The Saturday 7

 Another fun filled week!

1. Actually, Monday was kind of rough. We've been reading a new book in our Thursday night mom's group at church called M is for Mama. The subtitle is: a rebellion against mediocre motherhood and it is convicting to say the least. Honestly, it makes me a little mad most of the time. Sometimes I wonder if Christians make motherhood and their kids an idol. Is it ok to be mediocre sometimes? Do we have to be at our best 24/7? I don't know. That's beside the point. The point is that I've been convicted about treating my kids as nuisances. I want to be a warm and loving mom who enjoys her kids. So when I was neither warm nor loving on our first day of Christmas break on Monday, I felt like such a failure. Sometimes I think I just don't have it in me. I was a good mom for the first five years or so. (Sorry Levi. You never got the best of me.) But now I'm old and tired and my patience has run out. It's the reason I go overboard with making Christmas magical. I'm a crap mom the rest of the year. The least I can do is give my kids good memories of Christmas.

2. By Monday night, I pulled myself together a little and let the kids help me make cookies. 2 out of 3 of them were interested in joining me.

Portrait mode will memorialize this moment as magical regardless of whether or not it actually was.

Tuesday was Cousins Cookie day, wherein we make a giant mess of Niki's giant kitchen and then the kids scream at Alexa to play the gummy bear song and the adults shout over them to carry on a conversation.

Thea was a big fan of frosting

Baby Cove!

I told them to say "pizza!"

Cove was super excited about his first Cookie Decorating Party

The adults got to do some decorating too once the kids got bored

3. On Wednesday, I went to the bin store one more time to get some mystery packages for a game we're going to play tonight. Then I went to the grocery store "one last time before Christmas." Spoiler alert: I've been to the store three more times since then. 🤦🤦🤦 That afternoon Levi started hacking his guts out. He and Justin were both sick this week, but fortunately it was a quick moving illness and they're on the mend again already. I expected to wake up with it every day this week, but so far, I've stayed healthy! I still stand by Dr Pepper as an effective dietary supplement. It's serving me well! 

4. Then on Thursday we celebrated Jesus' birthday. I dug out some old Nativity masks and made the kids act out the story. We talked about how Jesus came to rescue us from our sins so we can live in heaven with him someday. Then we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus, ate cupcakes, did a craft (leftover from Levi's school party - multitasking for the win!), and played the reindeer ring toss game. 

The kids ate macaroni and Luke made us ramen, cuz we're bougie like that.

5. I don't for one minute take for granted these days of spending so much time with my family and watching all our kids grow up together. I know we're extremely fortunate to live so close together, to have such healthy relationships, to enjoy each other's company, and to have the means and opportunity to get together. If I've learned anything in the past few years, it's to cherish these moments and enjoy them while they last. 

6. Today we celebrated our Christmas at home. We'll be with my family all day tomorrow, so we opened our presents for each other today. 

All set up last night

I made them wait until 9:00 to get up and open presents. Levi was up at 6:45. 🤦

Amazingly, they were most excited about giving us our presents instead of diving right into theirs!

 

It's not Christmas morning without monkey bread!

7. We've been under a blizzard warning for the past three days. Yesterday was mostly just arctic temperatures (I think we hit a high of about 6 degrees), major wind gusts, and blowing and drifting snow. Today, it's actually snowing harder and accumulating more in addition to the wind. It's a little warmer, at least - up to 15 degrees right now! (#heatwave) Our poor old inefficient heater can't keep up with the subzero windchills. I keep it set at 66, but it hasn't been warmer than 61 degrees in here for three days. It's a good thing Justin, Lucy, and Levi all got me blankets for Christmas!

So we've been hunkered down at home, thankful we don't have anywhere to be, playing lots of games, reading lots of books, and watching lots of TV. I'm sad that the Christmas Eve service got canceled tonight, but we don't have far to drive to Niki's to kick off Christmas with the fam, so that is still on! I can't wait! 

I don't actually have any more pictures this week, so that's it for today. Have a very merry Christmas!