Advent Part 2

We last left off on December 15, so we'll continue with December 16, which was a Wednesday.  We invited Derick Wheatley over to make apple-cinnamon ornaments with us, which turned out to be more stressful than it should have been.  I sent Rex and Alice to get Derick, expecting them to take forever, because they usually do, but they were super fast this day and the second they walked in the door, they expected to be making ornaments and they didn't want to wait for me to make the dough.  They were impatient so I was impatient, but as soon as the dough was ready things calmed down and the kids each made about 3 ornaments before they got bored and left.  Rex actually made about 10.  Never the less, I ended up making most of them.  We used them later to decorate the boxes of goodies we gave out to our neighbors, but I didn't get a picture of those.  They were cute, but I didn't want to pat myself on the back too much.

Henry mostly made a mess.  He is the messiest nearly two-year-old I know, which is saying a lot because Alice was pretty messy too.

December 17: Speedway Lights!  Alice has been asking since Halloween to go to the Speedway.  While it's always really fun (we go every year), this year was particulary good.  They had the entire in section of the Speedway coordinated to random hick country songs.  It was pretty awesome.  And this year, Greg didn't even try to kill us too much on the curves due to his pregnant wife not wanting to throw up.  Thanks.  Once we got inside, we let each child choose one activity to do.  The lady driving the train then felt bad for us I guess and gave us 9 extra tickets, so they each got to do two activities.  And then we went home and went to bed.

Alice finally had a good time feeding the animals after crying the last 4 years.

Henry touched everything

Henry, Alice and I rode the "train"--it was really a tractor

Rex tried a wipe out game and ended up riding the rotating arm around the ring once.

Henry was pretty uncertain about feeding the animals.

Rex also worked up the courage to pet a cow.  I did not feed or touch animals because animals are disgusting.

December 18: Rex had his first piano recital!  It's already made it on the blog so I'll leave it at that.

December 19: Our advent activity was to make cookies for the neighbors, but I stupidly planned to make four different kinds of treats and decided that I didn't really want that much "help" so when Rex asked to play at the Wheatley's I said sure and when Henry took a nap I was even more thrilled.  Alice, my little helper, did actually help quite a bit.  But I didn't take any pictures.  That night we went to the Wilson's house-warming/Christmas party.  We forgot our white elephant gifts and Alice cried when we left but we still had fun.  I have the best friends.

December 20: Deliver treats to the neighbors.  Because I made so many treats this year, we actually had enough to take some across the street to the neighbors we've never talked to and to a few ward members who live close-by.  My packages were very cute this year with the apple-cinnamon oranments on top, but I forgot to take a picture of them, as mentioned previously, but I did get a picture of the kids before we left.

It was also Christmas Sunday and I told the kids I wanted pictures of them in their coordinating outfits before we left for church, so while I got ready they took these selfies.  Sweet kids.

 Then I took these as we rushed to church.  Henry refused to be in a picture with the other two and I forget to get a picture of just Alice, but, as they say here in the South, it is what it is.

December 21:  Family Night.  We learned about Hannah and Simon at the temple, which may or may not have occurred before the Wise Men showed up by the way.  We talked about recognizing Christ as a baby and how we can recognize Christ now, then we played find the thimble, but with the Fisher-Price Little People Nativity Jesus.  Then we went to bed.

We also had planned go to the Rec Center earlier in the day but ended up at the Bank of American building uptown watching the creepy bears sings because the Rec Center was closed.  We took the street car because then we wouldn't have to pay for parking, but it was a nightmare.  We ended up having to walk a lot farther than I thought, and then wait a lot longer than I thought, and then it got cold and we were not dressed appropriately.  We also took Derick so that was just one more kid.  I was so happy when we ran into the Siggs doing the same thing.  I was also happy when we finally got home.  The kids said they had a good time, despite a stressed and a slightly cranky mom.

Rex, Alice and Henry

Rex, Alice and Derick

December 22: We actually did a real Christmas-y thing and went with the Young Men and Young Women to a food bank.  Rex and Alice helped clean one of the rooms while Henry and I sorted toys.  I'm going to make sure to put more of this stuff on our advent for next year, because service more Christmas-y than watching animatronic bears sings.

December 23: Almost there!  But also a pretty bad day.  We planned to meet up with the Siggs at Concord Mills to sit on the free Santa's lap at 11, but then we slept in and each child threw a separate tantrum as we tried to get ready so we didn't get to the mall until 11:30 and then parking two days before Christmas.  I still wasn't concerned.  A few years back I took Amber on Christmas Eve and we didn't have to wait in line.  Well, things have changed in the last few years.  Bass Pro now has a Fast Pass System to see Santa.  We got the 2:30 time slot.  That's a 3-hour wait.  But I have a picture of the kids sitting on this Santa's lap every year, so we had to wait.  The Siggs decided not to hang out at a packed mall for 3 hours, but they did hang out with us for a while.  We looked at the fish and then we went to the play place and played there.  We checked out the Lego store.  Then the Siggs decided to go home, so we got some lunch, went back to the play place.  At 2, we headed back to Bass Proc Shop and were in line by 2:10, where we stood until we finally got see Santa at 2:40.  Henry was a mess; I was a mess; we were all a mess, but we got the *&*@ picture.  

Now onto Christmas Eve, but I'll make that its own post to really drag this thing out.