Christmas Crunch Time

For most of the week leading up to Christmas if anyone asked me how I was feeling about Christmas I told them that I was feeling resigned to Christmas. It was coming whether or not I wanted it to and I was just going to have to do my best about that. 

Fortunately I got almost everything done that I needed to and I was able to start enjoying Christmas. I only missed one thing - updating this blog. I nearly had it done in time for Christmas Eve, but I had internet connectivity issues at my in-laws. 

But Christmas came anyway and it's okay if my blog wasn't completely updated. I have time to do it now. So let's get going on that. We'll start with Sunday December 17th.  

It was so good to have my sister Emily come into town and spend the weekend with us. We had a lot of great moments. I took a picture of this one after church. Charlotte and Lydia got out their instruments and David found our guitar. They were all in the living room playing at the same time. 

After Emily's family left, my kids sat on the couch and played computer games together. It always surprises me that they can all still sit on the couch together. 

That evening Charlotte remembered that she hadn't finished her project for Family and Consumer Sciences. She's started sewing little Christmas lights earlier in the week, but had been so busy with Math homework, and the living nativity that she hadn't been able to finish them. 

So she started working on the project. I was going to work on the pajamas, but I could sense she was pretty overwhelmed so I sat down and helped hand sew the little lights. Then I helped sew the little white tops on. And finally the two of us sewed the lights to a string. The end result is very pretty, but I was so done. ALL the serotonin was gone.

The good news is that Charlotte's teacher loved the project and thought it was adorable. So I'm happy about that.  

Monday morning I had to take Brandon to work. He'd noticed the red honda was having problems and he was a little nervous about driving it anywhere until he had a chance to look at it. So I drove him to work. When I got home I sat down and started working on things for my Scripture Study Group. I'd been debating whether or not this should be an online group in additional to being in person. I decided that I did want an online option. 

What pushed me over the edge was looking at the new Come Follow Me manual at church the day before. I knew that there was going to be one manual for adults and children - which was already super problematic. But I never imagined it would be as awful as it really is. 

There's a freaking dot-to-dot in here. As if I didn't feel infantilized by this church enough. 

So anyway, I put up a post on Facebook about how I was going to do an online version of the study group and I got a lot of response pretty quick. So that's good. It will be Tuesday nights at 9:00 PM if you are interested. 

The kids had school so I got them all up and out the door and then I went to work. 

Derrick had been looking forward to getting a letter back from Santa. Veronica's letter had arrived on Saturday and Derrick was certain his would come on Monday. He was right. It came in the mail. These letters were so cute. They even had wax seals on them. Both letters were from an elf named Scribble who said that Santa would do what he could with their present requests. 

When everyone was home we went over to the Living Nativity to help clean it up. Brandon had talked to Britt at the very end of everything on Saturday. She'd mentioned that she forgot to have anyone help clean up. Brandon said that we could help with it the next week. I texted Britt about it later and let her know that we'd been there on Monday at 3:00. She was so happy about our offer, but she also didn't want us to spend to long on it all. She told us not to spend more than 45 minutes. 

So as soon as we got there I set a timer on my phone for 45 minutes and we got to work.

Everything was still exactly how it had been on Saturday night. The first thing we did was take all the chairs and put them by the barn. After that Brandon and I worked on moving things like benches, fake trees, buckets, chicken cages, etc. 

Charlotte and Lydia found a little wagon and used that to carry all the candles. 

Derrick and Veronica went around and found all the oil lamps and put them in a basket. Then they found all the incense burners. 

At the very end we were going around to each stall and placing everything around the stall onto the tables at the front of the stall. That way cleaning up would be less work for whoever came to pack up the stalls. 

And then the timer went off and we went home. Oh we also returned the costumes. 

Britt texted me later and said. "Valerie! This is HUGE what you did!! You moved SO much and put it exactly where I wanted it! And it is motivating me that it's not hopeless . . . tomorrow I will start organizing everything! Seriously, I just needed a jumpstart to have the energy! Thank you! Thank you!"

Never doubt what 45 minutes of service can do. 

Back at home it was time for more math homework. Charlotte's grade in math was still a precarious B so she was working hard on some assignments to try to pull the grade up. 

That night after the kids were in bed Brandon and I went to the garage and finished wrapping the last of the presents. The only thing left was one present that wouldn't arrive until Thursday. It felt good to be on top of Christmas in that area. 

On Tuesday I took Brandon to work again. He'd debated working really hard on the car and getting it fixed quickly, but would miss out on being inside the house with the rest of the family. I told him we didn't need to worry about the car until after Christmas and to just forget about it. That was great, but it meant I was taking him to work at 5:30 in the morning every day that week. 

I came home and since I wasn't very sleepy I used that time to finally write my December post for the Exponent. Normally I post earlier in the month, but I'd traded my day when I was sick. So I didn't have to have my post ready until the 21st. 

I wanted to write about how my family started celebrating advent with an advent wreath and candles. I'd tried writing that post earlier, but what popped out was a very grumpy post about how much I dislike the whole "Light the World" Campaign. I decided that post was NOT for the general public. (Which is saying something because I've written far more controversial stuff.) It felt like I wrote it just to complain. So I didn't use that post and instead tried again and did write a post about the advent wreath tradition. 

It went live on Thursday and you can read it here.

When it was time to get the kids to school Veronica said she wasn't feeling well. She'd been complaining about not feeling well the night before and so I wasn't too surprised. I was also not really interested in getting dressed and going to work anyway. 

So we both stayed home. I worked from home. I decided to continue our Star Wars tradition from the week before so we watched Empire Strikes Back while I was working. We had to stop the movie a lot so Veronica could run to the bathroom. We were both thinking that it was a good thing she'd stayed home from school. 

I was planning to go into work at 12:00 for Admin meeting. But one of the other admins had sick kids too and my boss was busy getting everything ready for our move. So I didn't have to worry about that. 

At 1:30 I left Derrick and Veronica home and went to pick up Brandon. We had plans to go shopping for some stuff. So it actually worked out that Veronica wasn't at school because we didn't have to worry about being home at 3:00 to pick her up. 

Our first stop was at D&B to get a rubber band gun for Derrick. About 2 weeks earlier I'd realized that the present count between the kids was okay, but that the monetary amount spent on each kid wasn't even. Derrick's amount was somehow about $20 less than the other kids. Brandon told me that he thought Derrick would like rubber band guns and he was pretty certain D&B had them. 

So we went to D&B and wandered all over the store and didn't find any rubber band guns. I was beginning to remember why I'd decided to do all of our other Christmas shopping online this year.  

Our next stop was Costco for Zebra Popcorn. Some neighbors had dropped off some Zebra popcorn a few days earlier and the kids wanted a whole bunch for Christmas Under the Tree. So we went into Costco for only Zebra Popcorn - found out they were sold out, but still spent like $80. What?

Oh, and my Costco Anxiety spiked and Brandon had to take over driving to all the other spots on our list. 

Next stop was Walmart and here's where we finally got some real Christmas shopping accomplished. We found Derrick's "make it even" gift. It was the game Operation. He'd shown it to me a few weeks earlier so I knew he'd like it. We also bought presents for Charlotte and Lydia's best friends. We bought ingredients for some of the treats Brandon wanted to make. And all that was cheaper than the 3 things we'd bought at Costco. 

Next we went to Winco so Brandon could see if they had peppemint flavored kisses. They didn't have any. But they did have tape which we'd forgotten at Walmart. 

Next stop was Auto zone for whatever part Brandon needed for the Pilot. 

And finally we went to Smiths and got the peppermint kisses. 

It had been fun going all those places with Brandon, but I vowed that I was done shopping until after Christmas. 

We came home just as Charlotte and Lydia were getting home. We took care of organizing some of the gift things we bought and Charlotte and Lydia wrapped the presents for their best friends. 

We took the gifts over to Aurora and Gwen later that evening. When we were driving back Lydia was sitting next to me. But it was dark and I couldn't see her hair. She was wearing a hoodie that Charlotte often wears. I had one of those strange moments where I didn''t know which twin is which. Honestly, it felt like I had two Charlotte's in the car. I had to say, "Um who is sitting by me." Lydia was like, "Mom, I'm Lydia. Can't you tell?"  I was like, "NO!"

We came home and Brandon heroically did more math homework with Charlotte. At this point we were all like, "You deserve an A for effort in this class."

I worked on sewing Charlotte and Lydia's sleepers. I got Charlotte's put together. 

Brandon also made a whole bunch of cookies. 

On Wednesday I took Brandon to work again. He was taking in a whole tray of cookies for his break room. He needed help with the cookies and invited me into his work. He's been there for almost 2 years and yet this was the first time I've ever been in there. He showed me the maintenance department's area and took me out on the floor. He's the first employee there and is in charge of unlocking everything and turning on the lights. So no one else was there. He showed me all the presses and things that he helps fix. My main response was that they are NOT paying him enough. Those machines are intimidating looking. I wouldn't even know how to turn one one - let alone fix one.  

When I got home I went downstairs and found all the supplies to make a present for my sister Hillary. I found a canvas and some paint and I painted the canvas. That was step one. 

I got the kids up and out the door for one last day of school. Veronica was feeling better and so she went to school for her class Christmas Party. 

I went to work for a while and took care of a lot of things. This was my last day of work with the kids not home for the next two weeks. 

At 11:50 I went to the middle school and picked up Derrick. He was done with his first semester of Middle school. 

At 12:45 I picked up Veronica from the elementary school. 

At 1:30 I picked up Brandon from work. 

We drove to the Middle School and were going to surprise Charlotte and Lydia with a ride home from school. But we didn't see them. Then Macey called me and said, "I have your twins."  So we just drove home and met them there. 

Everyone was home! It felt good to be done with school for the semester.

I had Lydia help me with the lettering for the present we were making for Hillary. Lydia learned a trick in her art class that helps with tracing things. She rubs a pencil all over the back of the paper. Then she puts the paper onto whatever surface is going to be the final surface. She traces the lines and they get transferred to the final surface. Then she follows those lines with sharpie. She did a great job. 

Even though I'd sworn off shopping we still needed one last grocery shopping trip before Christmas. Brandon heroically took care of that with Lydia's help. Even though he had to wait in the checkout line for 30 minutes he came back super happy. He LOVES grocery shopping. 

He even went to Hobby Lobby and bought the glitter I needed for Hillary's present. This present was a real group effort. Lydia did the lettering. We used Veronica's jewels. Charlotte started to help me hot glue on the jewels and very quickly realized that hot glue was not great for this project. I switched to elmers glue and that went a lot better. And Derrick kept himself busy on Youtube so I didn't have to worry about him. 

Here's the final product.

The words are from Taylor Swift's song Bejeweled. They say:

Best believe I'm still bejeweled
When I walk in the room
I can still make the whole place
S H I M M E R

I heard that song for the first time when Hillary and I were driving back from California. She was listening to Taylor Swift's Midnights album a lot and so we listened to it while we drove. I thought of Hillary as soon as I heard that song and every time I've heard it afterword I've always thought of her. 

I decided this was what she needed for Christmas. Really I wanted more of the lyrics on the canvas, but I decided this little part of the chorus was the best. 

I would have had a shift at the Warming Center, but the weather forecast was above the 29 degree trigger point. So the warming center was closed. 

And really that was a good thing because I had so much sewing to do. I finished Lydia's sleeper. 

On Thursday I took Brandon to work and then came home and went back to sleep. I'd thought I'd get up and go to work early, but really I slept until about 7:30 and then went to work. I was there by 8:00 which is early compared to 8:30 when I normally get there. But it wasn't as early as I wanted to. 

It actually was fine though. As it was I had to wait for the mail to show up. I was out of things to do on my computer so I started packing some of the office stuff. I'd already packed up a lot of my office decorations so I moved onto packing up the decorations in the waiting room. 

The mail came and I took care of that and then I went home. 

At home I was ready to start working on Veronica's Christmas jammies. Hers had been in limbo until I knew how things were going with the other three. Technically Veronica already had a new sleeper because her Chimera Halloween Costume doubled as a sleeper. So I figured that could double as her Christmas Jammies if I ran out of time. But I did have fabric to make her a sleeper too. And I felt like I had time. 

First up I had to cut out the fabric. I did that and then I took a little break and then I went to work sewing. Her sleeper actually went together really quick - this was the 5th time I was sewing this pattern after all. 

At some point Lydia was like, "MOM Derrick has been on Youtube ALL DAY." I was like, "Do you have an activity to keep him occupied? Because if I get him off Youtube he's going to want to do something and I don't have time for that. 

That was the great irony of this project. I wanted to make these jammies as a fun thing for my kids. But in the process I had to spend several days basically ignoring the kids. I told myself that at least I was sewing upstairs at the table instead of downstairs in the basement. The kids at least could see and talk to me. 

I got Veronica's sleeper and the hood all done. They just weren't sewn together yet. It felt good to get her sleeper to the same place as the other three. 

I wanted to keep working so I started to work on Derrick's hood. But I was getting pretty tired. I took it as a sign to stop when I sewed Derrick's hood lining on backward.  I put away all my sewing stuff and then made dinner. 

We were having pizza. I talked Derrick and Veronica into helping. Derrick said that we should make it like a tree and that reminded me of a trick for making fancy appetizers in the shape of a tree.  So that's what we did with one of the pizzas.

After dinner we went to see Christmas Lights. We drove over to the Casperson Family Lights at the First Federal Park. The kids wanted to bring Marcia along. She was really excited about the lights. She kept wagging her tail really hard. 

We came home and were going to do a video of the girls winter Lego Build. But it was too close to bedtime. So I just took pictures. 

It's really cute. 

Look at that ice skating rink. 

Here's a house Charlotte made.

Here's the whole thing. 

And here it is lit up. And don't worry. We did do a video on Christmas day so I'll put that in the next post. 

Friday was crunch time. We were doing our annual Christmas Under the Tree tradition that night. And I wanted the jammies done in time for the kids to wear. We were also going to Utah on Saturday morning and there wouldn't be much time to sew while we were in Utah. So the jammies HAD to be done on Friday. 

I took Brandon to work and then came home and fixed Derrick's hood and finished it. Then I put together the hoods for Charlotte and Lydia. 

I took a shower and went into work. This was my last time working in this office. I did the deposit and took care of a few other things. And then I was done. I packed up my 10-key calculator and took town the stand on my desk. Everything was as ready as it could be for the move on the day after Christmas. 

I went home and had the kids help clean living room. I also had them put away their laundry so that it would be easier to pack their clothes later that day. 

All week long I had been super worried that I would forget that Charlotte and Lydia had an orthodontist appointment on Noon on Friday. It had slipped my mind a couple times. I'd almost told Brandon that he could just take the car on Friday. But I didn't forget it. We went to the orthodontist right on time. 

I thought about being really productive and cleaning out the van while I was waiting for the twins to be done. But I told myself, "Other people can clean out that van. No one else can take a nap for you."  So I sat in the waiting room and fell asleep in the super uncomfortable chairs. 

After the orthodontist we stopped by the Library to drop off a bunch of books that I didn't want cluttering up the living room on Christmas Day. 

Then we drove home. By that point it was 1:15 and I needed to pick up Brandon at 1:30. His work is only 5 minutes away so in theory I could have gone in the house, BUT I knew that was just enough time for me to COMPLETELY forget about him. So I dropped off Lydia and me and Charlotte drove over to Brandon's work. 

Brandon was so happy to get off work. He didn't have to go back for 4 days. 

I went home and sewed and sewed and sewed and then sewed some more. 

One thing I had to do was take in the outside seams on each of the sleepers. I'd cut everything out on the Extra Large size because I wanted the pajamas long enough. But I hadn't realized how wide the extra large size was. The kids looked like Teletubbies every time they tried on the sleepers. 

So I had each of them put on their sleeper inside out. I pinned where I wanted the seam to be and then sewed that.  

I did that with Derrick's first. Then I sewed his hood on and suddenly I had one sleeper DONE!  That felt so good. 

Then I moved onto Veronica's. I took hers in. And then sewed on her hood. Another one was DONE!

Meanwhile Charlotte and Lydia were working on the hoods of their pajamas. They wanted their sleepers to be dragon sleepers and that meant they needed eyes, noses and horns on their hoods. They cut out fabric for the eyes and I sewed them together. Then the girls pinned everything onto their hoods. When I was done with Veronica's sleeper I sewed the facial features on. The girls took care of hand sewing on the horns. 

Meanwhile Brandon was helping with EVERYTHING else. He put away our laundry. He got the kids to pack their bags for the weekend. He cleaned out the van. He wrapped the presents for his family. He did something in the garage. He prepped food for that evening. 

Charlotte struggled with the eyes on her hood. The red and orange kept making it look like a chicken. Finally she figured out that she could put some blue under the red eyes and that really helped it look like a fantasy animal instead of a chicken. 

I was sewing the eyes onto the hood when my machine jammed. I'd been feeling tired for a while so I took that as a sign for a break. I went on a walk around the block. And then it was back to work. I unjammed the machine and kept going. 

I got the facial features on and then started to sew the hoods to the jammies.

I was able to get Charlotte's DONE.

Brandon was making pasta and sauce for dinner. I was sewing at the dinning room table so there was no where to eat it. He put it in bowls and took them downstairs. 

 I was nearly done with Lydia's, but the kids were antsy so Brandon took them downstairs to watch Pokies Christmas while I finished. They ate dinner while they watched the little movie. 

Lydia's was the last one I needed to sew. It felt wonderful to put in the last stitch. 

I WAS DONE!!!!

The kids came up stairs and put on their jammies. I didn't have to worry about if they would like them. Charlotte and Lydia had been wearing their all afternoon while they were working on the hoods. (they'd tried them on and then refused to take them off.) Veronica had been wearing her Chimera sleeper all day too. 

I had them pose for this picture because the thought of all the likes I'd get on Instagram and Facebook had been  keeping me going for at least the last three hours of sewing. 

Here's Charlotte's hood with the dragon eyes. They look so cool. This was a lot of extra work, but definitely worth it. 

Here's Lydia's hood.

And Derrick and Veronica. Derrick was a space man. I'd thought about making a patch that said NASA, but I hadn't got around to it in time.  One of the things I liked most was the extra bit of color in the lining of the hood. That was a modification I'd made to the pattern. I loved the red on Veronica's jammies. 

I was pretty out of it for most of Christmas Under the Tree. Earlier in the day I'd told Brandon, "I'm all out of decision making ability for the day. So you are in charge."

So he took care of all the activities. First we ate. We had lots of yummy treats. I spent that time nibbling on all the good food while writing the post about the Costumes. Maybe not the best use of time with family, but I needed those likes. 

Nobody was really that animated while we were eating anyway. This was Charlotte and Lydia's pose. They were pretty pooped from a whole semester of 7th grade. 

I turned off my phone while Brandon read the Christmas Story from Luke 2. (I was getting distracted by the likes that were coming in.)

But I turned it back on so I could take a picture of Jacque's latest ornament. It's a Partridge in a Pear Tree. 

Brandon got out the Grinch who Stole Christmas and read that. The kids added all the sound effects to make it just like the movie. My favorite was Derrick doing the sound of Lindsey Lou Hoo making the sound like a coo of a dove.

He also read the Polar Express and the Lorax with the kids adding sound effects and songs. 

Here are Charlotte and Lydia at one point. 

But at another part they were laying under Derrick and Veronica. (We'd brought up a little mattress from downstairs.)

It was pretty funny. 

And kind of crazy.

We went into the kitchen for a little while to light the fourth candle on our Advent Wreath. This was supposed to be lit on Sunday the 24th. But we would be in Utah and I didn't feel like packing the wreath just so we could light it on the 4th sunday of advent. So we did it this night. 

This has been a really nice tradition.

The kids and Brandon played charades and I watched. The funniest one was some acting out the Brachs candy cane commercial that we'd all heard WAY too much on Spotify. It had me considering the merits of upgrading to premium quite often. 

Then it was time to get the kids to settle down. Charlotte and Lydia were on the reclining couch. Veronica was on the love seat. And Derrick was on the mattress on the floor. 

I slept in my nice comfy bed down the hall. 

On Saturday morning I woke up at 8:00 and took care of packing my stuff. I'd been too tired to do it the night before. 

Everyone helped bring things out to the car and I got it packed. We were only going to be gone for about 36 hours so we didn't need to bring much. But Charlotte was bringing her violin and Lydia was bringing her cello so that complicated things. 

We got everything packed and started driving to Utah at 9:00.

The drive went really well. We didn't have to worry about snow until we were almost to Hillary's. We stopped at Smiths to buy Lynn Wilson Burretos. (You can't get them in Idaho so we always eat them when we visit Hillary) and then we went to Hillary's. 

It was so good to see her. 

We gave her the gift we'd made. She LOVED it. She ended up putting it into her closet where she can see it when she gets dressed. 

We had fun at her house. All the kids loved her cats.  

Penny wanted to show me her shopkins. I'd been talking to Hillary about trying to do some inner child work. So I was trying to look at the shopkins like I was a little kid and maybe even play with them like a little kid. I told Hillary. "My inner child just wants to sort these by color." So this was the result. This is literally how I would have played with these as a kid.  Is it any wonder I'm an accountant?

I also played a little matching game with Penny. But by the end she was basically playing for the both of us and I fell asleep on the floor. 

Meanwhile Hillary and Brandon were getting up to some hijinks. If you look back at the pictures of Brandon from Christmas Under the Tree you'll notice that he doesn't have a beard. He'd shaved it off. But he left a Goatee in the shape of a Christmas Tree on his chin. He wanted to look like Steve from Arthurs Christmas. 

I laughed super hard when I saw it, but I was also in the middle of sewing so I didn't take a picture. 

Hillary loved it when she saw it and wanted to take it a step farther. So she bleached the goatee white and gave Brandon a high and tight hair cut. 

This was the end result. So funny!

We finished up at Hillary's house around 4:30 and left to go pick up a pizza from Costco. I'd ordered it over the phone and the process was so easy and fast I told Brandon, "I'm not sure that actually worked."

But when he went in to get our pizza it was waiting for him. So I guess it did work. 

We took the pizzas to my parents apartment. We ate in their apartment and then Charlotte and Lydia got out their instruments and played a few songs. 

Then we went upstairs to the game room. We've never been up there before and when I saw it I was like, "This has been here the whole time" and I thought of this GIF.

via GIPHY

My parents have lived in this complex for two years and this was the best visit we've ever had with them because the kids had so much fun playing pool. 

When we walked in Derrick said, "I'm Mr Derrick and I'm going to teach you to play pool."  Really it was Brandon giving all the kids pointers. But Derrick was some sort of pool shark in training because Brandon would say things like, "Okay bounce the white ball against the wall so it will hit this ball." And then Derrick would DO it. He missed a lot too, but he was surprisingly good. 

Actually all the kids were pretty good. The 8 ball ended up right next to a corner pocket and I kept waiting for that thing to be bonked in, but it never went in. 

I had a lot of fun sitting on the couch with my mom and watching the kids play pool. This will definitely happen every time we come to visit from now on. 

We left my parents and started driving to Brandon's parents house. We stopped at Emily's along the way and dropped off something they'd left at our house the week before. She was in the middle of a party with her in-laws and they sent me back to the car with a beautifully frosted sugar cookie for everyone. 

And then we drove up to my inlaws house. 

And that get's us to the end of Christmas Eve Eve. 

My next post will be all about Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Christmas Aftermath.

Thanks for reading. 

Living Nativity 2023

Hey, this is one of those time honored traditions. Me trying to get this blog caught up on all the December fun before Christmas. So we are going to try to get through catching up on the last two weeks. I'll do this post about December 11-17 and then flip around and do one of the 18-23.

The main topic of this post is the Living Nativity that happened over the weekend of December 14-16. But we need to also talk about the stuff that happened earlier in the week.

Starting out with Monday December 11th. I'd been super sick the week before, but I was feeling much better on Monday. As I helped the kids get up and out the door for school I was like, "This isn't so bad. Why did it feel so hard last week?"

Charlotte and Lydia had their first combined orchestra concert. Charlotte is in Intermediate Orchestra and Lydia is in beginner orchestra. It was fun to see them get ready. 

Charlotte wanted her hair in a braid. Then she wanted to make sure it looked okay from the back. 

Charlotte and Lydia are very similar in many ways. But they are also a little different. Charlotte was saying things like we need to be there by 6:30. Meanwhile Lydia was laying on the couch saying, "I think we just have to be there by 7:00."

They could both wear Christmas themed flare and they both had Santa Hats. 

They also both had cute earing's. These were Charlotte's. 

And these were Lydia's. 

Brandon took both girls to the Middle school so they could be there by 6:30. I stayed home with Derrick and Veronica. We played spot it for a while. 

About 10 minutes to 7:00 we got in the car to drive over to the middle school. I was thinking that we'd left in plenty of time to park and get into the concert hall, but I'd forgot that this community LOVES the orchestra. There wasn't a parking spot in the big lot and we barely got a spot in the drop off/pick up area that operates as an overflow parking.

We made it into the auditorium just as the concert started. Brandon had saved us seats on the second row, which was GREAT except Charlotte and Lydia both sat in the back. We couldn't see them at all. I got a good view of Lydia's elbow during her songs and I could see Charlotte's ankle during her songs. 

Here's the best picture I got of Lydia when she was leaving the stage after her songs. 

She came and sat by me and I took a much better picture.

Here's Charlotte when she was done. She knew that it was hard for me to see her so she made sure to move her head out for the picture. 

The concert was great, but the main thing that sticks out in my memory is that it was short. Last year the concert was combined with the band and it was SOOOOO long. This year it was just beginner orchestra and intermediate orchestra. The concert was over by 8:00.

Here's how our house looked when we got home. I love that Brandon puts lights on the house. 

Since we got home so early I had time to get the sewing machine out and work on the kids Christmas Jammies. 

Meanwhile there were a lot of fun things going on in the living room. Derrick and Veronica were playing some sort of game and Lydia was working on a quilt. 

Charlotte had her computer out and was probably working on math homework. 

There were dress up days every day of the week at the Middle School. Tuesday was wrapping paper day. We'd bought big bows at Hobby Lobby for Charlotte and Lydia to wear. They were really excited about it. 

Derrick was also excited. He had never cared about dress up days ever. But for some reason he cared about this one. We went out to the garage to the wrapping stuff out there and found a small green bow. He put it on his shirt and proudly wore it the whole day at school.

That afternoon we had our last semi-simultaneous Boys and Girls Activity. Derrick and I dropped Veronica off at the church at 4:30 for girls activity. Then we went to Hobby Lobby to return some girls that we'd bought on accident on Saturday. (We'd grabbed some small LED lights for Charlotte and Lydia's best friends. When we got home we realized they were for a car and only ran off car power. So those went back to the store.) After we returned the gifts Derrick wanted to go to the toy aisle. He looked for gifts that were the size of the present that Charlotte bought him. He was shaking the toys to see which ones sounded like the one under the tree. 

Then we went back to the church and I dropped him off for Boys activity at 5:00. I went to Smiths and bought something (I've completely forgot what.) Then I went back to the church to pick up Veronica at 5:30. We were going to wait for Derrick to be done at 6:00, but we popped into the gym to check on him. He was doing a painting activity. He wasn't enjoying it very much so we all decided to just go home then. 

Veronica showed me the lego nativity scene she'd been working on. 

It was really cute. 

She was also doing a lot with dominos in her room.

That evening Brandon was doing a marathon math homework session with both twins. Here he is helping Lydia. He also helped Charlotte. This is another area where the girls are different. After doing a lot of work on their homework they both had Bs. Lydia was like, "WhooHoo!!!! I have a B."  And Charlotte was like, "Oh no! I have a B."

I spent another evening doing lots of sewing. 

By the end of the night I had Derrick's sleeper done - except for the hood. (He's wearing it over his old sleeper so that's the hood that you see.) He was so excited about it. 

Veronica had had a panic attack at school on Tuesday on so when she started telling me that she didn't feel well on Wednesday morning I figured it had more to do with the panic attack than having a cold. 

Still I let her stay home. But I made her rest in her room for a long time. It was my day off, so I didn't have to go into work at Aspen Grove. BUT I had a lot of stuff I needed to do for Castle Therapy. I took care of that and then took a break by watching the last little bit of the Industrial Light and Magic documentary.  

Veronica came down and watched the last little bit with me. She told me, "This makes me want to watch Star Wars."  I was like, "sure!" So we turned on Star Wars and watched that while I did a really boring data entry project.  

Watched the last little bit of Light and Magic. Then star wars while doing boring data entry

We had to pause the movie about halfway through so that I could take Veronica to therapy. This was scheduled, but the timing was perfect because she was able to talk to her therapist about the panic attack. 

While Veronica was at therapy I went and picked Derrick up at school and then came back and got Veronica. We all went home and finished watching Star Wars. 

That afternoon when Charlotte and Lydia came home we all drove around to deliver neighbor gifts. We used to do plates of cookies, but Covid made us lazy. Now we do wrapped boxes of brownie mix. The kids love giving these out because when we are in our neighborhood I don't make them wear their seatbelts. And this time we were driving around with the sliding doors open. It was really funny. 

We also did gifts for the kids church teachers and my ministering sisters. We had to drive out of our neighborhood for those, so my kids had to wear seat belts. When we dropped off a gift at my friend Nicole's house I had to look up her address.  I pulled over and made sure we were in front of the right house. Then I backed up so we could be more in front of her house. I didn't realize her garbage can was behind me and I back up into it. Nothing got hurt, but we laughed about it for ever. 

Then it was back home for dinner and more math homework. Brandon was a saint to sit with the girls and talk them through all the homework. 

At 6:45 I went to the church to help prep for the ward party. The party would be on Saturday and I wasn't even going to be able to go because my family would be busy with the Living Nativity. But I wanted to help because I was so happy that I could actually do my calling. 

Basically the only thing I've done for this calling is water related. And this was not different. We had special decorative wraps that we were putting around the water bottles that would be served at the ward party. 

Water again. 

Is it any wonder I'm starting my own Ladies Scripture Study group? 

Or is it any wonder why I'm also volunteering at the Warming Center?

Speaking of which, when I was done with the water bottle prep I went straight to the Warming Center for my shift there. 

Things were much more organized than 2 weeks earlier. And I knew what I was doing a little better. I helped set out cots and bedding. I also set out the food and drinks that are available for the guests. There were five guests that night. 

I got home around 11:00 and then stayed up reading. I was reading the Glass Castle and I was sucked in. 

The next morning I got up and went around waking up the kids. Derrick was asleep on the couch. He said he had thrown up. So he didn't go to school. 

I had a ton of work to do and I didn't want to do it from home. Derrick said he was fine staying home alone so I let him stay home and I went to work. 

I took a nap that afternoon so I could have a personality that evening. That was important because that evening was the first night of the Living Nativity. 

We had an early dinner and then it was time to get into costumes. I took these pictures the next night, but I'm going to put them here so you can see them. 

Here's Charlotte's costume. She had the cutest little brown dress that she said she would probably wear just anyway. Over that dress she had a long vest made out of real wool. It was felted rather than woven. She had a brown head scarf. 

Here's Veronica. She had a blue tunic with a really pretty poncho over it. She also had gold and blue scarves.

Here's Lydia. She had a white tunic and everything else was blue. It's hard to see but her little poncho had a woven detail. It reminded me of the details on Charlotte's poncho the past two years. 

And here I am. In other years I've complained about the fact that all my outfits always just make me feel like I can't dress right in any century. But this year I liked my outfit. My poncho was cute and I felt like I got the head wrap right this year. 

I didn't take a picture of Brandon at home, but here he is on the set. I like this picture of the both of us. 

I always like the 30 minutes at the Bethehem village before any visitors arrive. It's just people in costume making sure everything is ready. Here are people bringing around lamps (and nearly catching on fire.)

Here's Brandon's fish stand. He took over this stand in 2019 and has never given it up.

Here's some of the other stands. 

A Roman soldier. 

More stands. 

Ivan showed up and he and Brandon were so funny together. At one point they were singing "If I were a fish man" to the tune of "If I were a rich man." As a reminder, we met Ivan though the Living Nativity in 2021. He invited Brandon to join the Magic Valley Rep. Brandon and Ivan were in Guys and Dolls together in 2022 and then Music Man in 2023. Ivan started his own OT business this year and I volunteered to help him with his billing. That turned into another part time job. Ivan also helped us figure out how to help Derrick with some OT things. And he's just been an awesome friend. All of that came from the Living Nativity. 

Here's Veronica walking around. She really wanted a chicken so I helped her pull one out of the chicken coop.

Here's a weaving shed. 

Charlotte and Lydia really wanted to be in charge of sheep again. So they ran over to the field and got out sheep. 

They went to the entrance and let people pet the sheep as they came in. 

I started out at the rug stand next to the fish stand. But then I realized the basket stand on the other side of the fish stand had a CHAIR. So I moved over there. I spent most of the night sitting in that chair. Veronica sat by me and and made up a whole thing about a "wishing basket."  She'd have kids come over to her basket and make a wish. Then she'd lift the basket. The chicken was in the basket. She said the chicken meant that their wish would come true. 

Here's Charlotte hanging out. Charlotte had her eyes on the baby goat at the cheese making stand next to us. She really really really wanted to hold the baby goat. I overheard those people say that they were only here for one night so I told Charlotte I'd see if she could be in charge of the goat the next night. 

Here I am taking selfies. 

I didn't realize it at the time. But I look a lot like the painting "Girl with a Pearl Earing" in this picture. 

See the resemblance. 

Here's our traditional family picture. You are probably wondering where Derrick is. Well he has more sense than any of us and didn't want to spend the evening freezing. He stayed home and watched movies. 

Actually as far as December nights go, this night was a balmy 34 degrees. Last year temps had been in the low teens. So even though it was cold, it wasn't as cold as other years have been. 

Another difference this year was that the 8:30 end time didn't seem super late. When we started participating in the Living Nativity Charlotte and Lydia were only in 3rd grade. 8:30 had been WAY past their 7:00 PM bedtime. Now the bed time is at 8:45 and that's really only a guideline. 

Coming home at 9:00 didn't affect anyone's ability to get to school on time on Friday. 

My plan for Friday was to do a little bit of work and spend most of the day getting the house ready for my sister Emily and her family to come visit. They were going to arrive around 9:00. I didn't plan on going to the Living Nativity that night because I felt bad about leaving Derrick home alone for another night. I figured I'd have a productive night cleaning the bathrooms and then sewing pajamas. 

But the baby goat changed that plan. 

I texted Brit and asked her if Charlotte could be in charge of a baby goat. Brit said she could as long there was a responsible adult with her at the cheese stand. And since Brandon wasn't leaving the fish stand I was going to be that responsible adult. 

Brandon helped get the bathrooms clean while I made dinner and then it was time to get into costumes and go to the living nativity again. 

We were there a little early so that the video people could get footage of us. The lady took a video of the girls talking and pretending to sell baskets. Then she came over to the cheese stand and took a video of my hands as I squeezed out the whey from the curds. I was happy to do that for the video, but the whey was slimy and cold so I never touched it again that night. 

Charlotte and I went to find Britt so she could tell us where to find the baby goats. There were two of them in a little cat carrier. Britt helped pull them out of the carrier. Charlotte got the black goat and called him Black Beauty. But later changed his name to Oreo. She was so happy about that goat.

 

Here's our cheese stand. Like I said, it had real curds and whey as well as two wheels of cheese. 

Veronica's basket stand was next to the cheese stand and Brandon's fish stand was next to that. It was like the Illguth's were moving up in the world to have our own row of shops. 

There was a bag stand next to us on the other side and then a shop with wool.

Here's the cheese stand with Charlotte next to it. She had to sit with the goat the whole night. She sat out in front of the booth so that people could stop and pet the goat. So many people said things like, "Oh my gosh it's a goat!"

Here's Lydia standing in the stand where I hung out all night. Most of the night she was over with Brandon at the fish stand. 

Here's Veronica with her baskets. She had a chicken in one again and spent most of night doing her wishing basket routine again. 

Here's the chicken.

This is looking toward the entrance where there were people lined up. I was trying to take a picture of the roman soldiers on horse back. 

And then they moved right in front of my stand and I got excellent pictures. 

Here's another selfie of me. By the way, I am TERRIBLE at staying in character or really even finding a character. I can't get out of reporter mode. I just want to document everything. So I'm the one hiding my phone and whipping it out to take pictures when there aren't any visitors around. I'm also ALWAYS mentally making notes of the things that are happening. 

Here's another view of the girls hanging out at the baskets. You can see Brandon cooking his fish in the background. There was one notable change to his stand this year - he didn't have a gaggle of children helping him out. In other years there were always a bunch of kids hanging around. Especially a boy named James. I actually found a little video I took in 2019 of Lydia saying, "Mom, this is our helper James."  James has always been at the fish stand with Brandon. But this year James was old enough to have his own stand. He jumped around from the incense stand and a few other places. On Saturday night I saw him at the sandal stand. Not only did the Illguths have a whole row of stands, our workers were growing up too.  

The Living Nativity officially starts at 6:30. When people started walking through I quickly realized that I needed to look busy. So I found about 10 cloths that were supposed to be straining clothes. I folded and refolded those clothes for 2 - nearly 2.5 hours. I folded them in triangles, I folded them in rectangles, I folded them in fan shapes. 

Some people stopped to ask about the cheese and I explained the process - basically based what I'd read in  Little House in the Big Woods. But the big draw was the baby goat. Here's Lydia taking a little turn while Charlotte got hot chocolate.  

Oh here's James. He stopped by for a second while Veronica was getting hot chocolate. He pretended to sell baskets and then moved on.

One of the fun things about the living nativity is seeing people I know go through as visitors. It's fun to say hi to them. Veronica's vision therapist came through on Thursday and Friday night. I saw two coworkers. Brandon had a ton of coworkers come through too. There were also a lot of friends from church. My friend Jori came through with her daughters and loved it. This was her first time. She's actually been to markets in Jerusalem and she said this took her back. She said she nearly cried at the incense booth. I told her I was going to have to tell Britt that.  And then Britt just happened to walk by. 

I hurried to take Jori over to Britt and introduce her. I told Jori, "Tell her what you told me about this place." She did and Britt was so happy to hear all the praise. I'm glad it worked out that way. 

The event was supposed to be over at 8:30, but there were still people milling about all the way until 8:45. And really who could blame them? It was another "warm" evening. There really wasn't a rush to get home. 

We got home around 9:00. Derrick had been fine on his own for another evening. We hung around for a little bit and then Emily and her family arrived at 9:30. It was so fun to see them all. They haven't been to our house in like 18 months. 

I was a little worried about the logistics of having 8 people in our house in winter. Every other time they've come to visit us has been in the summer. We've been able to eat on the patio. I wasn't sure how it would work this time. But it was fine.

The kids were all a little wired so I don't think they got to bed until about 10:30 or 11:00, but that was fine. 

On Saturday morning Brandon made muffins and everyone could eat those without sitting so we didn't have to worry about seats at the table. 

Emily and I sat on the couch and talked. Our goal was to sit there and do nothing until 11:00. We actually pushed that to 11:45. It was great. 

In the afternoon we went out to the garage and made gingerbread houses. Brandon had moved the table to the middle of the room and covered it with white paper so it was the perfect work space. I'd bought gingerbread house kits and decorations. I'd also made stiff frosting to supplement the not so stiff frosting from the kits.

The kids had a blast decorating their houses.

The garage was the perfect place for this. We had so much room.

Derrick was very serious about his house.

Look at all of these hard workers.

Here's Derricks final house.

Here's Veronica working on her house.

She had a lot of fun.

This corner was probably put the most effort into their houses.

I'd been teasing Charlotte that ginger bread houses were her religion. She'd almost cried when I told her we were doing them with cousins.

Hazel put a ball pit into her house.

Here Charlotte's house. It's so cute.

I put all the houses together into a village.

I can't get over how cute they are.

This was such a cute project. I'm glad we did it.

We went back in the house and the kids watched a movie. I took a nap. We had baked potatoes and chilli for dinner. We ate that in the garage

The whole reason Emily and her kids came to visit was to see the living nativity. I was going to stay with them. So I didn't get into my costume. Brandon and the girls got into their costumes and went.

Around 6:30 Emily and her family Derrick and I got in our cars to drive to the living nativity. Emily followed me there. 

We parked a few blocks away and then walked to the entrance. Right away I could tell it was super crowded! Like so much more than other nights. I was in semi-panic mode trying to keep track of everyone.

But I was also happy to take pictures when ever I wanted.

We went to Illguth row. Charlotte had the goat again. 

No one was at the cheese stand so I think she was just confidently being her own responsible adult and hoping no one in charge would notice.

Here are Emily's boys at the basket stand.

Here's Brandon 

Lydia helping sell fish.

We walked around some more. This was a seafood stand.

With a real octopus! Britt goes all out.

We left the market place and went around back. There were shepherds.

And wisemen.

And the holy family.

We came back to the market and had two mini disasters. I told some of Emily's boys to not get second helpings of hot chocolate,but they did anyway and I got a little mad. I was like "there are so many people here. I'm not sure they have enough hot chocolate fur everyone."

The second mini disaster was that Juniper lost one of her boots.

But both ended up with happy endings. I felt bad about the hot chocolate incident so when we got back home we had a mini hot chocolate party -with the last if the whipped cream.

And I told Emily we'd go back when the nativity ended at 8:30 and look for the boot.

It was so fun to go back without the kids and without the crowds. 

Here are my three girls hanging out with the goat. This was basically Charlotte's dream Christmas present.

We found the boot on the hot chocolate table. So then we spent the rest of the time looking around. Here's a spice table.

Some of the booths still had people at them. Emily got the VIP treatment. The present booth let her put some birds around her neck and take a picture 

She was able to take pictures behind the seafood booth and the wool dying booth. 

We also looked at everything closely.i always like this bread.

We also ran into Britt. I'd told Britt my sister was coming from Layton. Britt was so happy to meet Emily. She was like "oh you came! I'm so happy." Britt is a master at making people feel special. 11,000 people came through the Living Nativity, but she took the time to celebrate Emily coming.

We went home. (We took Veronica with us because she was pretty done.) As soon as I got home there was a knock on the door. The bishops family was delivering left over ham and potatoes from the ward party. Those became breakfast the next day.

Brandon and the twins eventually came home. We stayed up talking for a little while but soon everyone went to bed.

Making it to church the next morning had been somewhat up in the air. But the adults woke up early enough to get the kids up. So we all made it to church. 

After church Emily's family packed up and then hung out for a little while. After they left our house seemed so much quieter. It was nice, but also kind of sad.

And I think that's where we will end this post. I'm hoping to finish another one about the next week before things get too busy with Christmas Eve. We'll see.

Thanks for reading.