Adventures in La La Land

9 days 'til Christmas!! Can you believe it?? 1. We had a fun week filled with birthdays and parties and babies! On Sunday, we celebrated sweet Ruby at my parents' house. And on Monday after school, Lena got to go to a fancy tea party at Ruby's house. Ruby's going through her "princess," "Fancy Nancy," "all things girly" phase. I miss that with my girls! 2. This was our last week of school before Christmas break, so we had class parties to attend. I was thankful that Lena's and Levi's were on different days and I wasn't working at Once Upon.  Twinning in our "oh snap" gingerbread man shirts. Her last Christmas party! 😭 For the first time in years, I didn't have to do anything  for the parties. No room mom duties, no planning anything, I didn't even have to bring food! I could get used to this! 3. Our Advent activities this week included gingerbread man waffles, special ornaments, buying each other presents at F...

Sorry for the delay. Yesterday was crazy.  1. Last Sunday we did one of my favorite Advent Activities to date. We "jingled" the cousins. I had gone to the dollar store earlier in the week and stocked up on candy, jingle bell necklaces, cookie decorating kits, and some supplies for a craft. Then on Sunday, the kids helped me assemble them. Lucy even participated! The craft we made was an "I Spy" ornament. I bought large plastic ornaments from Dollar Tree and then walked around the Christmas section trying to find things small enough to fit through the hole on top. Haha. I found erasers, bows, and jingle bells. I also bought a strand of lights with large-ish bulbs and just cut individual bulbs off the strand, and I cut wire brush Christmas trees off of an ornament that was a truck with a tree on top. We filled the clear ornaments with epsom salts to look like snow and hide the objects, then I hot glued the tops on and tied the list of things to find on with a cute rib...

1. While we were putting up our tree last week Stella was largely uninterested. By that night, though, when all the wild kids were in bed and she was free to explore, she discovered that she loves it and has a strong instinct to climb it. 🤦 We've spent all week pulling her out of it, and re-hanging the ornaments she knocks down. We actually put some ten pound weights on the base of the tree so she won't knock the whole thing over. But she has bent a bunch of the branches and left big holes. I seriously don't know how to keep her out of it.  2. I'm pretty much done with my Christmas shopping already. Justin and I agreed not to buy each other gifts since we're going to Florida in January. And I spent all my budget on the kids during November's Black "Friday" sales. So now I just have to organize and wrap everything. I don't mind wrapping. The hardest part is just making sure the kids get an equal number of gifts. Lucy was the easiest this year becau...