December 6

All three kids and i had dentist appointments today. (Have i mentioned that i hate the dentist? I hate the dentist. Not my particular dentist - he's fine. Just going to the dentist in general.) I had to pick everyone up early from school, and i meant to give Houston a note for his teacher to let him out, but i forgot until after he was already at school, so i texted him, "Oh no! I forgot to give you a note! Can i just text: 'Dear Miss Spanish Teacher, Please let Houston leave for the dentist'?" He eventually texted back, "Giggle. I'll show her." Except then he had a substitute teacher, so he was all, "She might think it's a plot." And then he didn't text again. Meanwhile, i was texting him, "Do i need to call?" "I'm on my way. Let me know if i need to call!" "HOUSTON!!!!" and "Are you coming?!!?!?!" Shortly after that last one, he ran out of the building and was all, "I forgot, and then i saw your text that said you were on your way, so i ran down three flights of stairs!"

The good news is, there were no cavities, so we don't have to go back for 6 months. Yay!

We ate dinner practically on the run the past two nights, so we finally lit our second Advent candle tonight. Halfway through dinner, Houston randomly stuck his hand over one of the candles and held it there for a couple of seconds, and then was all, "OW! That's hot!" To which the rest of us were all like, "DUH!" And so then Juanito started showing them how to put their finger through a candle flame ("It doesn't even hurt!") and how to put out a lit cigarette with your fingers, and i was all, "Why are you telling them this?!"

So yesterday was Handel's Messiah, which couldn't be moved, obviously. And the day before was the Nutcracker, which couldn't be moved. So even though December 5th is when Sinterklaas is supposed to come, i had the kids put out their shoes tonight for the advent activity, and i'm just not telling them that it's technically the wrong day. I'm pretty sure Sinterklaas will make an exception for our house. :)

December 5

Tonight we went to see Handel's Messiah. It was at a beautiful local church, so the setting was lovely, and it was free, so the price was right. It was put on by GVSU, and was the students and also some staff and professors, and most of it was really, really fantastic. The guy who sang the tenor solos was absolutely wonderful, and the bass and soprano were also very good. (The alto, however, was quite remarkably not good. It was surprising how much i disliked listening to her.)

It was preceded by a brass ensemble playing a couple of songs, and Zane was absolutely enthralled with them. I think that if the entire concert were nothing but the brass ensemble, he would have been completely happy. Once the chorus got up and started singing, though, he completely lost interest fairly quickly, and spent the rest of the concert sitting on the floor, wiggling in his seat, stripping off his outer shirt, and just being the epitome of misery and boredom. Poor guy.

Houston was also not very interested. He spent the first 10 minutes bouncing his legs like crazy until i couldn't handle it anymore and physically held them down, whereupon he grabbed onto my arm and snuggled against it and refused to let go. I eventually had to extricate myself (i kind of hate having my arms held like that), so then he had to make do with just leaning his head against my shoulder.

The boys were on my left side. That was the "Is it over yet?" side.

On my right were Katrina and my mom. My mom was, y'know, an adult. She really enjoys Handel's Messiah (which is why she came!), so she was quite absorbed in the music. Katrina was also very much enjoying it. She was listening and paying attention and was keeping track on her program of which songs she liked and which ones she didn't. (She really liked the songs by the tenor, "For Unto Us a Child is Born," and most of the other songs by the chorus and really didn't like any of the songs by the alto. So...same as me.)

So i think that this is one of those activities that i can chalk up as "this was probably a good one, because it's a cultural experience and one of the kids really liked it, but i wouldn't do a lot of things like this."

December 4

Today after church, we all ate something as fast as we can and then ran off to the library for a mini-production of "The Nutcracker." It was only about half an hour, and "Godfather Drosselmeyer" paused the ballet between songs to read the story from a book so that the kids would know what was going on, so it was a very different experience than the actual ballet, but it was performed by the same people who do the big production in town. My kids all love the story of the Nutcracker, so seeing even a shortened performance was great.

Zane was at his sleepover until this afternoon, so he missed most of the day's activities. But he DID get to have a sleepover with his best friend, so he wasn't too sad.

After the Nutcracker, Juanito and Katrina went to get Zane and Katrina's friend. And then we all left for church again (except Juanito) for Fifty6 (or the element or Anthem). Fifty6 and the element were combined tonight for "glowstick night," and it was entirely insane and chaotic and loud, and i didn't even remotely understand what was happening for half of the night. But the kids all had fun, so ... yay.

We came home a little before 9:00 to find our neighborhood's power knocked out - presumably by a squirrel trying to get warm in the transformer - so the house was completely dark. I handed out tiny electric tea-light candles to each of the kids, and they all were like, "Really?"

And that was our night.

December 3

There was an artist market today, and so that was the activity we did for Advent. We spent about an hour wandering around, and afterwards Houston said, "I thought that things were going to be really expensive. I didn't expect them to be really, really ridiculously expensive!" It was quite remarkable how much some of the things were selling for. (Based on those prices, our kids get REALLY expensive homemade presents every year.) Everyone enjoyed seeing all of the things, and i declare it a success. (Though probably not one that we need to put on the calendar next year....)

Zane left for a sleepover at his friend Justin's house this afternoon, and was super excited about it. He'll be gone until tomorrow afternoon, and let me tell you: Life is just quieter when he's gone.

We got our Christmas cards, so i put "Miracle on 34th Street" on while i sat and addressed envelopes. There are fewer and fewer people i have to call or email to ask for their addresses, which is possibly a sign that i'm getting old. My people aren't moving every couple of years anymore. It makes the job a lot easier. Katrina sat next to me and stuffed the envelopes and put return address labels on them for me, and it was lovely to have a helper. Now i just have to try to make sure there's nobody that i've forgotten....

December 2

Several years ago, the kids wanted to do a Secret Santa in our family. They, of course, were little and didn't have the ability to drive and didn't have money, so we decided to do an actions-based Secret Santa. Make your person's bed! Put a cookie with their name on it somewhere! Just do something extra, whatever you wanted. This ultimately failed horribly, partly because Zane was too little and Juanito and Houston kept forgetting. It was disappointing all around. I quietly let the idea die for the next couple of years.

But then last year, Katrina really, really wanted to do Secret Santa, and the boys joined the "We want to do that!" bandwagon, and so i added it to the Advent calendar. We drew names, made a trip to the dollar store with the whole family, gave each person $5, and set them loose. And it was surprisingly successful.

Today's activity was the same Secret Santa thing. We drew names and set off for the dollar store. Everyone went through the line alone, and i don't think anyone saw what anyone else had in their basket. Juanito dropped us off at home and took off for the pizza place for dough balls, i started chopping mushrooms, and the kids headed off to all corners of the house. And two minutes later, Katrina yelled, "Thank you, Secret Santa!" (Me, to myself: "Well, clearly Juanito doesn't have her!") Clearly they are all super-eager, and probably half of the presents will be given by the end of the weekend.

I spent most of the day sewing and making Christmas presents. My sewing machine is being bratty and keeps quitting working, so then i have to stop for the day until Juanito can fix it again. It's making projects take longer than they should, which is not ideal at Christmastime.

We made pizza and watched "A Christmas Carol." We were eventually all piled on the couch together (minus Juanito) (plus Emma), mostly because the kids were all a bit frightened by the movie, but also because cuddling is happy. And thus ended the night.

December 1

Today is the first day of the advent calendars. Every year we have several, partly because the kids all want to open one thing every day, but mostly because i'm a dork and am willing to make three.

The first one is just one verse of the Christmas story from Luke every day. They memorize it as we go, and we've been doing it for years, so today was easy. "In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world." They all rattled it off like pros.

The second one used to be Christmas jokes, but i can't find any new jokes, so this year i just recycled the old jokes and added a Christmas trivia question. Today's joke: "How do snowmen get to work?" By-icicle. (I never said the jokes were great.)

The third calendar is really the best one. And the most work. It's the activity calendar, where we do something fun each day. Today's activity was getting an online advent calendar. It's a fun interactive one, where you can decorate Christmas trees and explore a Victorian town, and there's something new every day, so hopefully it'll be fun. Everyone's already completely enjoying decorating the trees, so that's a win!

Everything since Nov. 8th

I have a lot of pictures - most from a few specific days - from the past month. These are some (lots) of my favorites: Pictures on Google Albums

So it's been a long time. Just over three weeks. I've meant to blog. I've thought about blogging. But honestly, i just didn't have the heart to do it after the election. But life goes on, and things keep happening, and now it's December and Christmas is coming, and so.

(A quick aside. I am really quite heartbroken about the election. Not because i loved Hillary so much, but because i'm just so incredibly disappointed in people. I realize that people don't like Hillary, and that's fine. And in any other election in my lifetime, i'd say, "I'm bummed that my guy didn't win, but i'm sure the other guy will be able to do the job too." But Trump? He's just so offensive and unqualified. And so many of his followers are far too happy about being given leave to be openly racist and offensive now. And so far, since the election, nothing has lessened my fears. So. There. There's that for posterity.)

Anyhow. Things that we've been doing in November:

• Family Drawing night. It's always a favorite activity and really something we don't do often enough. Everyone has a special sketch book used specifically for family drawing night - the kids are all nearly finished with their second books (theirs are quite thin books...) - so there are drawings going back several years at the beginning of their books. They all started looking at what they'd drawn 4-5 years ago, and it really is fun to see how much better they are at drawing!
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The movie came out on the 18th, and so we got a big group together and had everyone over for a pre-movie party and then all went to see the movie together. Beth and Juanito and Keren and i made party favors - bookmarks and cookies and origami rats and suitcases (for where the beasts lived) and passports and little tiny beasts. Everyone brought food, and we had cupcakes to sort people into their American Magic school houses. Brooke even got to come, having just returned from New Zealand. Yay!
• We went to Meijer Gardens for the Tree Lighting. It was a members only event (fun!), and it was quite packed. The tree lighting itself was quite lame, but we got to see all of the trees and decorations at night, which was really pretty and totally worth it. My mom came with us, which was extra fun. It's been several years since we've gotten to all go, and i'm happy we got to see it again! Plus there were carolers and cookies, so it was extra awesome.
• Thanksgiving! We went to my parents' house for Thanksgiving this year, and we had lots and lots of people to celebrate with us. My aunt and uncle and cousins who we always do Thanksgiving with were there, along with my cousin Cindy and her family and my mom's cousin and her husband. We ended up with two long tables full of people. And i remembered again that i really like my whole extended family.
• The kids and i decorated the house for Christmas while Juanito was sleeping. He's not actually a fan of the decorating, and we all are, so we figured that there was no reason to wait for Juanito for us to get started. Katrina and Zane woke up early and brought up all of the decorations from the basement. (If i'd known this ahead of time, i'd have been extremely worried about all of the very fragile things they were maybe going to drop and break, but they didn't break anything at all! Woohoo!) We set up the fake tree (but didn't decorate it). We hung up the stockings and the advent calendars and the mistletoe and all of the other decorations that we put on walls. We found places for the snow globes and snowmen and nativity scenes and all of the other stuff that goes on random shelves. And the kids were actually helpful! Like...actually helpful! This is a wonderful new phase!
• We went to get a real Christmas tree. We met my parents at the same tree farm we've been going to for years. We fully planned to get a "pretty tree," but then we just happened along a really cute wonky-ish tree. The past several years we've looked for wonky trees and haven't found any that were remotely cute, so when we saw this one, we were like, "Huh. We kind of can't pass this up, can we?" Katrina was a little bit devastated - we'd just been looking at pictures that very morning of the year that she thought we were joking about getting a silly tree and then was completely crushed when she realized that we actually were getting a silly tree instead of a pretty one - but she was placated by my mom's kind offer to let her borrow a little fake tree for her own bedroom. Juanito got the tree all set up and the kids put their ornaments in the most ridiculously random pattern ever, and once it was decorated it's really quite adorable.
• We went to Meijer Gardens again. This time we went with my sister Chellie and her kids. Going with different people always makes it a whole different experience. It was fun to see the trees when it wasn't so completely mobbed. Katrina and Zane had fun getting to show their cousins around. Juanito and Houston came later to meet us so Chellie could take family pictures for our Christmas cards. Yay!
• Advent started, so we got to light our first candle on Sunday. My goal this year is to actually get all the way to the last candle. Every year we do the first 2-3, and then by the end we're all busy and we just forget. 
• I got to babysit my friends' kids today. They're between 4-8, and they're all adorable, and i was reminded of just how short kids' attention spans are at this age. And also how much little kids like to touch All! The! Things! They were all very disappointed in me for not having more toys around for them to play with, but my kids weren't home, and i didn't want to offer their toys without their permission. I did teach them "Guess Who," and that continues to be a game that every single kid ever loves to play. We played lots of other games too, but Guess Who was the hands-down favorite. And they spent half of their time here holding the guinea pig and only stopped when i insisted that the poor little thing needed some quiet alone time. (Me: "Y'know how, when you're really tired and you just want to be quiet and alone for a little while?" All of them: "I never want to be quiet! Or alone!")