We celebrated my great-grandfather’s birthday a day late since Abe had to work late on Thursday. To celebrate, Mary wrote and delivered a darling speech. I made a pineapple upside-down cake. Clarissa thought it was all for her. We didn’t disabuse her of that notion. She was adorable blowing out the candles!
Sadly, all of the photos were taken in the wrong setting on my phone so I can’t post them. I’ve fixed it now so hopefully we can put pictures in future posts!
On Thursday Abe had to stay late for the awards ceremony for sales kick-off, so I fed the kids dinner early, put people in pajamas, and watched Newsies with them while giving them each foot massages. Ammon was quite demanding that I give him back scratchies too. It was such a cozy evening and I adore Newsies. After Sound of Music, it might be my most-watched movie from childhood. It was so fun to share it with my kids.
Today all of the kids told me their stomachs hurt, and frankly, so did mine. But none of us threw up, and I made the kids go to school. After I dropped them off, I went to Vasa with my mom and Clarissa. My mom had her trainer appointment and I just did stairs and some ab exercises.
Oh, and before all of this I woke up early and folded laundry for an hour while chatting with my mom. She wants to practice using her voice, and we talked about religion. It was really fun.
After Vasa, we came home and I made bolognese sauce, processed laundry, and tidied. Then it was time to pick up kids, take Lydia in for her cavity fillings, and then drive her to her harp lesson. (I pushed it to the evening because I knew the early morning was not a good idea with our health on the edge.)
After harp, we came home, ate dinner, and just finished putting the kids to bed. Well, Abe put the kids to bed. Now we’re going to finish watching Man on a Wire.
On Tuesday morning we all had a massive dentist appointment for our whole family. The kids all love the Smile Center although Lydia had a cavity, so that was sad.
I let the girls stay home after the dentist even though I should have made them go to school again. They were very sweet and appreciative. I went to the gym with the babies while they were at home reading and came straight home, and then I put dinner on the table. We had souffle, Ottolenghi’s mustardy cauliflower, and chard.
After we put the kids down the Kahlers came over and we played Endeavor with them. It was soooooo fun! We are going to do it again next week. It took a long time because Abe and I were slow learners, but we had so much fun we didn’t mind the midnight bedtime.
Abe had his self care day on Monday! He went to the temple in the morning with his Aunt Andrea, went cross country skiing with Daniel Olson, came home for a nap with me, golfed at top golf with Jay, got a haircut, came home, got a quick massage from me and the we watched Man on Wire. I fell asleep during the documentary, but he told me it was great.
I am trying to finish In Sacred Loneliness before the end of today because fat books at the beginning of the year give me anxiety. I am always worried that I won’t reach my Goodreads goal so I don’t like to start the year off by reading tomes…but I am so close to finishing it that I am just trying to get it done. Unfortunately I keep falling asleep so I am taking a break and back blogging, which Abe and I have been planning to do for weeks. I feel sooooo bad for not blogging more these past couple months and missing so many precious moments!
On Sunday I tidied the house while Abe, my mom and the kids went to their last Sunday in the old ward. Abe and my mom had a lot of good conversations with friends and they both enjoyed the sacrament message about the pioneers and Joseph Smith. (Unfortunately, In Sacred Loneliness has made it freshly hard for me to see beyond Joseph Smith’s sexual predatory habits and the way he habitually ruined women’s lives, so it was hard for me to hear these faith promoting stories. But I bit my tongue and affirmed at the time.)
In the evening we all watched the 1994 version of Little Women and even Abe loved it. I love all snuggling on the couch and watching movies together. It is SO fun. The kids are stoked to see the new version of Little Women, especially since it has Emma Watson in it!
On Friday Abe went to the Darais family Christmas party with the kids and my mom. I was completely exhausted and spent most of that time lying on the couch next to my closed book and listening to Kenny G. After a while I started tidying the house and listening to friends on Marco Polo. One friend talked about the new Little Women, which gave me the idea to do a Little Women marathon, starting with 1949 version that I grew up on.
Abe had a phone call for his AXB secret santa exchange, so during that time the kids, my mom and I watched this favorite version. It was so cozy.
Abe had a bad experience after the party. He had a huge pot of lentil soup in the car balanced between the driver and passenger seat. One of Abe’s pet peeves is when people go slowly on a protected left turn, so on a protected left he hit the gas and that pot went flying…all over the car. It made Abe really mad to have the soup spill everywhere. I think it was just a really stressful week in general, so having that top it off was too much. He was very nice when he was mad, though. (The only reason I know he was mad is because he told me he was mad about it multiple times. In a perfectly even and composed tone. I wish I could be mad like that.)
On Thursday we just lounged around the house recovering from the festivities. Abe and I also set up our bed and moved into what will be Ammon’s room after our room is finished. And even though it’s not permanent, I love this room. It has such beautiful views of the valley and the lake, and when I’m in bed I see trees and sky. It so full of light and actually fits Abe and my needs just fine. I don’t know what we will do with all the extra space when our bedroom is done!
I am pretty sure we didn’t do much else besides lounge around and fix up the room for most of the day. Then in the evening we had the Crofts over for dinner. It is always a treat to spend time with them. They are such cheerful, smart, interesting people. And the kids looked forward to seeing Pippa all day long. (Afterward I was horrified because I realized the sour cream in the potato salad was expired, but I Marco Poloed Betsy and she said they are all healthy and was soooo sweet about the fact that I almost gave them all food poisoning!!)
On Christmas all the kids woke up and opened presents!
Clarissa fell asleep on Tom’s lap. She looked very content there.
While Swathi, Soren and I made some Dorie Greenspan thumbprint cookies, Jere showed us all pictures from his Kenya trip on the television. He took some amazing pictures of scenery and animals!
Abe made delicious french toast for everyone for breakfast and then for lunch we had a big salad and leftovers from the past couple days.
After lunch I started cooking the sauerbraten for our German Christmas dinner, and then we cleaned the house and got it ready for our dinner with friends. At 6pm I took Swathi, Clark, Meera and Soren to the airport and at 7pm our guests arrived. I was still driving home but when I got home everyone was happily eating. It was so fun to see everyone! We had Jon, Shirley, Marea, Helena, Lesi, Chloe, Jon’s mom, Lesi’s mom, Karin, Jay and Jere over. It was a full house and we stayed up past all of the kids’ bedtimes visiting. But I think all the kids had a great time and it was so nice to see them all.
On Christmas Eve I cooked a lot because I didn’t do that at the appropriate time–which would have been BEFORE we all got together! But since I procrastinated, better late than never, right? The kids made and decorated gingerbread cookies for Santa, and they were very cute going to bed so excited for Christmas.
All of them snuggled around Swathi to read a Jan Brett book:
