Whew…

Well things got a little crazy at the end of last week…well most of the week was a little bonkers. So here is a little recap of the Chaos…

Thursday night was Einstein’s class Christmas play.

He was a cute little elf, if I do say so myself.

He had a small speaking part, but the microphone wasn’t working so you couldn’t hear what he said. But that didn’t stop him from still doing his part.

Here he is with Mr. and Mrs. Claus.

The play was called “Santa is Stuck in the 50’s” and the kids did a great job belting out the songs and dancing away.

I really enjoy watching Einstein on stage. He is very comfortable and does a great job of staying in character.

Then Friday morning was award assemblies at 2 schools. Big J didn’t want to go to school since they were going to do a program where he would be singing and dancing. I let him stay home so he could watch the babies while I went to the award assembly for Einstein alone. I don’t get to be alone for things like that very often and it sure was nice.

Einstein was on the Principal’s Honor Roll for the 6th straight quarter. I am very proud of him, so proud that I couldn’t hold my camera still to take a good picture.

On Saturday…oh blessed Saturday…we were getting ready for Big Daddy’s family to come over for a family party. But in the middle of all of that we decided it would be a good day to take the kiddos Christmas shopping for each other. Can you think of a possible better day then the Saturday before Christmas? Yeah…

We have found a way that works well for us for our kiddos to get gifts for each other. Each kiddo used to buy a separate gift for each of the other kiddos, but we found that we were really buying junk and a lot of it. I think LaLa is a real sweetheart, but she doesn’t really have any idea what an 11 year old boy might want even with big clues like “Here LaLa, Big J would love this”. So a few years ago we decided to change to have four kiddos choose one gift for the other one kiddo. Does that make sense?  So instead of getting four just okay gifts, they get one nice gift. So the idea behind gift giving is easy, but the actually shopping trip was, well, hellacious. I think if we had gone a different time with less crowds it would have been easy-peasy…oh and put Ham in a cart even if he screamed his bloody head off. But it is another thing checked off the to do list.

A few hours after we go home Grandma Jo and Aunt Sherri came over for the kiddos to open gifts. Usually we don’t open gifts before Christmas, but this year it gives Grandma a chance to see the kids open the gifts and we don’t have to pack them. A win-win situation.

I don’t have a picture of Big J opening his and I don’t know why. And yes my kids look a little orphanish…the shopping trip really was that bad!

Then everyone came over for dinner and no pictures.

After dinner we had the kids decorate cookies.

They had so much fun…and I think we went through six jars of sprinkles.

There was tasting going along with the decorating.

And a few cameras going also.

And judging by the mess I think the cookies were good.

After the kids were really hopped-up on sugar we thought it was the perfect time to do our Nativity play.

Einstein was our lone Wise Man.

Taylor and LaLa were angels and Nathan was Joseph.

Roo was Mary and her doll GiGi played the part of baby Jesus.

Big J (finally a picture of him) was our shepherd.

Uncle Preston read the story and the kiddos did a great job of acting the story.

We had a change of cast right before the play. Originally we were going to have Taylor play Mary and Ham be Joseph, but Ham decided that he didn’t want any part of it. So Roo stepped in and played Mary and Nathan played Joseph.

The only part Ham wanted was as the Baby Jesus, but he was a little big for our manger.

It was really a fun evening. I would have loved for it to have lasted longer and had more time to just sit around and talk, but it was late and the kiddos were crashing from their sugar high.

I think the Mexican dinner/sugar cookie fiasco/Nativity play might just be a new family tradition.