Christmas Insta Friday

Friday is here! 

And I'm ready for a calm, normal weekend.

Well, as calm and normal as a household of 5 can be anyway.

Was it just me

 or did Christmas on a Tuesday

 totally whack out your ability to know what day of the week it was
 all.week.long?

It was a crazy week here in Crazytown.
(Understatement of the year.)

Last weekend I woke up with a raging sore throat, throbbing headache, extreme fatigue,
and just an overall feeling of being hit by a Mack truck.

It.was.great.

I was already in freak out how am I ever going to pull this off mode.
And then I lost a day feeling like hell.

Don't worry, it gets better.

Sunday morning Andy is showing signs of illness, and the kids are fading fast.
Sunday afternoon phone calls are made to back out of plans to attend the traditional Hayride.
The entire family is down and out.

Sunday night I finally start wrapping presents doped up on some serious cold meds.
Starting to feel a renewed sense of holiday excitement.

Monday, Christmas Eve, Abby was not doing well at all.

So after a series of texts and phone calls with my sisters, Andy hauled her off to walk-in clinic.

Where they took one look at her and made an appointment.

Not.a.good.sign.on.Christmas.Eve.

4 hours later Abby is quarantined and placed on antibiotics.

I was so exhausted and brokenhearted

that we were going to miss midnight mass and the big family dinner/gift exchange...

that the flood gates opened.

Not helping the morale of the kids.

So we pulled it together...

ordered pizza and made Grinch punch.

Then we tucked the kids into bed and started toy assembly.

Where at 10:30pm, we realize Santa did not leave 4 size D batteries, 

and frantically start calling places to see what is open at 10:30pm on Christmas Eve.

Thank you Walgreens.

We were back on track by 11:00.

Balloons were placed in kids' bedrooms...

and doors were secured.

And then at 7:00am Tuesday morning the magic of Christmas happened.

We were tired, but on the mend.

Spirits were happy.

We pulled it off.

AJ promptly started putting Legos together.

Latte attacked his rawhide candy canes.

Abby became Cinderella.

Brody giggled from one toy to the next.

I put our sticky buns in the oven.

We ate and were merry, and then headed to Nana and Papa's for more fun.

We were blessed with lots of fun thoughtful gifts, each other, and our health for Christmas day.

 

 And we finally put the kids new bunk bed together last night.

There is something so enchanting to a child to sleep in a bunk bed.

I remember the same excitement as a kid.

It was a good week.

Exhausting, but good.

We can roll with the punches.

Our Little Adventurous Ballerina

Abby had her ballet recital today!  

It was so fun.

 She felt so special.

 And shook her groove thang on that stage like nobody's business.

 Just ignore the rug burn on her nose

From intentionally diving off the couch on her bean bag chair.
 I tried to cover up with foundation.

She doesn't have grace, but she's got spirit.

Insta Friday

Hi.
It's been a busy week.
Check it out.

 

We had breakfast with Santa.
Not overstimulating at all.

We had our church Christmas program.

I survived.

I went to the neighborhood ornament exchange.

We made, decorated, and ate cookies.

Abby had her winter program at school.

Love that girl.

It snowed, so we had an afternoon hot chocolate party.

We got 4 boxes from my siblings with week!

Talk about feelin' the love!

My lil sorella and I had our annual ornament exchange.

I started wrapping gifts like a mad woman.

We sent a few packages.

Ab and I indulged in Starbucks before AJ's holiday party.

I just love those little niblet kid cups.

We planted magic seeds from the North Pole and had cookies grow.

We laughed at Frisbee.

We went to AJ's school partay.

Man, I love that kindergartener.

This little boy was up to his usual charm and tricks.

We made hand print snowmen ornaments.

The kids put a gift together for Brody.

And I'm almost done with a little project.

Breakfast with Santa

Insta Friday

Hello friends.

This is a sad Friday.

This Friday I pray harder and squeeze my kids tighter.

I am so truly blessed.

And so heartbroken for those that lost loved ones today.

There is too much sadness out there in this world.

Let's spread love and goodness

and teach love and goodness.

Here is our week in snap shots.

 This week we went to Hometown Holiday with some good buddies.
It was cold, but fun.
We rode in a barrel train, rocked all the free samples, and saw Santa.  

We saw reindeer.

Which was the coolest part if you ask me.

Frisbee was up to his usual tricks.

I don't get the elf haters.

I say live and let live.

It is fun.

The haters are missing out.

I volunteered at the kids Christmas program rehearsal.

I hope the cow and the donkey focus better on Sunday.

I'm in charge of making sure the cast is in the right place...at the right time.

I had a nightmare about it the other night.  

Where my underwear were showing in front of the entire parish.  

It was an awful dream.  

Not kidding.  

I'm experiencing some serious anxiety over this volunteering task.

It is going to be an entertaining nativity anyway.

Pray my underwear don't show.

I'm going to wear my longest sweater.

Now that this little man is walking, he never stops.

This is what it is like trying to get a picture of him now.  

It usually ends in a wet slobbery open mouth kiss as he falls into me.

It's the best.

Even if all my pictures are blurry.

My BFF and I did a little shopping the other day.

I fell in love with this dress.

So simple, yet elegant.

We kinda bonded.

I pretended to have somewhere fun to wear it to 

and thought about what kind of shoes I would wear with it...

then I came back to reality and we went our separate ways.

Cupcake liners + mason jar = pure happiness

Thank you pinterest.

True story:

The picture on the left makes me mean and cranky.

The picture on the right makes me nice and happy.

These are the kind of text conversations I have with Andy.

I don't really get him sometimes.

Pandora

90's pop radio

and I am back in High School again.

In a good not awkward teenager way.

I knocked out a pillowcase dress, a blind hem, and 8 stockings this week.

Sewing is my therapy.

I think it would be so cool to make costumes for a theater one day.

Possibly stressful, but cool.

This kid cracks me up.

It's the little things in life.

Like discovering yourself in the side of a toaster.

Over and over again.

The highlight of our week was our Polar Express outing.

We watched Polar Express one afternoon.

I printed tickets from HERE...

Set them on the kiddo's beds without them knowing...

Andy popped popcorn and made hot chocolate while I got the kids in their pj's...

Then he punched their tickets as they boarded the Polar Express 

that looked a lot like our Honda Odyssey.

Frisbee creeped into the van without the kids seeing...

Then we drove around, with Christmas music blaring  and

looked at Christmas lights.  

It was the best free family outing ever.