'Twas the NIght Before Christmas...

What  doozy of a day! I was wide awake and excited first thing this morning. I tried to sleep in a bit. Unfortunately my mind had already started listing all the to do's for me! So at 7, I gave up and decided to get started on stuff. I baked a red velvet cake & put together some Icelandic Delight for supper. I also baked the sweet potatoes for the casserole for tomorrow. The kids ate breakfast and then I headed to the gym for my 9:30 class, thinking I was ahead of the game.

Class was fairly demanding but no more so than usual but by 11:30 I was exhausted. If I closed my eyes for a second, I started to drift off standing on the spot. I ate some lunch and desperately wanted some sleep so I asked if Murray minded if I checked out for awhile. He gave me the go ahead and once the kids finally stopped hollering, I was gone for a solid two hours. I had to force myself to get up because supper was waiting to be prepared.

Finally everything was ready, Mum & Dad had arrived and we ate not too long after I'd planned! Supper went well, everyone ate. It helps when I make a favourite, Swedish Meatballs. I'm not sure if Lovey was feeling too well, she only ate 2 meatballs and didn't feel like having any dessert but when she's full, she's full and she just doesn't want anything else, even if it's her all time favourite supper.

We got ready for church and made it there in good time. We were greeting at the door,  handing out bulletins and candles. The kids were tripping over each other to get THEIR candle into the hands of whoever was coming through the door! Enthusiastic greeters are festive right?

Lovey did a violin solo at the beginning of the service, Away in a Manger and did a great job. What I noticed most of all was how COMFORTABLE she was in front of that big room with over 450 people in it!!!! It didn't even faze her, I'm not even sure she gave it a thought at all.and she's only 7½!!! Wow!. I had to do a reading and wasn't entirely sure I'd be keeping all my meatballs!!!

We sang Christmas carols the whole way to and home from church. I've never heard Partridge in a Pear Tree quite that fast before but they were belting it out and not trying to kill each other so I can't complain!

When we got home, they raced to get their jammies on but were NOT the least bit ready to go to sleep! Lovey had to wrap her presents for her sisters and then they settled down to read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas with Murray. We finally got them in bed and tucked in, prayers said a bit before 9:30 but the energy was still buzzing. Someone came to drop off a Christmas card at 10pm and RANG the doorbell! BOING! 3 little heads popped over the bannister, NEEDING to know who was here, what was going on etc. So the settling down process was totally blown out of the water! LOL Everything was calm and silent shortly after though so I think they finally crashed!

Tomorrow should be pretty wild! Hopefully they get some decent sleep. Honey had several moments of misery today over very minor upsets and a 2nd day of that won't be pretty!

School's Out for Christmas!

Just to take things up a notch on the excitement scale, school is officially done til January! Vacation has begun and we couldn't be more pleased! All of yesterday's party fun got crammed into today's shortened program and they got lots of treats and junk while they were there so it was a raging success on all fronts. Then they came home to leftovers for lunch and were less than enthused about this mediocre vacation kick off! But mumma's got to clean out her fridge ya know!

Tulip's mom returned yesterday's favour by letting the girls all go over there to watch a movie and I got some mopping done and cleaned up the kitchen a bit to prepare for tomorrow night's special dinner guests that are coming in just to hear Lovey play at the Christmas Eve service! (ok so maybe they like the other 2 kids too!!)

Party On!

We raced around like lunatics yesterday & crashed out the door just barely in time to catch the bus. I was surprised that I couldn't see the headlights coming down the road already! We waited a few minutes. Still nothing. Hmmmm. Murray wondered if the buses were delayed because of the weather. I ran in to check the district website but couldn't remember which district they were in right off the top of my head. I googled one number that came to mind but that obviously wasn't the right one because that page said all schools were closed. And that couldn't be right! Not on the 2nd last day of school, the last FULL day of school that I'd set aside for cleaning, wrapping and getting things finalized without interruptions or distractions. 

Still in denial, I googled the school and unfortunately found out that I'd had the right district number after all. I thought the girls would be excited to have the day off but annoyed that they hadn't gotten to sleep in. When i went out and announced the news, all three groaned and moaned "awwwwwwwww!!!! no!!!!!". Their classes all had special activities, parties, movies, plays etc planned  so it was the one day of the year that they DIDN'T want a day off.

Since my day was messed up beyond repair, I phoned Teena to see if she needed me to watch Boo for her but it turned out to be her one day off. She'd planned a similar day to mine except for shopping and errands.Since I was staying home anyway and not sure what to do with 3 Christmas crazed, at loose ends kids, I thought it would be helpful to bring in more of them and invited Boo over for the day so Teena could get her stuff done. That didn't seem loud or messy enough so then we called Tulip and the girls next door. That seemed to be just the right amount! I baked cookies and got icing ready for them to do some decorating.

While I was doing that, they tried to demolish the downstairs. Apparently, quiet activities like watching tv were not on their agenda!!! I quickly finished bagging the icing and got them to put away their swords and all other warfare.

The cookies were a big hit and they did a great job with minimal mess, surprisingly! There were even sprinkles involved and I didn't hear a single cascade of sugar! Once they'd sampled some of their work, I fired them out into the back yard to burn some of it off. Eventually they got cold and insisted on coming back in but by then it was almost supper. I decided it was in my best interests to send everyone home with all the toes they'd arrived with!

Teena and Boo joined us for supper since Dale was out shopping for the evening and this was like the icing on the, well, cookie I guess! They were super excited and turned it into a pj party supper and were quite confused as to why we'd want to wear our regular clothes to eat in!

Good food, great times, forever memories :)))

Not to be outdone by her sister...

Honey's 2nd upper tooth came out yesterday at breakfast. It had been hanging by the most annoying thread for days. If I could have gotten within 3 feet of her, it would have been gone on Monday! She wasn't having any of it though. So several days of gooey slurping and clicking ensued. Blech! Now it's all over.... til the next one! She doesnt' want to give it up either. I've never heard of kids who aren't willing to trade in lost teeth for cash! Must get a DNA test pronto, these girls may not really be my daughters after all!!!

Polar Express!

The Nanny & Grampy Express pulled into town yesterday! I didn't tell the girls they were coming so there were 3 very excited girls when these 2 landed on the doorstep! And then things got CRAZY when they started bringing in the gifts!

Surprisingly, Honey, Lovey & Sweetie were very cooperative and pleasant while taking everything downstairs.There was not one bit of fighting over who got to carry what. They unloaded the bags and sorted things out, placed everything nicely under the tree and it was all very calm and orderly. Definitely not their MO for most of this week, let me tell ya!

After the meet & greet portion of the afternoon, we went to pick Murray up from work and headed out for supper and had a great feed!

 

 

don't you play board games with a lucky sock on your head??? LOL! Not sure why she left that up there but I did toss it on. She must have forgotten about it when  Murray started reading bedtime stories!

Invasion!

We seem to have been inundated with little people from the North Pole! So far they're staying out of our way. They appear ready to swing down and commence mayhem at any given moment though!!! Hopefully they stick to swinging from the rafters for a few more days because I've got enough trouble makers on the ground here already!!

Gone!

Sweetie's been working and working on her top teeth for quite some time now but until recently there was no progress. She came home on Monday with her tooth in a little tooth shaped container on a string around her neck. She finally succeeded and is very happy and also proud of the new gap toothed look she's sporting! I think it really bothered her when Honey's top tooth came out before hers. Honey's 2nd top one is hanging by a thread and you can hear her flicking it constantly. If she doesn't pull it out soon, I just may have to because the slurping and smacking is driving me bananas!!!

Shopaholic & Daughter

Lovey has been anxious to go Christmas shopping for at least a week now. She was asking daily when we'd be able to go. She was very insistent that she wanted to buy gifts for her sisters with her own money. I thought she'd give the idea up after awhile but she wouldn't forget it. She barely had any money when she started asking. Then she got $10 from a sweet lady from church who spoils us silly.

As soon as she got home from school she wanted to know when we could go. I told her we had to wait until Murray got home. The minute he walked through the door, she hollered "ok Mum, we can go now!". Since we hadn't eaten, I wasn't quite as ready as she was! Supper was haddock and cheese and I wasn't sure how that was going to go over but she wanted to go so badly that she wolfed it all down, including vegetables in about 5 minutes flat! I haven't seen her eat fish like that since she was 1½!!! We were on our way by 5:15 and I was hoping to catch that window where all the shoppers go home for supper and the evening shoppers haven't come out yet. It worked pretty well, we found a space to park easily and didn't have any big line ups at the checkouts. We even got in and out of Costco in short order & were home by 7:15. (and she dithered terribly in Toys R Us!!!)

She had a whopping $19 to use tonight and she spent every penny and needed to borrow a dollar from me. She was so excited to make selections for them and we had to go back & forth to the different sections to compare and do a few price checks. It was hard to find things she thought they'd like that were within her budget. In the end she was very happy with her selections and so pleased & proud to have made her own purchases! She was so cute on her little spree tonight. Once she was done we celebrated with mini blizzards at Dairy Queen.

When she got home she told her sisters she'd gotten their gifts and that they couldn't peek in the bag! She also told them she'd used all her money for her shopping. Sweetie felt bad that she'd spent all her own money so she gave her the $10 she had gotten in her Christmas card. I wasn't sure what to do about that...??? Lovey thanked her and told her she didn't have to but Sweetie was quite insistent so she accepted it. Afterwards I told Sweetie that she'd been very sweet and generous. She just lit up at that compliment and said how good it had made her feel so good inside to help her sister. She obviously valued that more than the paper money so I guess it's a good investment!

Triple Joy Beauty Parlour Now Open!

This holiday season, make sure you're looking your sparkly best at all the Christmas parties! Don't get your makeover by just anyone! Let our dedicated staff of three bring out the beauty in you! Services include manicures, make up application and hairstyling! Prices are very reasonable but we do recommend a reservation as appointments are limited. These girls are busy and very popular. In fact, the one in the yellow dress is so busy working on her own look that she can rarely fit a client in!

Grammie stayed for supper one night while she was in doing some Christmas shopping and as soon as the girls finished eating, th y scurried off and got themselves all glammed up. We didn't really know what was going on until Honey started to cry when Grammie was getting ready to leave. We didn't realize they'd been setting up their salon and were now ready for their first customer. Grammie quickly agreed to her surprise makeover appointment. She managed not to grit her teeth tooooo much during the heavy handed nail filing and let them style her hair to their liking. Murray opted out of his appointment which allowed me to get in even sooner than I'd hoped!

 

Project Candy, Complete!

Honey had a presentation to do and the topic was Christmas traditions. Honey chose to speak on how we make candy together! Her first choice was the candle light service at church on Christmas Eve but since her sisters were going to talk about that with their classes, she wanted to do something different.

In order to properly prepare for the presentation, we needed to do some research of course! They were allowed to bring in a prop for their story so I suggested that she make a batch to take and share with her class. She printed out the recipe on a card to give to her teacher and we made enough photocopies to give out to her classmates.

Last night after supper she got out the stool and set to work at the stove. I helped her measure some of the ingredients and she added everything in and did almost all the stirring and closely monitored the candy thermometer. Every once in awhile she needed a break when her arm got too tired or hot.

We didn't include the pecans since it was going to school and I had to use different chocolate to avoid problems with nut allergies. Other than that, her candy turned out just like it usually does!

Her presentation went well and one of the students told her that it was the best one that day! (and other people had edible samples too!) She was pleased that it went so well and many students said they were going home to make their own that night :)))

Party in the House!!!

Bringing the Christmas tree home last night pushed the kids right over the edge into full blown holiday insanity! They've been spazzy and goofy all day. I went to the gym and when I came in, the first thing Murray said to me was "uhhh they're a little excited." Master of the understatement that guy!

They've all got ants in their pants and just cannot sit or stand still for more than a nanosecond! Emotional volatility is at an all time high and it's like walking through an emotional minefield. I had stuff to prepare in order for the tree trimming party to begin so it was a long afternoon for them! While I was gone this morning they'd dragged out baby blankets, pillows & blankets and lots of lovely accessories around the house. They cleaned that up, but it took a good long while and interrupted my own clean up 47 times to ask when we could start. I would ask "well did you clean up the living room yet? No? well get back to work then!" They'd drift off and immediately lose focus and turn into bouncy giggly balls of ridiculous within 5 seconds. Then there were several urgent matters that they had to show me. Finally I started giving them lots of little jobs to keep them busy and that seemed to work well. Plus, since they wanted to get to the decorating, they were keen to help me with whatever I wanted. They changed their beds and Sweetie completely did hers alone. I walked by her room and everything was pulled up snug, sheets & quilts tucked tight under the corners. Upon closer inspection I did notice that not a single piece matched but she was so proud of her efforts that I just told her what an awesome job she'd done! The other two couldn't get their fitted sheets on straight and were like timebombs in there trying to get them fixed so I had to step in before they blew up! LOL

They helped me get all the food ready for our buffet, carrying and fetching everything I needed. Lovey took care of dumping the compost and of course fixed her hair for the party! Honey was keen for any job that needed doing and she & Sweetie set up the table for me.

Finally everything was ready and we got to eat! Apparently this was what they had really been waiting for because I didn't see anyone pick up a single ornament for a good long while after the buffet opened!

After some massive binging (and hopefully no purging later!), I cut them off and we got the ornaments on the tree! They were all fairly cooperative and helped each other find their ornaments and places for them. I laughed when they discussed how they were not putting Dora on the tree this year. I reminded Honey that it wasn't that long ago that she had a full scale melt down when her glass Dora ornament got broken. She doesn't even remember that!

 Murray finds a way to cope with the holiday frenzy. He may be turning into the boozer Aunt Wanda accused him of being several years ago!