Wednesday: date night

The kids went to Cheryl's house for the evening.  Ben and I had a nice time together.  We read together, played a game of Dominion, had a good dinner, and worked on some Lego sets together.

Tornado sat on a donut pillow...Ben said he has good taste.

Tuesday: feels like Saturday

Today we did quite a bit of work, but we played hard too.  We put away the presents, started cleaning the guest room (which was the present wrapping room), and the main area.  

I continued working on my Lego set, although Tornado fully stole my seat while I was helping Ben look for a piece.

We played Joshua's new Christmas game, The Isle of Cats.  The first step is to have your cat sit in the top of the box.

The kids went rock climbing, and although the gym was pretty busy it wasn't too busy.  After we got back we watched a video on the rules for Apiary.  It was a half hour long!  But...once we got started with the game it is going pretty straightforward.  

Friday: last day of school

It was the last day of school before break!

The Christmas Ruiners and SMTWRFSs put their jail keepers in the jail.  To be honest though, they weren't very good jail keepers.

The SMTWRFSs were no where to be seen, but the baby Ruiners were swimming in a dangerous location.  I found the normal Ruiners all over the place thoughout the day.  I also think I had one in my hood all day and didn't realize it until about 5pm, but am really quite unsure if that actually was what happened.

It was cooking day.  I dropped a lot on the floor.  Most of it was small, easy to clean items, but I was disappointed that I also dropped an egg.

Tornado was very cuddly.

Isaac and I went downtown to pick up some candy and pizzas.  We had the candy and I was looking at my phone to figure out where the pizza place was.  It looked...right across the street.  Yup.  When I looked up and actually looked for it it was right in front of us.  We had a good laugh about it.

Last Sunday: piano recital

Joshua had his first piano recital last Sunday.

Thursday: presents and testing

I made-up my black belt recertification today.  It was supposed to be last Thursday, but instead I had a crazy evening.  Anyway, Mrs. Galli said I was doing a great job!  It was nice to hear.  There were a few very small things to adjust going forward, but that is how it should be.

I finished Christmas wrapping today!  Then 30 minutes later another present showed up at the front door.  Then I remembered two more presents that needed to be wrapped.  This evening I bought another one.  So...I'm once again not finished.  This is how it's going to go this year though, since there were some late arrivals scheduled.

I got to squish Joshua's face today.

Wednesday: legacy

 First off, the sound mufflers that we got Joshua seemed to work great.  He came home saying they worked well and he was in a much better mood.  The class might have been less loud too, but we'll take the win.

I thought I was reasonably close to being done with wrapping presents, only to find another stash.  Oh well.  What I have been doing is writing numbers on the To: part of the present instead of Isaac or Joshua's name.  This is a throwback to when Mom would use a code.  Or, one notable year, when she didn't put names on at all!  We opened a present and figured out whose it was.  Isaac has been most intrigued, trying to figure out a reasoning behind the numbers.  (This is extra hard when he doesn't know which ones go to which person.)

Tuesday: more things

 Ahh... a day that felt back to normal.  I worked down my to-do list and checked things off.

But let's start at the beginning.  I woke up and the Christmas Ruiners had hidden a present and were around the Christmas tree listening to "Rockin' Round he Christmas Tree."

The Mother Christmas Ruiner had been locked up in Joshua's lockbox, but escaped.  Probably because Joshua had the key.

Joshua had a bad day at school.  His teacher was out and will be out for the rest of the week.  I think it's a rather loud class, and my guess is that the sub isn't able to control them as well as the teacher.  So he came out of school sad to not have a teacher and annoyed because it was so loud.  I ordered a pair of noise-canceling ear covers.  (Like headphones, but they won't connect to a computer)  Amazon is apparently overnighting them and if we're lucky they'll be on the porch when we wake up.  I usually don't get the next day delivery, but Meijer and Target didn't really have what I wanted.

During the raid tonight everyone was told to wear festive costumes.  But since I heal in tree form, I couldn't see my festive costume.  So they gave me the star marker and rainbow lights instead.  They also changed the guild banner to a tree.