On Sunday, I stayed home from church with Alice and Charlie, who both had colds. Grace and Alice were happy to see each other again!
And Paul and Charlie were happy to see each other again!
Mother/son dance.
Charlie and Jensen: BFF.
Family dreidel party on the rug. Grace is SO interested in Hanukkah, to the point that her kindergarten teacher had each of the kids chose something they know a lot about to make a book on, and she chose Hanukkah!
We got all our Christmas cards ready to send out, then skyped with Mom/Dad Gabe.
On Monday, Paul worked from home in the morning, and went into the newspaper office in the afternoon. We got a ton of baby boy clothes from the free pile in the laundry room. That evening, we watched Mr. Kreuger's Christmas for FHE, talked about Christ's gifts to us, and decided what our gifts would be to him. I grocery shopped after the girls were in bed.
On Tuesday, Paul finished his final assignment for the semester. All done! Charlie was cute.
Now that Paul was free, he gave Alice the attention she'd been craving. They played football together, and he let her brush his hair - ouch!
He also gave Charlie some attention.
Look at those blue eyes!
His brown hair.
Paul took Alice outside to play ball, but she preferred playing in the mud.
I made cookie dough for Christmas plates. We did 2 kinds this year: mint chocolate chip and M&M chocolate cake. I made a bunch of dough, then kept it in the refrigerator and baked fresh cookies as we needed plates made. Alice loved the dough.
She wasn't happy when it was gone. In the afternoon, Paul, Grace, and I made tissue paper Christmas trees, and I took Charlie to WIC. That evening, we went to dinner at our Chilean neighbors' house. We brought Christmas cookies for them, and they fed us a shepherd's pie-type dish with boiled eggs instead of green beans. Not bad. They said they don't normally pray over their food, but they knew we did, so they asked Paul to say the prayer. After dinner, the kids ran off to play, and the adults had fun visiting. We really like them. Paul had to go to the church every night this week to make sure it was all locked up. It's 15 minutes away, so it's been kind of a hassle.
On Wednesday morning, Paul got Grace off to school, then went to mass. A Catholic school was doing a reenactment of a vision of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Paul was asked to write an article on it. He went to an entire Catholic mass, and found it all very interesting.
It was Paul's last day at the Sentinel, so took pictures. His workspace.
The office.
The outside, nestled among the trees. Grace got an award at school that day for good character or something, and her whole class got t-shirts for exercising 60 minutes a day. Grace and I decorated Charlie's stocking. When Paul got home, he was all done with schoolwork and internship until January!
We had dinner, then went through all the winter gear to make sure we all had everything we need for the snowy weather we forsee over Christmas break. Alice fits Grace's old snowpants. I visit taught that night, and Paul and I played Quiddler.
On Thursday, Grace was too sick to go to school. She had a bad cough/cold. So the girls sat on the couch and watched a movie, but Paul and I had tons of errands planned, so eventually we made Grace go anyway. We went to Target, Staples, and two grocery stores. We relaxed in the afternoon. Paul actually just sat there holding Charlie and watching TV - he NEVER gets to do that. I visit taught that evening, and Paul made a fake snow scene with the kids. When we put the girls to bed, we played a prank on them. We left Charlie at the foot of Grace's bed. It's pitch black in there, so they didn't notice. Paul and I waited and listened outside the door. Soon, we heard Charlie make a small noise. The girls didn't notice at first. Then Alice noticed, and said, Hi, Charlie! Grace still didn't get it. He started fussing more, and Grace got really worried. "Charlie, are you in here?" She felt something move on her bed, and got really scared: "Charlie, are you on my bed?!" Paul and I couldn't contain our laughter anymore, so we came in and got him. Pretty funny. Then I cut Paul's hair, and we threw away a box of cheerios covered in ants.
On Friday, Grace went to school, Paul did laundry, and I visit taught. Alice was super cute that day.
What a winning smile! As soon as I got home from visiting teaching, Paul said I needed to get Grace from school because she called home sick. Another kid in her class had called home sick half an hour earlier, and we counted at least 7 kids absent from her class, and a canceled birthday party. Everyone had that cold. Once we heard the tragic news of the school shooting, we were glad to have Grace home with us. Paul and I finished gifts for each other, then we made a pizza with store-bought dough. It was so good! We make a pizza every Friday, but we haven't perfected our dough recipe. We watched old Christmas cartoons with the kids. That night, Paul and I worked on a gift for Charlie, and finished it! We're done with our gifts!
On Saturday, we had an air mattress party and watched Christmas shows on TV. Grace dressed herself. Then we shopped at Kohl's and Ross for a few missing winter gear items, and ate at McDonald's.
In the afternoon, Paul and Grace did Christmas origami. Who's supposed to be tending that screaming kid?
That evening, Charlie wore skeleton pajamas from the free pile. He felt cheated that he missed Halloween by 5 days.
He's practicing making snow angels.
I gave Alice a new hairstyle.
Silly kid.
Crazy hair! Paul and I had a nice evening just talking. I love talking with him!
Today we had a nice productive morning. Paul and the girls delivered cookies to neighbors and even caroled to his home teaching family.
We watched Christmas Snows Christmas Winds, and the girls played in a box. Grace was the spotlight kid at church, Alice never napped, and we had tithing settlement. Then we had family play time.
Sounds fun!
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