Seven (not so) Quick Takes. Round 2

1. After we got our tree decorated I was feeling all Christmas-y and decided to host a spur of the moment Christmas themed play date with my residency people. All I did was invite people over, find a few activities to do with the kids (with supplies I already owned) and open my doors and the moms and kids showed up. One mom brought sugar cookies to decorate. Another brought supplies to make Grinch kabobs. And yet others brought snacks to share. It was messy and loud and slightly chaotic. 

And we all had a great time! What I love most is that residency people are so easy to please. We just like spending time together...letting our kids play...chatting. We don't need anything fancy. No Pinterest perfect party needed to have a good time here:) We just make do. 

2. Like I said it was a spur of the moment idea to host this play date. And while I loved having the play date I wish I had looked at my calendar first because I scheduled it for the same day I was doing a craft fair with a friend. For weeks I've been busy sewing bibs and bow ties. Oh and tutus. Sewing like a mad woman all leading up to the craft fair. And then I almost forgot about it. Oops! 

I only sold four bibs. Womp. Womp. Womp. I guess I should have focused more on my CME and less on sewing. Because of course now it's the end of the year and I'm cramming to get all the hours in I need to stay certified. Why? Why do I procrastinate so much?!?!

3. Charlotte is becoming quite the little writer. She writes herself lists of things to do. It'd be terrible if she skipped a step in the room cleaning process:) Best to have a check list! She also likes to write notes. For herself and other people. I love finding her writings all over the house these days.  Here are just few examples of ones she has left for me recently...

  

I promise they aren't all mad notes! Some are quite loving. I just can't find any of those at the moment. 

4. Last week I cleaned out the van. The carseats were already uninstalled (in order to return a grill to friends) so it seemed like as good as a time as any to get it done! Two days AFTER I had vacuumed it Charlotte exclaimed "MOM! The floor. It's actually clean. You can see the floor!" It made me laugh. And yes my van floor is usually atrocious. But the best part was Isaiah saying to Charlotte "That's a compliment AND an insult Char Char."  He's not usually the most attuned to other's feelings so I was touched that he realized that. Though I wasn't actually insulted. 

5. Immediately after cleaning out the van Joe and I dropped the kids off at our church - where the 8th graders were babysitting for the evening as a fundraiser - and we went to his residency Christmas party. 

Kid-less and fancy free! It happens so rarely that it feels downright divine...until your husband chooses to sit at a table right next to an entire group of small loud children!!! I was less than pleased. (Don't get me wrong I love the children...just not so much on my date night.) 

6. Last night the children from our church walked to an assisted living facility to sing Christmas carols to the residents. On the drive to church I was explaining to my kids that I wanted them to wear their jackets for the walk but once we arrived to the assisted living they could give them to me. (Seems self explanatory, right?) Mostly I wanted the girls to take off their jackets because I didn't want their pretty dresses covered up. But when they asked why I told them it's because assisted living facilities and nursing homes are usually quite warm for the elderly people who tend to get cold easily. (Because if I had told Hannah my real reason she would have refused.). Isaiah then jumped into the conversation and informed his sisters that "nursing homes always smell really good too!!"  He was dead serious. I just about died! I wonder if he likes the smell of hospitals too?!?

7. Levi has learned to say his name. And it's ridiculously cute! I love hearing it so much that I find as many questions as possible to ask him in which he has to answer with his name "Lee-by". He's also started putting two words together in sentences...more like commands. Tonight he found my fedora. He handed it to me and told me that I "need it". How could I refuse? I wore the hat to book club tonight. 

Sad Lee-by. His mean mommy wouldn't let him play with the sewing machine. How rude!

Bonus #8. After living here for a year and a half I should be used this by now but I'm not...

Joe was mowing the lawn in shorts and a tshirt mid-December! Meanwhile all our family and friends in Minnesota are shoveling snow and talking about the below zero temperatures. And here we are going to parks to play and doing school outside. In December!! I'm not sure I'll ever get used to this. 

Family Pictures: Christmas Card 2016 Edition

A few weeks ago I convinced a friend to take our family pictures for our Christmas cards this year. In exchange for her photography services I fed her and her husband dinner! It was a pretty sweet deal. I mean I make dinner every night anyways so what's two extra mouths to feed? Plus she (naively) thought it would be fun...hahahahahahaha! Weeks later and I'm still laughing about that. So on a hot Friday afternoon we all got dressed in our Christmas attire and attempted to look winter-y while sweating profusely in the Texas heat and humidity. It was loads of fun:)

 Ok so there were some less than pleasant moments. But honestly overall it went very well. And its largely due to this girl...

She loves my kids and is so incredibly patient with them...and ME! Pictures always stress me out and I turn into a slightly crazy person. But not so much this year. Having a friend there definitely helped. Thanks friend:) And now onto all the great moments she captured for us.

And my FAVORITE family picture that made it onto the card this year...

And these next individual pictures of the kids I absolutely LOVE. They capture each child so well right now.

But THE BEST picture of the afternoon came when we attempted to get a picture of the four kids together. Here is the backstory: Hannah is notoriously our least cooperative child for picture taking (and life in general?!?). So when she suggested I hold her during pictures I immediately agreed! If it meant she would cooperate I would do it. And I did. I held her in every single family picture we took that afternoon (see above). I held her even though she is 4 years old and quite heavy and I was sweating profusely. I held her in my 6 inch wedges and smiled. And she smiled too! It was all going beautifully...until I set her down for a sibling picture....

And then she was MAD! And not just a little bit mad. Like really, really mad. Mad enough to not cooperate for every single sibling picture we took.

And even though that is not at all how I imagined the sibling picture turning out I kinda love it too! Its real life. So we embraced it and included this picture/greeting combo on our card this year:

And tonight while I was reading my kids' a bedtime story and stumbled upon the following description of family pictures I laughed out loud and then took a picture of the book to send to my friend/photographer.

Its as if the author was at MY FAMILY PICTURE SESSION THIS YEAR. So true. So funny. And yet I make my kids do it every year.

Christmas Scones: an update.

Four years ago I decided I needed to start a Christmas tradition for our family. Given our somewhat transient lifestyle (in the last four years we've lived in three different houses in three different states!) I knew it needed to be simple and travel-able. Ok that's not really a word. What I mean is that I needed to be able to take this tradition with us no matter where we are on Christmas day. Our life just does not allow us to go to/be at the same place year after year. So I needed something I could take with us. Because ultimately I wanted my children to have a tradition that they someday could look back upon fondly. To be able to say "this is what my family did for Christmas". So what is this tradition I started? SCONES. Cinnamon chip scones. The scones are simple and delicious. They were four years ago and they still are today. They need no update.

This is more of an update on the tradition itself.

Earlier this week Isaiah was working on his schoolwork at the table while I was making dinner (which is pretty much how every week night evening goes around here) when he asked me to proof read his writing. I started reading the work looking for any grammatical errors when I had to stop because I had tears in my eyes....

ITS WORKING! We have a tradition. A tradition my child recognizes and enjoys!!!!! And someday he's going to want to come "home" as an adult for Christmas morning scones. I just know it.

And it looks like we may have accidentally started a new tradition this year. 

Sleeping under the Christmas tree! It started the night we set up the tree. Just for fun. But then it was so simple (and magical) that we've continued every night since. The kids make a little bed near the tree. Joe or I read them a Christmas-y story. And then we sit by the fire until they fall asleep (and longer). 

Deck the Halls 2016 Version

Four Christmases ago we started taking pictures of our Christmas tree decorating process. These (hundreds) of pictures then magically become a video. A very cute video in my biased opinion. Oh and it isn't really magic. Joe uses a program on his computer to turn the pictures into a video but it is WAY above my skill set so it seems magical to me:) While it is somewhat of a pain to set up the camera, continually walk over to the camera to push the trigger (its on a timer to take a series of 10 pictures) and keep the children from bumping/moving/touching the camera...its totally worth it! I love each and every video we have created. They contain so many wonderful memories. And this year is no different.  I LOVE IT!! And as a bonus it didn't feel that stressful to be setting up the tree AND taking pictures. We are finally getting the hang of it, I think. Maybe next year I will even get the top of the tree in the video...maybe. No guarantees!

Just for fun here are the previous years videos:

2013 (This was our last Christmas in our med school house in Illinois. It was such a good little house. And oh my goodness Hannah was SO LITTLE!)

2014 (This was in Minnesota at my parents' house while we lived with them for Joe's last year of med school. All I can see when I watch this video is my BELLY.)

2015  (Sorry no video to share. The pictures were taken, but the video was never created. What can I say? Intern year. It was terrible. A lot of things didn't happen last year. We were just surviving a year ago.)

Seven Quick Takes

1. We went to see Santa. Actually we went to a (free!) Christmas festival. Santa was there. And despite the fact that none of my kids believe in Santa they ALL wanted to go see him. 

It warmed my heart. And made me wish I had made Isaiah change into a less doofy looking outfit. 

2. Isaiah had his school performance last week. Joe was working. So I took the kids by myself. Again. For the fifth year in a row. Which isn't that terrible. I just get tired of being the solo parent at times. It makes me sad that Joe misses so much of his family while helping other people's families. 

But I really can't complain. I'm grateful that I get to see all the performances. Because oh my goodness there is something so cute about seeing your kid up on stage singing!!

3. The performance got me thinking. When Joe started medical school Isaiah was starting preschool. When Joe finishes residency Isaiah will be starting middle school. How is that even possible?!?

4. Since I'm on an Isaiah kick I'll add this picture here:

Isaiah wrote this on my bathroom mirror last week. And I like it so much I can't erase it. I just keep cleaning around it. 

5. Hannah has started making "announcements". Basically anytime she wants to be heard over the chaos that is our house she makes an announcement. And her favorite words to include are gorgeous and gisgusting (disgusting). She finds a million ways to use those words each day. And it's adorable. 

6. Speaking of announcements, Charlotte informed me (in a very shocked tone) that some people live in the same house for FIVE YEARS! I think I knocked the socks right off her when I told her some people live in the same house for fifty years. Figuratively speaking of course because it is still too warm for socks here. 

7. I went to a ladies Christmas tea this morning at church. Don't I sound so old and grown up?! Really I just ate cookies and drank water and held a newborn. It was lovely. And then I came home to this sight....

It's Christmas decorating time!!!! Oh and apparently it must be time for socks. Joe informed me the kids were complaining of being too cold while getting the tree this morning. It was a frigid 68 degrees out. We are turning into a bunch of wimps. 

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