Pinterest it up some other year. I do have Christmas pj's washed and ready to go for St Nick Day, and all Christmas presents ordered. Thank you Lord for Amazon Prime. My life is better because of it. If only I could live-stream mass from it or order a babysitter off of it, I'd be set. Amen.