Quick 5, Christmas Style

Ah, the magical week of Christmas.

1.  Alaina finally got to sing on stage at church on Sunday.  Weeks before she had gotten too sick to sing in the actual Christmas program, our friend who was leading worship on Sunday the 23rd asked if Alaina could sing with a group of kids she was putting together.  I'm so glad I said yes, because it took the sting out of her missing the Christmas program.  She was so cute up there.  She was obviously the youngest one, and she did great.  You never realize how little your kid is until you see them in a group full of bigger kids.  I watched her sing in all three services, and in every service she would randomly wave at me and tell the other kids, "There's my mom!" in the middle of the song.

2.  This week has been full of cousin fun.  We didn't actually stay at my parents' house (too full) but we went up there as often as we could.  On Christmas eve Alaina was able to paint cookies with her cousin Naomi.  (All the younger cousins were napping.)

3.  Christmas was good and surprisingly calm.  There were only a few tears at a few random times.  I was most surprised by that.  The kids really did great at getting along, and only had to be reminded a few times about sharing toys and not taking toys that did not belong to them.

A play-doh set from Aunt Jamie and Uncle Nick

A kitchen from Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Jason

A sock monkey from Apple Ben

Joya's "Sock Nockie"

A sick puppy from Grammy

 4.  The beloved Cousins on the Couch shot:

Zeke, Alaina, Oliver, Joya, Naomi & Tegan

5.  And maybe this picture was taken yesterday, or maybe we can pretend it was taken on Christmas, but here are my sweet girls at Christmas 2012:

Alaina, age 4 1/2
Joya, age 2

Happy New Year, all.  Looks like it'll be another one full of change for the Kimble family.

Quick 5

I'm a little confused about this whole end-of-the-world thing.  Are we supposed to be worried today?  Or is tomorrow just never supposed to come?  If we woke up this morning, are we safe?  Or could everything just go to pot sometime during the day? 

1.  Lee's company Christmas party was fun.  It was the first time either of us had been to Sports Authority Field, and that place is pretty swanky.  We ate and then went on a tour of the stadium.  The tour was only supposed to last 30 minutes, but ours lasted about an hour because the gal taking us around let us take our time looking at things. We got to see a box, go on the field, see the visitor's locker room and one of the fridges where they keep the beer kegs.  We were not allowed within 100 feet of the Broncos' locker room, but whatever.  I could not get over how much money people spend on going to the games.  And not even the regular people who sit in the regular seats.  There are people who drop some serious coinage on the handful of home games each year.  It boggles my mind.

Us on the field NOT stepping on the grass. 

2.  Most every morning, the girls and I listen to the Mind Bender on the radio during breakfast.  It's a trivia contest that one of the stations does here in town, and it's fun.  One of the questions this week was: When asked to name the worst food that could be served at Christmas, people chose 'liver' as the #1 answer. What was #2?  We always like to guess, and Alaina shouted out "Turkey!"  I said, "No, you need to try and think of something gross.  What's the yuckiest food you can think of?"  She thought, then shuddered and said, "UGH.  Grilled chicken."  Who knew?

3.  On our snowy day this week I dropped the girls off at our friends' and spent the day Christmas shopping.  I know it's getting late, but we had those nine days or so when the girls were sick, so that kind of threw everything off.  Anyway, it was great to get it done, especially without the girls, but it about killed me.  Not the driving in the snow; that actually wasn't so bad.  Apparently I'm just a big fat slug when I'm pregnant, so the getting in and out of the car and walking all over stores made it seem like I was trying to climb my first fourteen-er or something.  By the third hour I was walking really slow through the stores, annoying all the other Christmas shoppers that day.  

4.  Speaking of shopping, I'm the worst when it comes to picking out presents for the girls.  Joya is a little easier, because she seems to play a bit more than Alaina does.  Alaina likes to watch movies.  And TV.  But she's not hard core into anything, like princesses or even a certain TV show, so I can't even use that as a starting point.  So far Christmases and birthdays have been really hard.  I keep hoping she'll grow out of it and will one day start telling me what she wants.  It'll make my life much easier.

5.  This year is Christmas with my family.  Over Thanksgiving, my mother-in-law mentioned something about us having three two-year-olds running around at the Marsh family Christmas.  I have no idea why this never occurred to me, but it's true.  This could be the loudest, most unpleasant Christmas ever.  We'll need to document it very closely so we can hang it over their heads for years to come.

Merry Christmas, all!  God is with us.  :)

Quick 5

Oy.

1. We survived the Great Plague of 2012 Part II.  Alaina had the worst of it.  She was hard core down and out from Saturday to Monday, and didn't really come fully back to life until Thursday.  We had to miss the Christmas program at church on Sunday and the last MOPS of the semester on Monday.  She was so out of it that on Wednesday when I told her she needed to stay home from Cubbies, she started to cry about the Christmas program.  I had told her on Saturday and Sunday that she was missing it, but I guess she was just a little too out of it to realize what was going on.  It's sad enough watching little kids be so sick without watching their little hearts break too.

2.  I think that there is a problem in Alaina and Joya's bedroom.  The bedroom sits on the northeast corner of the house, and has two windows, a larger one facing east and a smaller one facing north.  The windows are fairly new and are locked.  But their room is about 5 degrees colder than the rest of the house.  There is one vent into their room and it's not blocked.  Heat comes out of it.  But it seems like their room can't hold heat worth beans.  So I'm wondering if there isn't any insulation in their walls.  I let the house get down to 65 at night, which puts their room at about 60.  The thing is they never complain about it.  Well, Joya wakes up moaning sometimes, but only because she's kicked off all her covers.  If I cover her up with her two little blankets, she goes right back to sleep.  Lee and I have an electric blanket and a big comforter that we sleep under; I even have one more heavy blanket on my side.  I don't know how the girls sleep in that freezing room.  And I don't really know what to do about it.

3.  As frustrating as two-year-olds are, they are so fun to watch as they learn to talk.  Joya and I play a little game: I say, "Joya!  I love you!" and she says, "Mommy!  I wuv you too!"  Most of the time.  Lately she'll just say, "Thanks!" and go about her business.  Makes me think she's practicing for all the unsolicited declarations of love she might receive from boys as she grows up.

4.  This weekend is Lee's annual Christmas party.  They always do a nice job, and it's fun to go.  The girls get to spend the night at Grammy's and we get to have a kid-free evening.  This year's party is going to be held at Sports Authority Field (where the Broncos play.)  We'll get to eat wings and have a stadium tour.  I'm really looking forward to it, even if it is an evening filled with awkward chit chat with a bunch of people I don't know at all.  I do kind of know one of Lee's co-workers, so maybe we can hang with him.  It'll be fun to have free food and be out, anyway.

5.  No, I'm not done with my Christmas shopping.  I'm about 30% done.  That's all I have to say about that.

Here's praying that your family avoids all the plagues that seem to be circling wantonly this time of year.

Quick 5

Having a Christmas tree in my living room makes me happy.

1.  To counteract a couple of the more unfortunate aspects of pregnancy, I've been eating some hard-core fiber cereal.  The cereal boasts 40% of your daily fiber intake in each serving, along with only 1g of sugar, so you can imagine how it tastes.  It's not so bad after I add another tablespoon or so of sugar to it.  Anyway, it's made from wheat berry flakes and straight up flax seed.  The problem is we're still having trouble with a certain brazen rodent, and the flax seed bears an uncanny resemblance to mouse scat.  I literally have to tell myself with each bite that I am NOT eating mouse poop. 

2.  Speaking of our unwanted house guest, that little booger is getting super brave.  We're starting to see him most days, shortly after the girls are both in bed.  He boldly trolls around under our dining room table, which is in full view of our living room where we are sitting each night.  Apparently he does not care that we can see him.  And it vexes us.

3.  Poor little Joya.  She woke up at midnight on Monday (Tuesday?) and puked in her bed.  She ran a fever all day Tuesday and part of Wednesday.  Then the stomach bug moved into her lower intestines and have been causing her MUCH discomfort ever since.  We even ended up at the doctor's office yesterday evening because she was crying so much about it.  I was pretty concerned about it being a UTI or something, but I'm more convinced that it is just related to the stomach bug and is truly in her intestines.  We spent an hour at the doctor's office trying to get a sample to test for a UTI, but the girl would not pee on command.  So I brought her home with the supplies and she STILL wouldn't give me anything.  I'll see what the doc says about it, but I'm starting to think if she has this much control over it, then maybe she's ready to potty train.  Anyway, she's mostly her normal, cheerful self and that's good news. 

4.  We don't do Santa around here.  It's really just a non-issue.  We've never told her that Santa comes, but we've never made a huge deal about him not being real either.  I suppose he's just a part of Christmas decorations to the girls.  But Aunt Mindy gave them an Elf on the Shelf book last year, so I brought it out this year.  We read the story and named the elf (Jingles.)  And then I started moving him around each night.  And Alaina is simply baffled at how he gets in his new spot each day.  I guess you don't have to make a big deal about magic for kids to latch on and believe. 

5.  We've lived in our house for six months now.  There are still a few boxes to be unpacked, and much decorating to do, which I am aware is very lame.  I've been threatening to just take the unpacked boxes to the Salvation Army.  We haven't needed any of that stuff for six months, so surely we won't be sad to live without it.  Maybe my New Year's resolution will be to follow through on that.  Anyway, our walls are still fairly bare, and it's made decorating for Christmas difficult.  I have plenty of stuff on hang on the walls, and I'd usually just put it where something else belongs.  But I don't want to create new holes in the walls just to hang Christmas stuff, without a plan to replace it with something in January.  So I had to put away most of our stuff this year.  Our living room is nice and festive, and the rest of the house looks like it always does: bare and sad.

And that's all she wrote.  Merry Christmas!