Living Nativity and other things

Okay here we are on my attempt to catch this blog up on all our December things before Christmas happens. This post is about the second week of December. The big thing was the Living Nativity, but we had something scheduled for every night. So let's get all caught up

Sunday December 7 - I already posted about me and Derrick working on his dinosaur posters. Here they are hung up in his room. 

Monday was a pretty normal day. At work I met with a lady named Hanah. She is the daughter in law of Elder and Sister Coombs who were the military relations missionaries extraordinaire when we lived in Texas. They live in Idaho Falls so we've been able to see them many times over the years since we moved to Idaho. Hanah and her husband live in Twin Falls. Hanah is going to school to be a social worker. Elder Coombs kept telling her to reach out to me because I had connections to the mental health world. So she did that several months ago. I got her connected to my boss. And he was able to connect her with Foundation for Lighting up the Dark (FLUD) which is a local organization helping people access mental health resources. She's doing her internship with them. We talked and she wanted to see the billing side of things so she came and sat with me for a few hours. 

She arrived before our receptionist did so I sent her this picture of what my office looks like from the lobby so she could find me.  Here's the picture.

After school on Monday we went to Britt's barn to pick up costumes for the Living Nativity. I had two adopted daughters this year. One was our friend Addie. Her mom is my friend Megan. Addie is Charlotte and Lydia's age. She really wanted to be in the living nativity, but none of her family wanted to so I told Megan that Addie would just be our adopted daughter. We picked Addie up on the way to the barn. 

My other adopted daughter was my friend Marianne's daughter Lainey. Lainey was in Cinderella with us and is a little younger than Charlotte and Lydia. Marianne brought Lainey to the barn to meet up with us for costumes. 

Brandon also met us there after work. So we were quite the crew of people descending on Britt's barn. Britt had all the costumes put together and hanging on her clothing racks. We just had to come in and pick out what we wanted. Charlotte found her usual costume right off. Lydia picked out a new costume. We found Veronica's old poncho, but the skirt part of the outfit looked too short. It was long enough for Lainey though. So Lainey took that. 

I couldn't find my usual costume so I found a different one. And we found one that would work for Veronica and another one for Brandon. I think Addie took the longest, but she found one she liked. 

Britt was outside getting the booths ready. So we went and talked to her for a little while. She is so fun!

Brandon took Veronica to theatre for rehearsal and I took Addie home and then we went home. 

Monday was the only night all week that we didn't have anywhere to be at night. I have no memory of what we did. 

 

I do know that I stayed up way too late reading. I was reading "Sunrise on the Reaping" which is a prequel to the Hunger Games. I hadn't liked the other prequel "The Ballad of Snakes and Songbirds" so I hadn't planned to read this one. But then I saw a preview for the movie and that made me want to read the book. I'd got the book from the library and had been reading it before falling asleep each night. 

On Monday night I was about halfway though the book. I thought I'd read until I got sleepy. But then the story got crazy intense and I couldn't put it down. I stayed up reading until 1:00 and finished the book. I think this is my second favorite Hunger Games book. My most favorite is Catching Fire. 

On Tuesday I was so tired from staying up late reading. Fortunately, I had NOTHING planned for the morning. No doctors appts, no orthodontist appts, no extra work things, nothing. So I dropped all the kids off at school and then came home and went back to sleep for a while. That was so nice. Like so nice. 

Then I went to work in the afternoon and got a lot done there. 

In the evening we went to see the lights at the Orton Botanical Garden. I'd invited Jori's family along. Here's Brandon in his "Uncle Brandon" role with one of Jori's kids. 

All week we had unseasonably warm weather. The LOW for this night was supposed to be something like 46 degrees or something crazy like that. So it was the perfect night to go look at lights. 

We had a good time doing that. 

The kids posed by this wreath. 

And then figured out how they could all be in the picture. 

I'd had a good time, but I also could feel myself coming down with a little cold. So I took NyQuil that night and slept really well. 

On Wednesday December 10th I had an important meeting with Chris Ayers. Chris is the guy who owns Twin Falls Theatre Collective which just did The Hello Girls. He's also the guy who does the Curtain Call Awards. AND he's the current board president for Jump Company which is one of the children's theatre groups here in Twin Falls. (And let's all take a moment to appreciate the fact that Twin Falls has TWO children's theatre groups.)  Way way way back in April he'd talked to me about the possibility of me coming on as the bookkeeper for Jump. I told him I was interested and told him my hourly rate. And then I heard nothing until December 8th when he messaged me and asked if I wanted to meet with him about it. 

I told Brandon, "I think I accidently got another job."

So Wednesday morning I drove out to his building in Filer and we talked about the job and what it would involve. The trickiest part is that I'd have to learn an old version of Quickbooks. But that's just a matter of learning to system and I can do that. This job will be about an hour a month during regular months. But during show months it will be more hours. And I get to count cash donations that come in during shows. I LOVE counting cash so that's like a major perk for me. 

So I have yet another billing client. But I'm actually not too worried about this one. Jump is an organization and not someone's sole source of financial revenue like my insurance billing clients. So this will be a lot less stressful for me. And Chris Ayers is one of those cool people that just does cool stuff. I'm kind of fascinated by him so I'm excited to work with him. 

Back at home I took care of a lot of small things. Things like doing dishes and taking out the recycling. I was trying to get ahead of things before the Living Nativity took over our lives for the weekend. 

Then I did the October and November audit for the Exponent organization. Sometimes all my little side projects are kind of overwhelming. But I also love things like this. I love going over a bank statement and making sure that everything makes sense. I don't know if anyone else finds accounting to be delightful, but I do. 

We had a busy evening in store for us that night. Veronica had theatre from 4:30 to 6:00. Charlotte and Lydia had an orchestra concert that they needed to be at by 6:30. And Derrick had young mens that started at 7:00 which was the same time the Orchestra concert was going to start. 

I took care of Veronica. Derrick was going to go to Young Mens with his friend Finn, but Finn got sick. So I asked Megan if Derrick could go with her son Ty. I took Derrick there after bringing Veronica home so she could eat. And Brandon took Charlotte and Lydia to the concert. 

There were a lot of moving parts and so it really wasn't a surprise when something went wrong. Derrick was supposed to go back home with Ty after young mens. But we'd never really told Derrick, or Ty, or the leaders that. Also the activity ended about 15 minutes early. So one of Derrick's leaders took Derrick home  - to our empty house. And then Megan arrived at the church at 8:00 and was like, "Where's Derrick?"

There were quite a few anxious texts back and forth for a while. In the end Derrick was fine, he knew where our spare key was and had got into the house with no problems. But I'd been picturing him getting colder and colder on our patio. Megan went to pick him up and brought him to the auditorium. 

So yeah it was fine, but also not fine. This was the latest in a LOOOOOONNNNNNNNNGGGGG string of bad communication from the Young Men leaders. The Relief Society President, who also has a son in the Deacon's quorum, texted me separately and said she was going to bring this up in Ward Council. And Ty's dad is the Elders Quorum President and also planned to bring it up in Ward Council. I was glad to have the backing, but I also had the sense that by the time this was brought up in Ward Council too much time would have passed. 

So on Thursday morning I wrote a detailed email to the bishop. I outlined what had happened, and then asked for better communication from the young men leaders. I cc'd Brandon, the Relief Society president, and the Elders quorum president. Later the Elders Quorum president told me that it was an excellent email. (If there's one thing I know how to do it's write.)

The Bishop responded within a few hours and said that he would be having a meeting with the Young Men Leaders to discuss safety procedures and better communication about whether or not parents should pick up the boys or if the leaders will bring them home. I was happy the ball was rolling on this topic well before Ward Council on Sunday. So yeah, all that happened. 

But let's talk about the concert itself. It was delightful! 

It was combined with the band. The concert band started out the program. Then the jazz band played off to the side while the concert orchestra came on the stage. Charlotte and Lydia are in this group. They played in the Bleak Midwinter and then a song called Santa The Barbarian. The middle school intermediate group had played a different Santa the Barbarian song. Mr Shipply explained, "this is actually the third installment in the Santa the Barbarian Multiverse." That made me laugh. 

Here's the song. In it Santa is trying to turn all the seasons into Winter.

And here's a still picture. 

Here's Charlotte's side. She's wearing a Santa had. 

And here's Lydia's side. She is also wearing a Santa hat. 

When the concert orchestra was done it was time for the Chamber Orchestra. They played the Home Alone Suite. (Which was ironic, because this is when we started getting all the texts about Derrick being home alone.)

Then it was time for some combined songs with the band and chamber orchestra. They played Sleigh Ride and had the school principal do the slapstick because she is good at "cracking the whip" around the school. Hearing Sleigh Ride live always takes me back to the first time I heard it. I was little and heard it at the Tabernacle in Salt Lake. 

And then the concert was over. Brandon and the twins picked up ice cream on the way home and we ate that at home. 

Thursday was a busy day. Thursday is the day I make sure all payments have been received for all my billing clients.  We are nearing the end of the year so I'm trying to get 2025 as tidy as possible before we move into 2026. Everyone is in good shape, but Castle Therapy is probably in the best shape. We had a lot of billing issues earlier in the year, but they have all been resolved and there aren't any outstanding claims older than 2 months ago. And most aren't older than 1 month. That's where I like things to be. 

The real news from Thursday though was the Living Nativity. So forget about all that boring billing stuff. Let's look at costumes!

Here's Veronica's. Despite our best efforts we'd still picked out a costume that was too short. Fortunately, Brandon's costume came with an extra robe or something so we pinned that around Veronica as a long skirt. I love her bright scarf. 

Here's Lydia. She loves blue. 

And here's Charlotte in the most darling little dress with her beloved wool robe. 

Here's Brandon. 

And here's me in my latest shapeless blob of a dress. I've given up on these ever being flattering. But Charlotte said the colors were beautiful so I liked that. 

Addie does early morning seminary so she didn't want to do the Living Nativity on Thursday night. But every member of my family was like, "Where's Addie? Don't we need to get Addie?"  So she was missed. Lainey was dropped off and met up with us. 

Brandon was the fish salesman again so we went to his booth area first.  Lydia would spend the whole night there with Brandon. 

Charlotte was extremely sad that there wouldn't be any goats at the nativity this year. (Apparently the Jerome Stake was doing something similar and all Britt's animal people had committed their animals to the Jerome thing.) But there were chickens from Britt coop. So Charlotte went and got one of those chickens. 

I don't have an official booth that I take care of. I'm a self appointed float. I just jump into whatever booth looks like it needs someone. As we got closer to 6:30 I realized that no one was in the chicken booth at the front of the marketplace. I took over that booth with Charlotte and Lainey. Another girl named Camila joined us. Veronica took over the pots and pans booth next door. Our friend James (who we've used as "Fake Derrick" for pictures once or twice) called himself the Chicken Whisperer and came around a few times.  

Here's Brandon getting his booth ready. 

And here he is with Lydia. 

Here I am trying to get a cute picture of my headwrap. 

And here I am with Veronica. 

My friend Hanah (a different Hanah) was in the bread booth a little ways down from chickens. She has a real life sour dough business and wanted to give out samples. So I'd connected her with Britt. She was giving out bread all night and was a huge hit. 

A ways down from her was the cheese booth. My friends Karin (remember pronounced like Corrine) and Chris were assigned that booth. I just love them to pieces so I was happy to see them. This was their first year at the Living Nativity. Usually they are involved with the December play so they've never been able to do this. But they were free this year. 

Here's a whole group of teenagers who were at the wool booth next to cheese. One of these is Amelia. Years ago she fell in love with a chicken at the living nativity. I'd watched her carry it around in a basket, a wagon, and various other things all night. Now she has her own chicken and brought her to the Living Nativity.  

Veronica took over the pots and pans booth and put her own spin on it. At first she was just "selling" them. But after a while she started saying, "Five Pots and Pans for 20 sheckles or I'll tell you a joke for free." So many people asked for the joke. She told lots of her jokes and people laughed. She loved it!

Here's our family picture we took this at the end of the night. 

Here's Veronica with a chicken. 

Marianne came through with her family and took this picture of me and Lainey. Lainey was so funny to work with. She was appalled at my lack of creativity and imagination. People would ask me things like, "are these eggs real?"  And I'd be like, "No."  Lainey told me that I couldn't say things like that. She told me to "just stand there and look pretty." It was very funny. 

Later she got tired of holding her chicken and handed it to me. Charlotte was like, "Mom, you are holding a chicken????"  I was like, "Lainey told me to."

This was another unseasonably warm night. So even though the Nativity officially ended at 8:30 there were still visitors milling around at 8:45. When the nights are cold people hurry home. But on warm nights they stay around a lot longer. 

We didn't get out of there until about 9:00. Marianne met us at our house to pick up Lainey. She hadn't wanted to deal with the traffic at the nativity. 

We had school and work the next day so everyone got ready for bed and we went to bed pretty quick. 

I was so tired on Friday. I went grocery shopping before work and I felt like I didn't have any social ability. I ran into my friend Sami and was like, "Hi" and then just kind of mumbled and wandered off. About 5 minutes later I realized how weird that was and then was muttering to myself, "That was really weird."  Which then I realized probably looked pretty weird itself. 

When I came home with the groceries I mixed up a Celcius drink and drank that and that helped me at least feel like a normal-ish human while I was at work. 

In the evening we got back into our costumes. We dropped Derrick off at my friend Kori's house for the night. Her son Cayson is Derrick's age, but her younger son Ryker is about 6 and adores Derrick. He was so excited for Derrick to come over. 

Then we drove to Addie's and picked her up. I dropped everyone off at the Nativity and then drove all the way across town to get Lainey. Marianne was solo parenting and couldn't get Lainey there and make dinner at the same time that night. Since I don't have a real booth job it was no big deal for me to come get her. We got back to the nativity around 6:15. The chicken booth was still unmanned so we took over it again. Here's Charlotte with two chickens on her shoulder. 

Here's my head wrap for the evening I did it slightly different this time. 

The teenagers had a pretty good handle on the chicken booth and I noticed that the booth next to us was empty. This one had the prop wool on a big spindle so I went over and took care of that booth. I've ALWAYS wanted to unwind this and wind it back up so that's what I did. Megan came by with her kids and took this picture of me. 

Later Karin found these pictures online and sent them to me. This might be my favorite picture of me at the Living Nativity. 

But this one is great too. Maybe those outfits aren't that terrible afterall. 

Here's a picture Megan took of Veronica and a girl I don't recognize. 

I was pretty worn out on Friday so I spent a lot of time winding and unwinding the wool and then just kind of sat there and smiled and people watched for a long time. They were trying to have a traffic pattern with the guests for the first time so my booth was the very last stop for everyone. I didn't feel a lot of pressure to interact. Veronica got tired of her booth and came over and sat with me. She laid her head on my knee. 

This was another warm night. I think we had people coming into the area until 8:45 and it took a long time for them to leave. It was well after 9:00 by the time we left. We dropped Addie off first. Then we picked up Derrick. He got in the car and was like, "Why does it smell like smoke!"  I dropped all my family people off at home and then drove Lainey home. It was after 10:00 by the time I got home. I went right to bed. 

On Saturday I didn't get out of bed for a while. I was simultaneously recuperating from Friday night and also storing up energy for later in the day. I'd been battling a cold all week. It was such an odd little sickness. Like I wasn't very sick. I could still function. But I was sneezing quite a bit and had a runny nose. I was taking Dayquil just to keep the sneezing down and to keep my nose clear. At night I was taking Nyquil to keep my nose under control so I could breath while sleeping. 

I'd been able to keep up with everything even though I was a little sick, but it was so nice to take a break on Saturday morning. The break was worth it because I had a really great afternoon and evening. 

First up was a work party for Aspen Grove. We went bowling at Tiger Zone in Jerome. Here I am looking all festive. My friend Olyvia game me this shirt for my birthday, but this was the first time I've every really worn it. 

Here's a view of everyone who was bowling. 

My kids had a really fun time. We love bowling as a family, but it's been really expensive in Twin Falls so we don't do it as much as we would like. 

Here are our scores at the end of the first game. I did really well. 

We had time for another round. The company was paying for the games, but we were on our own for food. We ordered a pepperoni pizza and ate that as we played the second round. 

This time Derrick and Veronica really hit their groove and scored really well. 

We got home and had only a little bit of time before it was time to get into costumes again. Here I am with my first century selfies. 

This time Derrick was going to Megan's house. So we dropped him off and picked up Addie at the same time. Derrick made such a good impression on Megan's whole family. Apparently her preschooler listened to him when he wouldn't listen to anyone else. He was also training their dog. 

Marianne brought Lainey so she met us there. Here's a picture of her at the chicken booth. 

My friend Whitney was filming the nativity for this years movie. I'd only recently seen her video from last year. Brandon's face made it in. And I could see body parts for all the girls. Here's the video.  That's my friend Raylene and her husband playing Mary and Joseph. 

I've given up on ever being in this movie so I wasn't to committed to getting there on time. But everyone else wanted to be in it so we were there at 5:30. Addie needed help with her head scarf so I helped wrap it for her. Amelia also needed help because her mom wasn't there this night. I was happy to be able to help these girls. 

Hanah couldn't make it this night so I'd taken over her booth. Brandon and I took home her bread on Friday night and then brough it back on Saturday.  I had 12 of her loaves of sour dough bread and I gave it all away that night. I cut it into small pieces and offered samples to people. My joke that I said a million times was "Welcome to Bethlehem Costco. We have samples." I quickly learned that people LOVE the bread booth. Everyone was so happy to find out they got free samples of bread. I've worked a lot of the booths, but none have ever been as fun as this one. I did feel bad for stealing Hanah's glory so whenever anyone asked, "Did you make this bread?" I was quick to say, "No my friend Hanah did."  One lady even came back to ask how to get more of Hanah's bread. I directed her to her instagram. 

Chris came over and took this picture of me at the bread booth. 

He and Karin were also giving out samples this night. They'd bought mozzarella and had it in little pieces and were giving it out. 

One of my favorite moments of the night happened before we opened. A teenager saw Chris and said, "Hey were you the general in Hello Girls?" Chris said yes, and the kid was like, "You were really good."

Chris also took this picture of Lydia at the fish booth. 

And this picture of Brandon with his fish. Oh and you might be wondering, "where was the other fish guy? Why haven't you mentioned Ivan?"  Well Ivan was doing a little thing called STARING in White Christmas at the Orpheum. So he couldn't do Living Nativity. He was missed. 

I took this picture of the Roman Soldiers on horseback before any of the crowds came in. 

And here's Charlotte with two chickens. 

Since we were all there at 5:30 for the movie we were all ready by 6:15 and Britt made the decision to open the Nativity 15 minutes early. So Mitch came over the microphone and reminded us where the fire extinguishers were located and said the prayer like he always does at the beginning of each night and then the Roman guards let the people in at 6:15. There was a steady stream of people coming in from then until about 8:15. 

Whitney was still going around getting as much footage as she could. She came to my booth and asked me to accept coins from her helper and then give him a loaf of bread. Everything was just focused on our hands, but I made it into the movie!  YAY! She had us to two takes and after the first take I joked, "Give me a minute, I need to get in character again."

I was cutting bread into slices and then pieces all night. It was so fun. I definitely want to help with bread whenever I can from now on. 

Later when things settled down I took this picture of my lamp next to the "prop bread."

People were still coming into the area all the way up until about 8:45. But I gave up on my stand at 8:30. I cut the last loaf of bread into big pieces and gave them out to cast members. Then I started cleaning up my booth. 

Around 9:00 everyone really started cleaning. Britt had remembered to ask everyone to carry as much as they could up to the barn before they left. So we were moving chairs, tables, props, everything that wasn't too heavy got moved. This was great because it meant that my family wouldn't have to do it on Monday as has been our tradition. 

It was kind of sad to see it all get taken down though. This is such a fun thing to do every year. I'd had the idea to go around to every booth and ask people to tell me their "Living Nativity Story."  I always make a big deal out of how we met Ivan here and it changed our lives. But this year I was like, "Wait, who else is here? I want to get to know everyone. Why do they do this? What has it meant to them?"  I'd wanted to do that this night, but I'd also wanted to claim the bread booth. So that idea is going to have to wait until next year. 

We took Addie home and picked up Derrick. Then we went home. Marianne came to pick up Lainey. Brandon put out a laundry basket for the kids to put their costumes into. I started the first load of costume laundry. 

And that was the end of the Living Nativity for 2025.

Sunday was very uneventful compared to Saturday. The most exciting thing was we lit the third candle for Advent. It was the Joy candle. 

And that gets us caught up on the second week of December. 

Thanks for reading!

We survived the first week of December

Oh dear, I didn't plan to end up behind on this blog. I had very good intentions of staying caught up. But well here we are on December 16th and I have two weeks worth of posts to catch up on. 

The good news is that I'm behind because December is going really really well. We've had a lot of fun things happen and are making lots of good memories. So let's look back at all those great memories.  

Monday December 1st. In my opinion the Monday after Thanksgiving is the worst day of the year. It's just too hard to readjust to real life after the Thanksgiving break. But after all these years I know that. So I have low expectations for the day and some tricks for managing getting through it. 

So we all stumbled through the day. And when the kids were home from school I didn't expect ANYTHING from them. (Though Veronica still had to go to theatre.) And then we had Little Caesars Pizza for dinner. And we survived the day. 

Here's a picture of our tree that night. Isn't it pretty?

Tuesday December 2 was one of those days where I was like "who was in charge of scheduling appointments? Because she did a terrible job." Charlotte and Lydia had their well child checkups at 10:40 and I had a dentist appt at 2:00. Not sure when I expected to be able to work. 

As it turned out I went to work for about an hour after dropping Derrick off at school. Then I picked the girls up from the high school and took them to their doctor's appt. They were super lucky and were able to get the flu mist instead of a shot. But I still took them to McDonald's for ice cream cones afterward. 

I dropped them off and was back at work in time for admin meeting at 12:00. I worked for about another half an hour and then went home for a minute before heading over to the dentist. 

 On Wednesday December 3 Veronica had therapy at 12:00 and that really affected my whole day. I was able to get some billing stuff done in the morning before her appointment. After her appointment I came home and watched the second half of Hamilton while sorting papers. I'd watched Act 1 weeks ago and I finally had time to watch Act II. 

I also took pictures of the larkspur flowers that are freaking BLOOMING in December. We've had a mild winter. But there were some freezing nights and those did not stop this flower. 

That night Veronica had an orchestra concert. It was so special to see her on stage with a string bass. 

Here she is with all of the beginning orchestra. I call them the "baby orchestra." This was their first concert - ever. 

They played really simple and short songs. My favorite one is "Jingle Bows."  Each of the girls has played this when they were in the "baby class." And it's my favorite every year. Each musician has a bell on their bow. They wave the bow around during parts of the song so it will jingle. Here's a video of it. 

And here are more pictures of Veronica. We could hear her really well. Maybe I'm just biased, but I think we could hear her better than other bass players other years. 

And here's everyone standing up for bows at the end. 

I love seeing Veronica's face peeking over the bass. 

She's just so good looking. 

We stayed to hear the intermediate orchestra play. They were really good. 

There was this photo area in the lobby and Veronica obliged me with a picture. 

We picked up ice cream on the way home and then had that at home. Derrick had been at young mens (they had gone laser tagging). He was dropped off at our house and had ice cream with us. 

Thursday the 4th was a busy day with lots of work. But the evening was the best part. Jori and Tim had a work dinner for Tim's work. They asked us to watch their four girls. And I wanted to watch Muppet Christmas Carol with them. 

This was so much fun. The girls had seen Muppet Christmas Carol before, but it had been a while. They were really into the movie. I hadn't really found my Christmas Spirit yet. But I found a little bit of it in the movie. I was swaying along to the songs and Derrick said, "Mom, here's your Christmas Cheer."

When the movie was over Derrick and Jori's oldest daughter spent a lot of time talking about the human body. Derrick even got out "Mr Body" and was talking about all the organs. Jori's oldest is 10 and in some ways Derrick is about 10. So they were having a great time sharing what they knew. 

At some point that week Brandon and I had finished reading Into Thin Air. This had been a great book to read together. It's such a compelling story. And I really liked doing a re-read because there were so many moving parts to the story that it helped to read it again. 

On Friday December 5 I had my first ever annual review with my boss. It only took 6 years. And really it wasn't so much as a review as a check in. Michael wanted to make sure everyone had signed an up to date employment agreement. It's good he was checking. I didn't even have an employment agreement! Can you tell I was the second employee or what?

We also talked about my goals for the future. Mostly my goals are "keep up."  Remember, I was the second employee - there are now like 26 of us.  But we did talk about whether or not I want to branch off and become a 3rd party biller. The answer to that is "Not Yet."  But I'm so happy to be working somewhere where my boss values my career growth. 

That evening my family went to the Twin Falls parade. I was so happy when we saw that Mary Alice Park was open. This is my favorite place to watch the parade.  

Derrick went to run the trains with Art. 

The trains had logs on them. 

I think Derrick was running this train. 

Charlotte and Lydia played chess. 

As you can see, there was no snow. But there was rain! Here I am under the umbrella watching the parade. 

I actually gave up on the parade for a long time and went to sit by the fire in the park. 

I could see the floats from where I was sitting. 

Best view along the whole route. 

But after a while I decided to go hang out with the family. 

The kids were braving the rain so they could get candy. 

They got a lot. 

I remarked at how different this year was compared to last year. Brandon had been unemployed for over 2 months when we were at this play last year. He'd been watching the floats for each company go by and had been thinking "maybe I should apply there?" at some of them. This year we were just like, "YAY floats!" 

The parade started at 7:00 and the last float went by at 8:00. It was a fire truck. The kids had been getting all the big trucks to honk for them all night. When the fire truck went by they yelled, "Siren Siren Siren"  The firemen heard that and turned on the siren. It was such a fun way to end the night. We went home and the kids looked over their loot. 

Brandon said a guy in a Grinch Suit came by and gave them an onion. I thought hat was so funny. Here's the onion from the Grinch. 

Look at all of Lydia's candy. 

We went down stairs and watched Home Alone all together. That was fun. 

On Saturday December 6th we did the "Sibling Shopping" at Hobby Lobby. The kids each get a sibling to buy a gift for. I set the budget at $15-$20. I also let the kids each pick out a roll of rapping paper. We did that 2 years ago and had so much wrapping paper that we didn't have to buy any last year. (Which was good because Brandon was unemployed so we didn't really have money for more wrapping paper.) I also let Charlotte spent about $50 on various decorations. Our current decorations didn't fully fill the new shelves. So we needed more - and this was also kind of a make up for not having a lot of extra money last year. 

Back at home I had the kids come into my room one on one and wrap their sibling gift. 

And then we put them under the tree. I love that the kids' presents to each other are always the first gifts under the tree. The big red and white one is my gift to Brandon. It is the ONE present I bought this year. ONE! It was just easier for Brandon to buy his own gifts while shopping for me and the kids. So he told me to just get him one gift as a surprise for him. Usually I'm doing all the shopping so I'm loving this arrangement. And Brandon rarely gets to spend the money he earns so he is loving this too. 

Here are our shelves with some of the new decorations. 

Here's the other shelf. In addition to what she bought at Hobby Lobby Charlotte also found stuff at Goodwill. 

And here are our stockings. 

Lydia bought red velvet fabric and made her own Santa hat with some fur someone gave her. It looks great!

That night Brandon and I introduced the kids to Die Hard. They were a little unsure about it at first, but they caught on quick and loved it. Then we watched the Dude Dad video where he uses Elf on the Shelf to recreate Die Hard. The kids laughed so hard. 

The next day Brandon gave me an advent calendar of Hans Gruber falling off Nakatomi Tower. Every day you move him closer to the ground. It was so funny and so perfect. And the kids all knew what it was. 

Sunday December 7th was a nice day. We slept in and then went to church. I hung out in the foyer during Sunday School. I was getting ready for my Bible Study on the 12 minor prophets for 2026. I was going over the Book of Joel with my new NRSV Translation of the Bible. I had been really struggling with my ESV translation because the commentary assumes Biblical Inerrancy so a lot of the terrible things in the Bible are explained as like, "Well it's in the Bible and so God must have wanted this to happen to teach the people a lesson." And I was getting to the point where I was like, "So we are all in an abusive relationship with God?"  

I figured my issue was with the commentary. I was already planning to get another translation so I made sure to get one that Pete Enns from "The Bible for Normal People" podcast recommends. I got the "New Interpreter's Study Bible New Revised Standard Version."  I was already liking the commentary so much better. It was more like, "This author interprets this terrible thing as from God for these reasons." I'd read the later books of the 12 minor prophets over the last few months, but this was my first time circling back around to Joel. 

And this time through was AMAZING. Joel quotes from a lot of other biblical authors so I was looking up all those scriptures and seeing how they tied together. It was so informative. One thing I loved was a quotation from Exodus. It talks about how God's wrath extends only 3 or 4 generations while in contrast his mercy extents thousands of generations. 

I was already committed to doing this bible study, but this was the first time I felt like this was actually going to work. Like I actually could teach this. 

That afternoon Brandon took the twins driving. I sat down with Derrick to work on his dinosaur poster. But I was so tired. I went and took a nap. Later after dinner we were able to get back to work on it and worked on it for hours. Here we are. 

Lydia and Charlotte both needed to do presentations for their speech classes. The presentation had to be about to do something they knew how to do. Lydia's was on crocheting. She took pictures of her process and then put them in a slide show. She worked on that in the living room. 

Charlotte's was on how to make a Christmas tree card. She worked on hers at the kitchen table next to me and Derrick. 

We had Christmas music playing and it was fun to all hang out doing stuff together. 

Here's Derrick's poster all done. This was the second poster because he didn't think there was enough room on the original poster for all the herbivores that would be in the Late Cretaceous. He was right. 

And that gets us caught up on the first week of December. 

Hopefully the second week isn't too far behind. 

Thanks for reading.