Christmas!

Journal excerpts from the week:

Sunday, December 22nd: I gave Amber a haircut this afternoon. This morning while I was doing Amber's hair before church, I noticed a suspiciously short hacked section near her forehead. "Did you cut your hair?" I asked. Sheepish eyes answered me. "It was annoying me so I cut it off." Thankfully it was only a small section, but Amber did say she wanted shorter hair again, so I chopped and hacked at her insanely thick hair until I got it shorter and even across the bottom. It's totally cute. When I was done, the bathroom floor had more hair on it than I have on my entire head, and my thumb was red and aching from the pressure of the scissors. Amber's hair is that thick. 

Rose and I played violin/cello Christmas duets and then attempted a Piano Guys cello piano duet this afternoon. It was fun and hard! From there, we took time to rest for an hour or so before diving into cookie and dinner prep in the kitchen for almost 2 hours. We made pans and pans of cookies to fill our cookie tins, plus dinner. We had our usual Christmas Day dinner of ham, cheesy potatoes, and pomegranate pear pecan salad tonight instead of on Christmas, because Jeff and I decided to make pot roast on Christmas. Pot roast sounded like more of a celebratory treat than ham and cheesy potatoes to us, but I have to say, it felt like Christmas while we ate the ham for dinner tonight. 

After dinner and cleanup, we read some New Testament Christmas scriptures, had family prayer, and sang Il Est Ne Le Divin Enfant before watching the Fraggle Rock Christmas special together. It was a good family day. My mouth feels burned from sugar somehow, even though I didn't actually eat more than a handful of cookies. I'm blaming proximity to sugar, haha. I love my family and how fun it is to be together at this time of year!

Christmas Eve! I did 3 sets of 4 band assisted pull-ups during my barn workout this morning! The 4th rep of each set was barely anything, but I got my chin alllllmost all the way over the bar for the first 3 reps of each set! It felt so power and amazing! I hung the thickest band from the bar, put one knee in it, and actually got up! A few weeks ago, my brother in law Jasen (Gibbons) told me that the grip is super important for pull ups, and he showed me how to use my whole hand to grip the bar. It helped so much! My arms and shoulders are totally dead now, but I am making progress toward my goal of being able to do full pull-ups unassisted! A Christmas miracle! 

After my workout (treadmill plus lifting), I made two kinds of cranberry muffins: traditional sugary ones and my adapted healthy ones. Both were very tasty in their own way. I picked up kids from the pool. I checked on Amber several times-- she was cleaning her room, and it was not going well. She wasn't making progress. Eventually Amber paid Rose $10 to clean the rest of it while she folded her laundry! I swear, Rose and Amber pass the same $10 bill back and forth to each other when they pay each other for help with chores! Haha. 

I got to veg with a k drama before dinner. We had our favorite traditional tamales from Garcia's, pomegranate salad, and cranberry muffins for dinner. Then we activated full tradition mode and read Luke 2 while the kids acted it out: Jay was Joseph and the donkey and a shepherd,  Rose was the angel, and Amber was Mary. We joked that Jay was both the husband and the donkey, and laughed our heads off at the implications. It still throws me off that 2/3 of my kids are old enough to understand some subtle adult humor, haha! Then we sang 3 songs at the piano while I played (Silent Night, Joy to the World, and Look-a-that Star). After that, we watched A Charlie Brown Christmas, had family prayer, and said goodnight to the kids. We negotiated for sometime between 6:30-7am for Christmas morning to begin tomorrow. Jeff likes to keep it vague, but I like to know exactly when...so I think we're shooting for 6:45am. But we'll see. 

Jeff and I got the last few gifts wrapped and stuffed the stockings. We opened Amber's shrink wrapped new queen mattress and it started expanding so fast, I was smashed against the wall! Haha. It is expanding/fluffing on my bedroom floor right now. We draped and taped all of the wrapping paper scraps from the past few years over the box with the bed frame in it, and put all of the remaining bows on top (20+). It is an epic gift. I know Amber will like it (she's been wanting a bigger bed), but I hope she's not disappointed that a bed is her only gift! Because kids her age are so fun to get toys and silly things for. I hope we didn't waste one of Amber's last true kid Christmases by giving her a boring ole bed! 

Wednesday, December 25th: Merry Christmas!! I love Christmas! So much quality family time. We had our own family Christmas starting at 6:45am today. It lasted till about 8am. We had so much fun giving each other gifts and opening gifts with Christmas music playing in the background. I love my family and I love happy Christmas mornings. 

Jeff assembled Amber's new bed frame and I helped get the mattress and sheets on. After that, I convinced Jeff to go on a Christmas date run with me on the treadmills in the barn. We squeezed in almost 30 minutes of running before it was time to quickly shower and go to Grandview for the White family Christmas. I have always volunteered to host anything on Christmas because I prefer to stay home in my pajamas all day on Christmas, but this year we convened in Grandview. We had Dan's waffles and talked, and then we left about 2 hours later. It was a pleasant family gathering. I put my pajamas back on when we got home.

When we got home from Grandview, Jeff took a nap and the rest of us relaxed with various screen time. Rose and Amber said they watched 1.5 seasons of My Little Pony today! While they watched, they cared for their new Tomagotchi pets. I watched my current K drama, and Jay read his new Brandon Sanderson book and played with the new hand grips he got for his VR. 

We had pot roast with cooked carrots and roasted mini potatoes for dinner, and it was so good. After a sugary lunch, savory pot roast hit the spot! And it felt special because we rarely have expensive hunks of beef. The 8-lb boneless roast I got was $36 before the $12 worth of coupons and discounts I used on it. Not as expensive as the 3 dozen tamales we got from Garcia's for yesterday's dinner ($72!) note to self: next year get 2 dozen tamales instead. We have so many leftover because the kids ate so many cookies throughout the day they didn't have much appetite by dinnertime! 

After dinner, we had major Christmas cleanup time. Rose and I worked in the kitchen while everyone else worked on the family room. We did not manage the wrapping paper situation during the present opening this year (I felt proud of myself for letting it go, but also a tiny bit on edge from the messy chaos, haha). Once it all got cleaned up nicely, we played the game that Jeff's brother Sam sent us: Chicken vs. Hot dog. We had family scripture (5 verses of Moroni 10--we WILL finish it before 2025!) and then sang two short Christmas songs from the primary book. Family prayer, hug time, goodnight by 8pm. Merry Christmas!

Thursday, December 26th: It was windy today but in the high 40s so I was able to run outside for the first time all week (and possibly the last, based on the rainy yucky forecast). But I got scared by some dogs so my run was not ideal due to the adrenaline spike and subsequent crash. 

I worked on the water fountain in the barn after my run: I took off the cover and figured out what kind of filter to buy as a replacement. I will become a handywoman yet!

Around 10:30am this morning, Amber fed the neighbor's cats, cleaned their litter boxes, and played with them today. I was worried she'd forget something so I went across the street to check on her after a little while. She remembered every step! And she took care of the work before she played with the cats. It was equally impressive and cute! Amber is so responsible! After she finished with the cats, she rode her bike a mile up the street to her friend Kamila's house. She ended up staying there all day long playing! It was sweet. Those girls are total besties. 

Rose missed her sister today. She said "our house feels empty." I played a game of Pick Two with her, but that was a drop in the bucket compared to the fun Rose and Amber have together.

We had leftovers for dinner. And family scripture and prayer--a real triumph on a school break! 

Here's a photo album of our Christmas activities:

My face didn't make it into the picture, but Rose and I had some musical fun with violin, cello, and piano! 

I called this band-assisted pull up session my own personal Christmas Eve miracle, but the truth of the matter is that it is another stop on the journey of a WHOLE LOT of hard tiring careful work. And I'm not done yet! I want to be able to do this without the help of the band!

Christmas Eve tamales!

Mary, riding the donkey to Jerusalem.

Baby Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

The heavenly angel came!

The stockings all stuffed.

The epic wrapping job on Amber's bedframe

The kids love building a brick wall to knock down on their way to the Christmas tree. (I did this one Christmas as an alarm in case the young kids wandered out to the tree before the adults were ready, and it became a tradition.)

The bricks ended up making it a bit of an upstream struggle once the wall was knocked down, haha. I totally saw that coming when they built the wall on Christmas Eve, but let the kids do their thing anyways because it was hilarious to watch.

Christmas stockings! Jeff dressed up in his Buddy the Elf costume.

We each took turns being Santa. On their turn, the person got to give a gift to each family member.

We had our first bright colorful sunrise all month on Christmas morning! The frost looked like a dusting of snow.

At my suggestion, Jay gave Rose and Amber Tomagotchi electronic pets, and I felt all kinds of nostalgia. I got a Tomagotchi for my 11th birthday and loved it so much. Muscle memory is a real thing--I knew how to work the little three button devices without even reading the directions!

Jay's favorite Christmas gift was the latest Brandon Sanderson book that was published a few weeks ago after a four year wait after the previous book in the series. Jay read this 1300 page tome in two days.

After all the gifts were opened, I sat in the Christmas mess and soaked in the Christmas morning vibes.

The mess was almost more than I could stand, but I left it for later and went running with my husband.

Uncle Sam sent the kids remote control cars--an instant hit! We finally have enough hard floors in our house for remote control cars!

With their stockings, each kid got a hooded wearable blanket. The kids feel like teddy bears when they wear them. I like being hugged by my soft fuzzy kids.

Grama Meri sent fuzzy Christmas socks.

My favorite Christmas gift was this soft stuffed dumpling pillow from Rose.

The back unzips to reveal three baby dumplings inside! I love the cute pointlessness of the whole thing! Most of my possessions are very functional, but this dumpling filled dumpling pillow is not functional at all; it's just random and cute and fun to hold on my lap while I watch k dramas. 

Jeff manfully assembled Amber's new bedframe, using my toolkit because it has the only reliable collection of tools in the house. Jeff never puts his tools away, so one year my mom sent me this toolkit. One of our family laws is if you use Mom's tools, they MUST be returned to the exact slot in the case where you found them. Thus, we always have tools when we need them.

Amber loves her large new bed. Instead of a bedspread, I opted for a fuzzy pink queen sized blanket because my kids have always preferred fleece and fuzz over sheets and quilts.

Christmas morning treadmill date!

Christmas dinner was very tasty.

Playing Chicken vs. Hot Dog, which involved flipping a rubber chicken and hot dog in various ways and trying to get them to land on the suction cup end.

One more happy merry family picture before bed on Christmas Day.

Amber, sifting the neighbor's cat litter like a pro. This was her first time but she said she's seen a video about it. When she was done, she washed her hands so she wouldn't get "migratory bacteria" or something. That video must've been quite thorough!

Pick Two crossword building game with Rose!

Magnetic "chess" game with the girls on Amber's new bed.

Amber wrapped up in all of her fuzzy things at once.

Jeff gave me this massive touchscreen device to hang on our "command center" wall. It syncs with my Google calendar and Google Keep checklists, along with Google Photos and lots of other things. It's pretty cool. Now everyone can see our calendar, and I can add chores to the list for kids to check off.

Rose made a gross sleeve out of the green slime she got in her stocking.

Amber is totally in Christmas break lounge mode with her new bed! We had to decree that she exercise for 30 minutes per day during Christmas break so she doesn't completely veg the holidays away, so most mornings of the break she has gone to the barn and rides the stationary bike.

Jay had a swim meet at Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA on Saturday (Dec. 28th). Rose, Amber, and I made the 95 minute drive to watch him and the other boys on our team swim. Whitman College has such a nice pool facility! The bleachers were up above the pool so all spectators had a bird's eye view of the whole pool. The scoreboard showed each lane, place, and time, and an announcer read the names of each boy in each race over a PA system. It was the best swim meet I've ever been to! (That's Jay in the white swim cap one lane over from the left of the picture.)

Jay has been working on his swim starts and improved a lot! He has always struggled with diving, but he has been doing so much better! That's him in the white cap with an S on it, third from the right. This pool even had adjustable starting blocks--super snazzy for a small D-III college.

Jay, walking back to the team after one of his four races. He got one PR at this meet in the 50 yard freestyle: 32 seconds.