Merry Christmas

Hope you all had a very merry Christmas! As always, we have so much to be thankful for!

Today is the aftermath of the chaos that having 3 Christmas' in less than 24 hours brings.... so the kids are busy with their new toys and mom and dad are overwhelmed by the giant mess that comes with opening new boxes of things, as well as the boxes and the wrapping paper, etc. Not to mention all the tiny toy pieces all over.
The day after Christmas for us is always spent at home, cleaning up, putting together new toys, and recovering! What a whirlwind of craziness it is!

Christmas and chores

Christmas is in a week and a half! Wow! And what a difference a year makes. Last year at this time we were in the rental and I had no Christmas spirit at all. None. This year I couldn't wait to get our tree, to decorate our house with lights, and I even got out some (not many, but some) decorations for inside the house.
Our tree is the biggest we have had ever, since our ceilings are 9' and vaulted, we are able to get a taller tree. So its a modest 8.5 feet, and narrow. Just because we have a large living room doesn't mean I wanted to have a fat tree take up half of the room.

Like much of the rest of the U.S., we were under snow for a week last week. It all began the Friday before last.... the snow began falling in the early morning, they cancelled school that Friday. We had a great time playing in the snow and sledding down our hills, but it was really really cold (one morning it was 4 degrees.) Since it didn't get above freezing for a week, we had snow for that long, and the only day of school the kids ended up with was this last Friday.  Unfortunately, the snow was too powdery to build snowmen or igloos or have snow ball fights.  It didn't even work well for sledding for the first day or two.  And unfortunately our sled broke halfway through the week.

Because of the snow, we were stuck home for many days. We lost precious time Christmas shopping. The kids also both missed their field trips to Storybook Land.

We've been really trying to emphasize being grateful this year with the kids. We have so much to be thankful for, and Jadon seems to miss that point. I know its nothing we've done, I know a lot of why he is the way he is is because of his mechanics. He can't control his outbursts, his fits of frustration. Its still embarrasing though when he does it because everyone always looks to the parents for their kid behaving that way.

During the summer, we had daily chores for the kids to do. Since school started, and the weeks are busy and we are home less, all the summer chores have been forgotten. They still do their chores that they've been doing for years now, but the bigger ones, like cleaning the bathroom, mopping the floors, vacuuming, etc. have been tossed out. Since there's less time during the school year, I recently revamped the daily chores list. And, in addition to the chores, they have character qualities they will need to follow too (respecting parents, being kind to siblings/friends, etc.) During the school year, their chores are minimal since we have extracurricular activities and homework in the evenings.

I saw my neurologist again a couple weeks ago. Since the meds I was on were not working, I have started a new one. I've only been on it at half dose for a couple days. I really hope this one works. I'm really tired of all this! :(

Snow!!

When we moved into our house, I had hoped that we would have a good snow this winter so we could play in our big yard and slide down the hill.
Well it happened!!  Snow!!! School was cancelled on friday, and we've had snow on the ground for 3 days now with no meltage. Its been super super cold, (this morning when I got up it was 4 degrees) so the snow cant melt. The roads are covered and i'm not even sure we will have school tomorrow.
Today we spent a couple hours outside playing on the hill with some of the neighbors. The kids had lots of fun, and the parents enjoyed it too. Avery slid face first into the front bumper of a parked truck on the side of the road, and she was pretty unhappy about that.
Friday when it was snowing and the kids were outside in the back playing in it, they discovered that a first grade boy from Jadon's school lives out our backyard. I thought that was great at first that Jadon had a next door neighbor friend. However, this boy is over here ALL the time now. We've had to send him home several times already. Makes me wonder, where are the parents that they would let their kid constantly come over?  Or are they okay with it because they want to get rid of him? Anyways, I predict we will be seeing a lot of this boy in the coming months.
Saturday Jadon had a birthday party to go to. We were stuck home since the roads are icy, so we walked to the party. It was a good 20 minute walk both ways. By the time we got home it was about time to leave again to go get him. Derek decided he was going to try driving the car up the hill so we wouldn't have to walk to get him again in the freezing temperature. He managed to get up both the hills, but coming back he couldn't make it back up one of the hills. On his second attempt he managed to make it up.
Then of course as soon as he got home he went outside to play with the "backyard boy" again.
And as I said, today we played on the hill. It was how I always imagined it.... all the neighbor kids sliding and playing in the snow. :)

The poor cats have been freezing. I made them 2 pillow beds out of some soft furry fabric and batting then put the pillows in cardboard boxes. Two of them have pretty much not left the boxes in the last 3 days. The 3rd cat, Bear, has been missing for several days... since before the snow even started. Not sure where he could be. Jadon said he saw Bear once when he was outside but Bear ran away. How true this is, I doubt it. Jadon likes to fabricate stories.

Hard to believe that Christmas is just a couple weeks away! And then after that we begin a new year, and the hardest part of the year for me (January-March) because at that point the winter seems to be never ending and I'm not distracted by holidays, and I feel like I will never see sunshine again! I love the snow, but I love and need my sunshine.... working in the yard..... smelling the freshly mowed lawns....etc.

Well there's my post for the month of December! ;) Hopefully i'm only kidding.