Wednesday: in between

We're in an in-between time right now.  In between the Christmas bustle and my brother coming up for the weekend.  (Joshua is beyond excited.)

So obviously, we started out the day with some games.  Isaac asked and I didn't have a good reason to say no.

I then got a bit of work done and we wrapped presents.  Isaac said the snow was good packing snow, so we went outside for a bit.  It really wasn't good packing snow yet...we probably should have waited until a little bit later in the afternoon.  We made a small snowman and slid down the hill for a bit.

After lunch and nap time we did our errands, but they were rather unproductive.  The parking lot at rock climbing was more full than normal and when I looked at the number of climbers it was the highest I've seen at 30/50.  Joshua and I went once at 25/50 and it felt very full, so we decided to try first thing tomorrow instead.  We stopped by Cheryl's to see if some late Christmas presents had arrived, but they weren't there yet.  We stopped by UPS to do a return, which was successful, as expected.

I used my electric knife to cut bread.  It was wonderful.

Joshua made a new kitty place out of a Christmas box.

I also got all the laundry cleaned and dried, although not sorted or put away yet.  I also took down some of the extra Christmas decorations that become a bit too much with more people in the house.  It's still very Christmas-y, but we needed a bit more space.  There are still a few things to do before we start the official cleaning, but we're close.  I only crossed off two things on the "do before guests come" list today, but at the same time I'm still feeling on top of everything. For now.

Monday: rescheduled Christmas party

The extended Hilldore Christmas party was tonight.  It was supposed to be on Friday but by Thursday they rescheduled - an excellent choice.  It was nice to see everyone in our annual get-together.  

We were allowed to be in the main entryway, and we told the kids this when we got there.  No problem.  Joshua had to go to the bathroom, and one of Ben's uncles was showing him.  When they reached the boundary Joshua stopped and said, "I'm not allowed pass here."  He was easily convinced he could go farther for this purpose, but it was cute.

Isaac and Joshua ran around and around and around.  Then two other kids joined them and they ran around and around and around.  I couldn't believe how much they ran, but they were having fun and with other people!

Ben and I ended up with a pair of very nice socks from the exchange.  Isaac quickly claimed them, even though they're way too big, and was super excited about them!

Sunday: the rest of the day

Today we spent a nice morning at home.  We didn't do anything too special, but finished a game, played some video games, and did whatever.  The snow drift peaked right before we left at 39" right at the stick.  By the time we got home the drift was down.  The drift seemed less steep, so the snow and probably fallen down.  (The picture below was from when I woke up and the drift was at 37.5".)

Also when I woke up I found a crazy scene by baby Jesus.  The Christmas Ruiners had come out and were trying to steal Baby Jesus.  Obviously, the animals were winning, but there was a fight!  One sheep pounced a Christmas ruiner and fell over, which broke its ear off.  The shepherd and the sheep's family brought it to the hospital.

The weather was good enough for us to travel the 10 minutes to Larry and Cheryl's house, but the roads weren't great.  It was nice to have a white Christmas with the snow falling gently in the background though!

Ben helped Joshua put the star on the tree.

We ate brunch first.  It was full of delicious food.  This is probably my favorite traditional meal of the year...I do like all the sweet stuff!  A few things were said that really tickled Isaac's funny bone and it was hilarious to watch.

The only picture I have of opening presents is my new electric knife.  I used it at Thanksgiving and it was amazing.  I'm going to use it to cut everything.  And maybe I'll even make a turkey.  (But I'm going to borrow the roasting dish because I really don't want a huge roasting dish in my house.)  The one I'm most proud of giving is some pie.  At Thanksgiving Scarlet said she had only ever had (or only could remember having) pumpkin pie.  So Joshua and I got her a blueberry and chocolate pie slice from a local bakery. 

The last funny thing from the day was that I asked Joshua to get me a fork at dinner time.  He gave me one, and I continued talking.  A few minutes later I picked it up only to find it was a gigantic serving fork!  It was nice of him to get me one, but Ashlyn was also kind enough to sneakily get me the correct kind.

Sunday: He's here!

Merry Christmas!  As always, the animals that moved around all of December looking for baby Jesus finally found him.

Saturday: Christmas eve

According to my camera, all I did was take pictures of the snow.   In the morning the stick measured about 31.5", but the drift had moved over closer to the house.  The top of that was close to 33". 

We had five blue jays flying around at one point.

It was a lovely day.  We played several games.  Isaac made chex mix.  Joshua wrapped presents.  Ben cleared the driveway (4-24" deep).  I helped with a lot, cleaned the kitchen, and dealt with food.  I was quite excited about how I could oversee the kids and get some stuff done all at the same time: they're getting more capable!

By this evening the snow at the stick was reading around 35".  If you measured the drift between the stick and window it was at the top of the stick, 40".  (You can see the stick in the picture below, but I angled up just slightly so that you actually could see it.  It's sort of under the corn.)  The drift to the left is higher yet.  The weather conditions were much better today.  It snowed most of the day, but I could usually see the houses across the lake.  Also, it's only about 12" or even a little less right by the edge of the deck.  There's a pretty steep drift right now.

Friday: blizzard

 The blizzard did show up!  For most of the day we couldn't see the houses on the other side of the lake.  There were a few times we could faintly see them, but they stayed hidden most of the time.  (This is my measurement of how bad the weather is.)  There were still birds at our bird feeder throughout the day; they were taking shelter under the deck.  The wind was not strong enough to blow the bird food out of the bird feeder.  Oddly, I've seen several news articles talking about places that are closed today.  I really think it should be what places are open because it seemed like everything shut down.

We decided to open our Christmas presents today.  I got a whole bunch!

Around 3:30pm I put the measuring stick right outside the door.  Now, I put it right in the middle of the drift, so it is not that deep everywhere.  (In fact, there is still part of the front walk that is clear.)  It read about 28.5" and by 9:30pm it was over 30".  Joshua thinks it'll be over the stick by tomorrow morning, but I'm estimating 33".  It should probably be noted that we had snow before the blizzard too.  I bet there was at least 12" right there, if not a little more.

We all liked looking outside to see what the weather was doing.

So did the cats, even though Tornado also curled up in between.

Honestly, it was a lovely day!

Thursday: getting ready

Today was a day of getting ready.

I woke up to a message from the Christmas Ruiners.  They like to hide around the main area and somehow ruin Christmas.  Not really sure how.  They're similar to how Christmas Magic moves the Nativity animals every night, but Isaac moves them instead of the magic.  Apparently there was one that I was supposed to find and have missed for several days.

It continued with 1.5 bags of potatoes turning into mashed potatoes.  I had peeled them last night, but then realized that I really, really would regret it if I tried cooking all of them in the instapot at once.  So I did it in two batches and it took longer than I was expecting.  I really feel like the name instapot is a misnomer as it is far from instant.  But they didn't get done too late and I sent a very full crockpot of potatoes to work with Ben.  Now.  During previous potlucks most of the food I make comes home.  I don't mind this at all and since I only make food that I like it works well.  So I was planning on bringing half the potatoes with us to another party.  However, much to my surprise, they were all gone!  So I need to rethink that plan and remember, for better or worse, that mashed potatoes are good at Gentex potlucks.

The morning passed.  Joshua and I have been giving each other a lot of massages, enough that we got a library book to learn some new methods.  (Side note, we got it from the main library because that's were we were.  The librarians were helpful, but not as helpful as my wonderful north side librarians.)  I also put out more bird and squirrel food due to the upcoming blizzard.  While I was coming back inside, Horizon escaped.  This was a big surprise, since he's never the one that escapes.  I let him escape as about four inches away from the house there is a hill of snow that I didn't think he'd be interested in getting over.  About thirty seconds later Tornado followed.  Tornado quickly realized it was not fun and went back inside.  Horizon tried going over the hill and, as expected, turned around and came back inside.

Next it was time for errands!  We met a friend at Anna's House, and she gave the boys a large gift certificate to B&N.  It was quite unexpected.  We headed to rock climbing, and stayed a bit longer than normal.  Joshua and one of the kids' instructors were trying to balance a stuffed rat on their head while climbing...apparently it'll be a new challenge for the kids' group.

We got gas next, including gas for the snow blower.  The boys twisted my arm and we went through the car wash too.  We stopped by the library to pick up a hold, and then to B&N.  We got a new game.  I called our game expert about two games.  We decided on one, but Joshua was adamant that he didn't want it so we went with the other.  We played most of it before dinner and I think it was a good choice. 

Right as we were finishing our errands and pulling into the driveway we saw five snowflakes.  The blizzard was starting!  For those of you not in West Michigan, we are supposed to get 10-20" with high winds Friday and Saturday.  The snow didn't start quite as early as it was supposed to, but by 4pm when the blizzard was supposed to start hitting it was snowing well.  The flakes were small though so there wasn't much accumulation.  I was thinking about snow blowing after dinner but decided not to.  I did look about an hour ago though and there is obviously more snow, so it must have gotten a bit worse.  Everything is shut down tomorrow, so I really hope there's a good storm with no power outages.