Christmas Eve deserves it's own post

Yes, yes it does because it's like it's own holiday.  And ours was pretty packed this year.  First, Greg's sister-in-law does an international breakfast every Saturday but she pushed it to Sunday (Christmas Eve) this week.   It was a Nordic-themed breakfast in honor of Santa.  We had waffles and juice with smoked salmon and goat cheese.  It was delicious.  We went straight from there to church since they moved church to 11 am just from Christmas Eve.  We tried to get a few pictures of the kids in their coordinating outfits but Zora was in a super bad mood for some reason.

I thought this was the perfect Christmas Eve picture--Rex playing the piano and Alice standing next to him not singing because she didn't know the words to the song but the picture was cute.

Christmas Eve dinner was at our house.  We rearranged the furniture and brought in the outdoor table to make room for everyone and it turned out quite nicely.  Greg smoked a delicious turkey and I made the rest of the food the night before so the mess so pretty manageable.  We also did a giant cheese spread from appitizers, which I failed to take a picture of.  Greg actually did the cheese.  I was just going to get some cheese and crackers but apparently you're supposed to get a certain number of certain types of cheese and blah blah blah.  Greg took care of it.

 I decorated the tables with a bunch of bottle brush trees so I made a rosemary tree cake, which I thought turned out really cute.  I am so clever.

After dinner we played Bingo, which was fun, but as usual, despite my strict no-crying rule, Rex ended up crying over his dollar store prizes.  They're from the dollar store!  Actually he was mad because he got four prizes but two of them he didn't like so he gave them to Zora and Alice so he only ended up with two prizes but then the cousins left a bunch of their prizes so he took those too.  I mean, really NO CRYING!  Anyway, we also decided to add a new rule this year, you must play your own card.  I invited a family from the ward over and the mom played 3 cards--one for her, one for her husband who wore bunny slippers to my party that I got my China out for and was too lame to play his own card, and one for her 2-year-old who just wanted to play.  They ended up with half the prizes.  Next year, you have to play your own card.

 We finished the night with the least-reverent, worst Christmas pagaent ever. I let my nephew read the narration and he was not loud or bossy enough to control the silly 8-and 7-year-olds.  I used to make my kids rehearse but I felt silly so I stopped but next year, I will narrate and we'll probably rehearse a few times.

Stupid kids couldn't even take a picture.  Bryant as narrator, Wesley the Wiseman/Simeon, Henry the Wiseman, Cora as Mary, Zolaikha as the angel, Zora as a sheep, Alice as Anna, Rex as Joseph, and Cash as a sheep.

Everyone was gone by 8 and we spent a few hours cleaning up and being Santa before heading to bed ourselves around mid-night.  Luckily I had already wrapped all the presents and Greg only had to put one toy together.

Pre-Christmas Shinanigans

December is a long-list of to-dos.  Am I right?  Yes, I'm always right.

Just after getting home from Thanksgiving in DC, we got out the ol' Christmas tree and had the usual fights about not sticking all the ornaments on the same branch and who got to put the star on the tree.  Alice ended up screaming in her room because we didn't let her put every single ornament on the same branch and Rex cried, because despite the picture showing him putting the star on the tree last year, he insisted that he get another turn this year.  I super hate Christmas trees.  I hate the fight. I hate rearranging my house so I put a frigging tree it in.  I hate putting on the lights.  I hate taking it down.  When I grow up, I am not putting up a stupid tree.

We ended up letting Rex attempt to put the star on the tree as well as Alice.  Our tree is funky and Greg has to put the star on every year because he's the only one who is really tall enough.

When Rex was a baby, my parents made a recording of The Night Before Christmas.  Henry loves it and memorized most of the book before Greg couldn't handle it anymore and took the batteries out.

Next on the to-do list was the Speedway Lights.  This is my kids' favorite and this year the guy running the best game was super chill and let Alice and Henry play even though they were both technically too short.  It was a Christmas miracle leaving the Speedway without any crying about being too short again.

They even had fake snow this year which the kids thought was great.

We went to a Nativity Festival with a friend of mine and this is my new favorite nativity.  The midwives are there!  Of course the midwives would be there but they are conveniently left out of the scriptures, but of course they were there.  I'm getting this picture and hanging up on my wall when I start teaching birthing classes...in like 50 years when all my kids are grown.

Christmas jammies: check

This year I'm the room mom for Rex and Alice's classes, which meant a few late nights of prepping but the parties both went pretty well.  We played the same games at both but they went a lot better with third grade than with kindergarten.  Of course, Rex's teacher is a lot more laid back than Alice's so maybe that's why.  We survived and the kids said they had fun so we'll call it a win. 

Playing "Do you want to build a snow man?"

Making marshmellow penguin houses.

Rex's class building snowmen

Next: Rex really wanted to make gingerbread houses so I bought a few kits from Target and we had a fun evening putting them together.  The little kids finished theirs first and then started eating theirs so Greg got out the almonds and goldfish to make up for the lack of candy.  Rex and Alice took their sweet time on theirs and swore to never eat theirs.  It was gone a few days later.

Then there was the annual Christmas Recital.  And I loved it.  If I haven't said this before, I'd be shocked, but I just love our teacher.  She is so patient and kind and keeps my kids motivated.  In fact, the fact that she is so young is extra motivating because Rex figured out how much money she makes each month and realized that if he sticks with piano, he can teach like her when he's in high school so he's been practicing extra hard lately.  Anyway, the recital this year was as an adult day care facility.  I mean, seriously, what a good idea.  I just love Elizabeth.  She graduates from high school in two years.  I'm trying to figure out a way I can bust her knee caps in and make it look like an accident so she can't leave.

And just like that it was Christmas.

Zora Jane Zora Jane

much too cool for seventh grade.  No one's cooler than Zora Jane.  ZORA JANE!

That's Zora's theme song--it a take on the Pepper Ann theme song from back in the day.  Go a head and look it up on YouTube, I'll wait.

Back?

Ok, so Zora is a character.  She is super smart (as all moms say about their kids, but really she is), full of sass and naughtiness, but is super sweet and simply beautiful to cover it.  Also she thinks she's 10.  

She also LOVES stuffed animals.  We went to IKEA for free lunch one day and she saw this dog and carried it around the entire store.  At lunch she insisted on touching it at all time and refused to let it sit beside her.  The tantrum when she had to leave the dog behind was mind blowing.

 She has Daddy wrapped around her little finger and he openly admits she is the favorite, mostly because, for the most part, she's pretty obedient.  But this looks more like Dad is being the obedient one to me.

 She the naugthiness level with this one?  She learned how to climb in the sink, turn it on and use everyone else's tooth brushes.  Yuck.

 She insisted on having a stuffed animal while grocery shopping one day so then Henry had to have one too and I quickly ran out of room for my food.

 We went on hike one day.  And she insisted on carrying this stick all the way home.

 This is her first day of nursery and dispite what her face says, she actually really likes it.  She only cries a bit but because the nursery leaders and the moms of the other little people in the ward, she knows them so will sit on a lap until she's ready to play.

 So after the first day at IKEA, we had to go back for some reason--I think we'd been running errands and I bribed Henry with playtime at IKEA for behaving.  Guess what Zora found again?  The dog.  I bought it this time, let her have it in the car and then hid it when we got home.  Merry Christmas Zora.  She loves it.

 Here she is thinking she's 10 and dunking her cookie in milk.

Basically what I'm saying is toddlers are my favorite.  They can't talk back.  I know what their tantrums are about and they still take naps.  How to transform my other children back into toddlers?  Hmmm...actually, I also really like having an 8-year-old because he's figured things out.  If he doesn't wake me up or let the other kids wake me up, he gets to do what he wants, which means more sleep for mom, which I'm totally OK with.

Why are my kids so much better than yours?

But for real?  Why?

Rex and Alice have both received the Kwanis Student of the Month Award this year.  Alice got it way back in October and Rex got it in November.  They are practically perfect, at school.  According to their teachers, they both reach out to others in the class, help others with work, are quick to respond to requests from the teacher and work hard.  Now if I could just get Rex to stop jumping on my couch.  

Rex also got several awards for meeting his reading goals.  If he can find enough books to read, he'll read a book a day.  He earned all A's for 1st quarter and had perfect attendance.  I really wish they wouldn't do the perfect attendance, now it's going to be harder to convince Rex to ditch school to play with me.

Now to answer the question, why are my children so awesome?  I'm their mom, obviously.  No really.  I am really good at school and if there's one thing I've learned it's that you need to befriend the teacher--always go to office hours the first week of the semester and introduce yourself in a non-classroom setting.  The teacher will remember you better and will have a more positive light of you when grading.  I also always took my papers in to be read by my professors a week or so before the due date.  This did several things, 1.  I got the professor's opinion on what he/she liked in a paper and had time to adjust accordingly, 2. gave me more face time with the professor, 3. showed my effort and concern, 4. (and here's the kicker) because my professor had already read the paper and discussed it with me, when they went to grade it, they already had in their mind what I was trying to say, even if I didn't successfully say it.  I try to tell my young women going to college these things and they never believe me, but they really should.  I graduated with a 3.97 from BYU and a 4.0 from Utah State.  I know how to do school.

So how does this apply to my elementary school students?  I make sure I introduce myself to the teachers the first week of school and say something clever or funny so they have a positive view of my kids before school even starts.  I also sign up for every field trip, to be room mom, and to help in the class as much as possible with 2 littles in tow.  This shows my concern and willingness to help and they soften up towards my kids.  The one year I didn't do this, did not go well for Rex.  He didn't get Student of the Month and his teacher graded his tests wrong/differently than she should have.  I rest my case.

It also helps to have some genuinely sweet, intelligent, caring children despite their sassy and rude parents.