The Saturday 7

1. We had a fun week filled with festive activities. Unlike all the public schools in our area, our Christmas Break started on Monday. I still worked at Once Upon a couple days, but I was thankful to have my days off of library so I could get stuff done! I had somewhere to be every night this week, so I was glad to have the day to finish up shopping and clean my disastrous house.

2. To kick off Christmas Break, our Advent Activity for Monday was ice skating . . . and Lena was the only one interested. 🤦 Lucy and Levi stayed home, while Lena and I trekked out to the indoor ice skating rink. We're both abysmal skaters, but we had fun trying!

Truthfully, I didn't do that much skating. The ice skates hurt my bunion so bad I didn't last long. But Lena was happy to skate laps while I sat on the bench and watched.

2. That night we got to meet Baby Lainey! 

Middle name twins!

She's so adorable, and she ignited my baby fever something fierce. Unfortunately mean ol' Justin won't get his vasectomy reversed, so I'll just have to be content with the babies my nieces keep popping out. 

3. We crammed all kinds of fun into Tuesday afternoon/evening, starting with the annual Jesus Birthday Party. I was a little off my game this year, so it wasn't as extravagant as past years have been. 

We did one little activity and I shared the Christmas story. 

We also talked about why Jesus' birth was such a big deal, and what he means to us today.

Then the real fun started with everyone's favorite Reindeer Game.

Of course we sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus too!

4. Once the birthday party portion of the evening was over, we moved on to cookie decorating! Mom makes the dough, Niki provides the space and the sprinkles, and the kids destroy the kitchen and get hopped up on sugar!

Lainey's first cookie decorating party!

5. That night was the first time most of the cousins got to meet Lainey. She is one well-loved little girl. 

Saylor is completely enamored with her. 💓

5. Wednesday night was Christmas at Arise

Thursday, I spent all day doing this:

White Chicken Lasagna "Soup"

Thursday night was book club, and Friday night was small group. We did a white elephant exchange, and I came home with Borsht and Fireworks. Lol. We also sang Christmas carols together, which is my fave. 

6. We also did a lot of this throughout the week:

I realized that I have a love/hate relationship with puzzles. I usually start them in an attempt to get my kids interested in something other than TV. But then it kills me to leave them unfinished, and I end up spending way too many hours laboring over them. I did that ice cream one almost completely by myself. Probably not the best use of my time this week. Haha.

6. Today I spent two hours locked in my wrapping room wrapping presents and watching The Great British Baking Show. Nothing like waiting til the last minute! The kids helped me make cookies and puppy chow for our neighbors. And I attempted to make dough for overnight cinnamon rolls, but it didn't rise at all, so that was a fail. Tomorrow morning we'll do our presents at home, then spend Christmas day at Niki's. It's the most wonderful time of the year, and I can't wait to soak it all in!

7. I'm off to watch a movie with Justin . . . and eat leftover puppy chow. Have a wonderful Christmas!!