Saturday, December 26, 2009

Christmas was awesome! The girls went to bed on time the night before. They weren't sleeping due to the excitement of Christmas but boy, were they trying. The older three girls all slept together, whispering, reading stories and dreaming of what was to come. It reminded me of when I was a kid. Karen and I used to do the same thing.

Santa came and brought scooters and a new shopping cart and play food. There was plenty in the stockings and even some new movies!
The girls then went on to open their hearts' desires while Howard and I kept trying to get them to slow down and savor the moments.
One of the best parts of the day was the song and dance that Emma and Annie had been working on. It was a Thank You performance and it was lovely. In addition, Emma and Annie each purchased gifts with their own money this year. It was surprising how thoughtful they were in their choices. They each picked out loving gifts that had meaning for the recipient. Way to go girls.
After the unbridled avarice in the morning we headed to Mark and Becky's. We were able to partake of some delicious eats, thanks to Becky. We were able to visit with their missionaries and play some Shadows Over Camelot. Yup, it was a good time. We almost lost the last game, which would have been sad and pathetic but ended up just barely winning. We missed seeing Arianne, but hoped she had a good time with her friends. Emma and Sarah had a blast playing with/making a mess with the toys from Becky's daycare.

Today we all slept in. Then Howard and I proceeded to rearrange the living and family rooms to better to appeal to future buyers. Did I mention, we are putting our house on the market in about two weeks? Yup. It should have some great selling points. Brand new hot water heater and all. We got the family room mostly done. It looks cozy. We need to get direct tv in to rewire the DVR to the front room and we should be set. All that will remain is some serious decluttering and painting some small patches of wall (like behind where the tv was. Nobody wanted to move it to paint behind it before). Since its winter there isn't much to do with the yard, except clean up after the dog once the snow melts, and throw away discarded kid toys and the patio set with the broken chairs. We have a donation truck coming in 3 days. Do you think we can get it all done by then?

I have also decided to stop my online school for now. It has been way stressful for me and I haven't been keeping up with correcting and putting away the kids school work like I should, plus it cuts into my creative time and just wears me out. The good news is that once I decided to stop, my stress level went way down and I am pretty happy now. Incidentally, I just got an A in my last class.

I am happy to concentrate on being a mom, a better one. Focusing on helping my kids to grow, building them up and doing fun stuff with them. And focusing on cleaning the house, because it makes me happy when its clean. Not because I like to clean it. Plus if people might be tramping in at any time, it needs to be presentable.

That's it for now. I'd post Christmas pics but Laura decided to put her hand in front of the camera on most of the shots. The ones without her hand are all covered in fingerprints for some unknown reason. So later on I'll post pictures of the groovy pj pants I made for the girls and maybe the magic wands that Santa brought for Sarah and Laura.

1 comment:

Helen & Bill said...

I love you Rachel! You write a very interesting blog, creative writing is surely one of your talents. Thanks for sharing your Christmas and day after. I miss you all!