Family Traditions

When you move every couple of years it is hard to create family traditions. Those traditions can't be associated with a certain location or event. These traditions need to happen within your home. With just your family. Because those are the only things you can take with you...no matter where you move. I learned this the hard way when we moved from Minnesota to Texas and had to leave our beloved annual pumpkin patch trip with friends behind.

Luckily we didn't leave all our traditions behind in the Midwest. One of our family traditions is making Christmas cookies together. I am NOT a baker. I just don't enjoy it. Add in a bunch of little "helping" hands and it can get downright stressful. But from the time Isaiah was a toddler I have done this every year with my kids. Its messy. Its chaotic. The cookies never turn out that great. But its our tradition. And we can do it anywhere. As long as we are together.

December 2009:

December 2011:

 December 2014:

December 2017:

Remember that stressful and messy part? This year I totally lucked out when a residency friend offered to host the cookie baking and decorating at her house! All the mess and stress but no cleaning required. My kind of cookie night:)

This last week Charlotte had a school assignment to write about one of our family traditions. She didn't pick Christmas cookie baking and decorating. She didn't choose the pumpkin patch. And she didn't write about tent camping as a family. Those are the top three family traditions I would have thought she would have picked. Instead she wrote about our annual summer road trip to Minnesota. That's a pretty good tradition too. I can see why she wrote about it:)

Christmas Tree Decorating 2017

Last year we started the tradition of allowing (well-behaved) children to sleep under the Christmas tree every night leading up to Christmas. I read Christmas stories and sit by the fire (if it's "cold" enough!) and the kids look up at the tree. It really is magical! So this year when the calendar hit 12/1 I was anxious to set aside time to get the tree set up. And those who know me know that I am not a patient person. Not surprisingly on 12/2 our tree was up and decorated!

But we can't just decorate a tree. That would be too simple. No I've unintentionally complicated this process. Six years ago I saw the most adorable stop-motion video of a family setting up their tree together. Of course that means five years ago we started making our very own family stop-motion Christmas decorating videos. And we've been doing it ever since. (For those who are interested here are 2014 and 2016 as well. We took all the pictures in 2015 but Joe never got around to making the video. Darn intern year. Someday. Maybe. ;)

So without further ado I present 2017: the year you can see the top of the tree:) We really are getting the hang of this. Our only mishap during the entire process what Hannah falling of the chair at one point because Joe mentioned putting the star on top of the tree. She was so excited to get to the star she tripped - even though it wasn't her year to put on the star! It was supposed to be Levi's year to put the star on top but he declined. I'll leave the story there. A real cliffhanger. ;)

This is probably where I should add the detail that Levi is yet to fall asleep under the tree. The three oldest have made it all night both nights so far. But Levi just can't. He listens to the stories I read and he tries. But we've had to put him in his crib to sleep. I was hoping he could join the big kid ranks this year. We will keep trying. But I'm thinking next year will work better.

Visiting Santa

Even though 3 out of 4 of my kids do not believe in Santa Claus we went to visit him last night. I'm perfectly happy having them NOT believe. Jesus is truly the reason we celebrate Christmas BUT its also fun to get all dressed up festive and participate in some Christmas festivities. Crafts, snacks, and Santa to name a few. Oh and this event is FREE. Which we all know is my absolute favorite.

Levi doesn't truly understand this entire Santa thing. But we have a framed picture of baby Charlotte on Santa's lap (in our Christmas décor) so he was excited to get his turn with the big guy. He was especially interested to see if Santa was wearing glasses or not.

He was! Which means Levi willingly went up to him.

Apparently Levi wants a Darth Vader helmet this year. This was a surprise to me because when we were creating our lists last week he never once mentioned anything about Darth Vader! Two year olds:)

Charlotte told him she wants a locket and Hannah wants a diary. I love that they have simple requests.

Isaiah was my least enthusiastic Santa visitor...he even tried to sneak off while we were getting into line. (Which was only one family in front of us. Yay for getting there right when it started! :) And when Santa asked what he wanted he mumbled his answer incoherently so Santa had to ask again. Which made for a great picture. Thanks Isaiah.

Oh and his request? A remote control car. Though I think he's hoping one of his uncles will buy it for him.

This snow globe bounce house thing was the highlight of the evening for my kids.

Joe reluctantly wore this festive shirt that Isaiah picked out for him. He's such a good sport. I think its cute. Errr...I mean very manly. Please note Levi's Southern Santa. Merry Christmas Y'all!

Speaking of good sports, my friend Sarah tagged along with us for all the fun...even being one day overdue! Though I couldn't convince her to sit on Santa's lap. I thought baby boy definitely needed a picture with Santa...even if it was inutero.

Sea World

During most (not all!) residencies there is an opportunity for the residents to moonlight. Moonlighting is working as a physician at a facility outside of the residency hospital - typically in an ER. It allows the residents an opportunity to spread their wings a bit and learn to work without their attending physicians watching over them. It's good practice for life after residency. Its good for life during residency too...because moonlighting = $. Plain and simple. It also means more time away from home as it is working hours in addition to normal residency hours. So that's a bit of a balancing act. Money is nice. But family time is even nicer. At Joe's program third year residents are allowed to moonlight.  For our family Joe moonlighting has meant we have a little breathing room this year. All those little extra hidden costs that pop up suddenly - while still annoying - don't stress me out. $5 shirt for this activity? Ok. Another $10 for this school function? Alright. Too tired to cook dinner? Chinese take-out to the rescue. Those kinds of things. Oh and I've also allowed myself to buy baby wipes instead of making them. After an entire decade of making them it's a nice break. 

Aside from buying our much needed new-to-us mini van our biggest splurge thus far has been taking our kids to Sea World for a day during their fall break. None of our kids have been to an amusement park before so this was big stuff for our family! And the best part was we surprised them with it. We told the kids we were going camping. Loaded them all up in the van early in the morning and drove them to Sea World. They were clueless until we pulled into the parking lot! It was the best. (Well except Charlotte having a fever. That was sad.) I even splurged and bought meal passes for our family. So for the first time ever I wasn’t lugging around an entire day’s worth of snacks and meals and beverages in my stroller. I didn’t have to convince my children that squished pb&j sandwhiches and bruised fruit was a great meal while they longingly eyed the multiple concession stands full of pizza and hot dogs and ice cream and soda. It truly was wonderful. Far less healthy. But magical none the less:)

We were in the park from the moment it opened until closing. And then we did take the kids camping! 

Next up on our moonlighting funded adventures...flying to Minnesota for Christmas!!! Me + 4 kids on 2 flights with a 50 minutes layover. Sounds like a recipe for disaster. 

P.S. While the day was really fun. And I delighted in watching the look of pure joy on my kids faces, I’m not sure I’m ready for Disney. I mean in theory I want to take my kids there (eventually). But in reality it sounds exhausting! And like a lot of work. Vacation and work should not be mixed in my opinion. Thankfully they haven’t even asked. But when they do it will take A LOT of convincing.