The Puddles

Ainsley’s troop met at one of the local nursing homes and made ornaments with the residents.  Ainsley found a table full of buddies that listened to every word that she said.  She was in heaven.  All of the girls had a good time.  I think the residents had a good time too.  One of the ladies at Ainsley’s table (not the one pictured) couldn’t get enough of A.  She just kept patting her arm and holding her hand.  And God bless Ainsley,  she didn’t budge or even see to be bothered by it.  The entire event was wonderful.  Smiles were had by all who came!!

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It already is the morning, because I am too excited to sleep.  I am hoping that if I get up and write down everything that I need to remember for tomorrow/today that I can settle down and get some sleep.  The children’s program is at church tomorrow.  Ainsley is a sheep (there was a long discussion today about how a sheep would wear her hair.).  Ben is a shepherd (He told the hairdresser today that he was getting a haircut but no one would see his hair because he was wearing a dress and a hairpiece.  I had to explain that statement!). And Madie is Mary.  She is probably the most calm about tomorrow.  She has been more worried about not getting too sick.  We took her to the doctor yesterday and they pronounced her with a sinus infection. Then she woke up this morning with pink eye.  Gross. Poor girl.  So we dug around in our medicine cabinet and found leftover eye drops from the last round of pink eye.  I’m sure that I have done wrong in someone’s mind, but I don’t care. They don’t have to live with Madie.  If I told her that she couldn’t be in the program, she would be horribly depressed.  So we worked hard today to heal her.

I am so looking forward to tomorrow/today.  The program is adorable. The kids are awesome. A lot of people but a ton of work in to make the program great.  Hopefully this year I am planning better on recording the event.  I have few if any pictures from the previous program. I am always too busy to take any.  So this year, Chris said he would help by videoing the program. I really hope this works out.   I have another back up plan involving someone who has nobody they are related too in the program.  Hopefully I can convince them to take some sweet photos of my children.

Children’s Christmas Programs are the best medicines for putting smiles on faces.  Especially this one.  It is short with kids in costume singing songs we all know.  The best part of it all is that the kids are all really excited about being in it and not just my three.  Tomorrow/today is going to be great.

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Yesterday was jammed packed full of activities.  First, Madie had her program at school.  We met 3/4 of the grandparents up at school plus Daddy to see the Wilkinson choir sing (Madie is in that too) and the 4th grade music program.  She did great.  Then a stop at the school library to hopefully unload some more of the teachery garage sale items from the church garage sale last year. The adults then met at Panera for a post music program celebration.  It was nice to chat with all of them.  There was no stopping the train of activities because then I headed to the hospital to see a friend and her new baby.  I didn’t get to stay too long because I had to go to the office and pick up papers for work (and that can take some time when the other ladies need help from me).  Then onto the grocery store to pick up ripe bananas and Christmas cookies (getting ready for the weekend and class party that day). A short trip home was required to unload items and to try to clean off the desk to prepare for me working at it all weekend.  Luckily, I didn’t have too much time (it was overwhelming.  a little at a time is better.) because I had to head to school to set up for Madie’s weekly AR party.  After that it over, I grab the kids and we head to the doctor’s for Madie.  Turned out she has a sinus infection.  Then we headed home to get dressed for the Choir concert for Madie’s school choir.  The choir sang with the Montgomery County Choral Society and it was AMAZING!  Our final activity for the night was to stop and see Daddy at church to say goodnight.  They had not seen him since that morning and he still had a lot of work to do.  We left him at church at 10:00pm to go home and crawl into bed.

It was a really long day.  By the time I got upstairs,  they were all asleep.  Ben and Ainsley decided to fall asleep in mom and dad’s bed.  Cute.  I just curled up next to them and feel asleep too.  A great way to end a very busy day.

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So. . . due to a remote login issue beyond my control, I have been unable to work for over two days.  Some would think that this would be good news, but the work still has to get done and now I get to cram it into my already busy schedule next week. That’s the bad news.  The good news I used my unexpected days off to clean the house, get caught up on laundry and go to the grocery store.  Granted my house is not perfect yet. But I managed to thoroughly clean all of the bedrooms today.  It was fun.  The best part was when the kids came home from school.  While they were eating snack, I told all of them that before they did anything else that they had to go and clean their rooms.  Their rooms were awful pits of despair.   Madie pitched a fit (she hates cleaning her room).  I had to threaten grounding to get her to go up the stairs.  By the time I got to her room, she was laying on the floor making carpet angels with a big grin on her face.  It was fun to play with all of them!  They were all completely thrilled to come home to wonderfully clean rooms.  Chris is happy because I have done all of his chores for the last two days.  So everyone is all smiles!

And even better . . . my tech-savvy husband spoke with the I.T. guys for the office I work for and got my computer remote login problem fixed.  So now I can work again.  Today has been a good day!

Now we are off to the 4th grade music program!!!  This will only top off our gloriously great day with even more goodness!

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Today was the first day that it truly felt cold outside.  Knowing that it was coming I got out the winter gear.  Now, my friends north of the Mason-Dixon Line would laugh because winter gear does not include snow boots, gloves, and other snow gear (real winter gear).  But today we woke up with the weather in the 20’s and since my cold-weather-born children have been in Texas one year too many to sustain that thick blood that will tolerate cold . . . we had to get our heavy coats out.  So to help the endeavor of going to school on a cold winter morn, I got them a hot breakfast and put their coats in the dryer for 10 minutes.  I rarely did that when we lived north, but I was feeling kindly towards them this morning.

So they are off to school, bundled against the cold for another school day.  Now it must be time for me to clean up and grab a cup of coffee myself while I enjoy looking out the window at the frost on the lawn.  Today it finally feels like Christmas!

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After hot glueing Ainsley shoes together this morning, we decided it was time for new shoes.  She has been complaining for awhile.  She doesn’t like her other shoes.  The shoes I bought for the beginning of school has so stretched out that she kept walking out of them.  I finally decided to take her to a real shoe store and have her feet measured.  So it took some major convincing but Ainsley let me take her to Stride Rite to get her shoes that fit right.

When we finally made it to the store, it took several different shoes and to let the employee go and help some one else before Ainsley could decide on a pair.  There was even some “Eeany Meany” going on.  She finally picked the pair that lights up and makes her run fast.  I’m just glad that she picked a pair that will go with most of her outfits and especially her dresses for school.

I also found out that I have been making her wear a size 9 or 10 when she should be wearing closer to an 11 1/2.  Bad Mommy!!!

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Our small group decided to meet for dinner and then attend the joint choirs performance of Handel’s Messiah.  It was really good.  I was impressed.  The kids tried hard, but had a really hard time making it through the entire performance.  Luckily the older girls willingly took the younger kids on a walk midway through the show.  Then later the youngest girls found some of their surrogate parents from Tree of Life to sit with.  This helped them make it through the final movements.  It was a lot of fun.  I enjoyed getting to attend with our small group.  I’ve heard other joint choirs perform before, but this was one of the best ones.  It was really nice.  And I’m glad the kids got to go too.

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Daddy was home with us Saturday night, so we gathered together to decorate the Christmas tree.  The kids insisted we have the fire on eventhough it was 70 degrees outside.  Chris turned it on very low for the effect.  We put Christmas music on and got to work.  The kids love putting the ornaments on the tree.  Madie even went and made hot chocolate for the kids.  Everyone had a really good time.  That is . . . until it was time for bed. No one wanted to go, but everything was on the tree!  I love this time of year!!

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“Mommy, some people decorate their tree with pretty balls.  We decorate our tree with memories,” says Madie.

Thank you, Madie! You made my Christmas great.

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