Week in Review: Chirstmas and a Project

Our week last week was really good! We had a great Christmas, and then David was off all week. It was very busy in a low-key kind of way. We stayed home almost all week and worked on a major project: painting our kitchen cabinets! I'm so excited to get that project done, but I am SO sick of painting. Thankfully, we're getting close to finishing. We're at least at a good stopping point :)

Sunday: We had church that morning. After the service, we had our last joint adult Sunday School class. It was very good. We came home after church and ate spaghetti for lunch. We napped that afternoon and went back to church that night. After church, we went to Jason's Deli for dinner. When we got home, we put the kids to bed, and I read a bit and got on the computer before bed.

Monday: David got up with the kids that morning, and I got to sleep in a little. We had our Christmas Eve gathering at my grandparents' house that day, so when I got up, we got moving. I had to wrap several Christmas gifts, so I worked on that while David entertained the kids. Then we all got ready and headed to my grandparents' house when Alaina woke up from her nap. We had a great lunch cooked by my grandmother. Sadly, my two youngest brothers had the flu, so they weren't able to be there :( We missed them so much! After lunch, it was time for presents! Jude got so weirded out when it was time for presents. I'm not sure what the deal was, but he just got so grumpy and refused to open anything for a while. My brother was showing him one of his presents and trying to convince him to open it, and Jude SPIT into the gift bag! What in the world?? It was very ugly of Jude, and he got in trouble, but it was kind of hard not to laugh. He eventually snapped out of his funk and decided that opening presents wasn't so bad after all ;)

Aubrey had no trouble tearing into hers!

I was shocked when I opened my gift from my grandparents and it was a sewing machine! Now I just have to learn how to use it ;) I have tons of pictures to post from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but I'll do a separate post for those. After presents, we just hung out at my grandparents' the rest of the day. We had some delicious desserts, and we took the kids outside to play for a while.

That afternoon, we left and went to church for our Christmas Eve candle light service. I love this service every year, but there is no nursery, so we didn't think we would last very long. Miracle of miracles, we made it through the WHOLE service! With all three kids! Alaina and Jude got a little loud a few times and we almost took them out, but then we'd hear another child somewhere making some noise too, so we'd stay a little longer..... it's a family service, so a little noise is expected :) We had communion, and then we sang Silent Night by candle light. Love it. After church, we went to my other grandmother's house for dinner. That was a lot of fun, too!

My mom started feeling bad while we were at my grandmother's, and she ended up having fever. We were a little worried that she was getting the flu too, but she ended up just having what we think was bronchitis. We were sad, though, because we knew she wouldn't be up to coming to our house the next day for Christmas since she had fever :( We left my grandmother's house shortly after dinner because the kids were all EXHAUSTED. We put them to bed as soon as we got home, and then David went over to my parents' house to pick up our present for the kids: a new puppy!! My parents' had been keeping the puppy for us for several days, and the kids had no idea.

We were so excited about our surprise for them. David and I ended up staying up WAY too late that night.

Tuesday: Merry Christmas! David and the kids came and woke me up that morning, and then it was time to do a few gifts. David and I just got the kids each a few little stocking stuffer type things, and we did those gifts with them.

We then told them we had one more gift that was "too big to wrap" and David went outside and got the puppy. He let her walk in, and they were so surprised! It was super cute.

We got it all on video, so maybe I'll get around to posting that, too. We decided to name our new dog Jane :)

We played with her for a while, and I put Alaina down for a nap. I then cooked a big breakfast for us, and we ate together. The rest of the day was very low-key and just family oriented. It was nice. The weather was kind of awful. It rained steady the whole day. Normally that's my FAVORITE kind of weather, but we had really hoped to be able to spend a lot of time playing outside with the puppy that day, and it just didn't plan out like we had pictured. It was fine, though. We got the kids down for naps -- they were so tired after the day before, so I was glad we had decided to do our family meal Christmas night instead of skipping naps two days in a row. While they slept, I made some cookies and put some chili in the crockpot. David and I straightened up the house and I took a shower and got ready. Our families came over at 5. Like I said, my mom was sick, and my brothers were still sick too, but my dad and my other brother came, as well as David's parents and my grandparents.

My dad brought traditional chili, and I had made white chicken chili. We wanted to keep things really stress free and simple, and it turned out to be the perfect meal for such a rainy night. We had fun being together! The kids opened their presents from David's parents, and then we just hung out. We missed having the rest of my family here!

After everyone left, we got the kids to bed, and then David and I got ready for bed early. It had been a good day, but I felt a little sad that Christmas was over (I do every year), and it was nice to just call it a day and go to bed early.

Wednesday: David and I decided to make this errand day. We got ready while Alaina napped. She decided to take a LONG nap. This was literally the longest nap she took all week. We were just sitting around waiting for her to wake up so that we could leave.

Pretending to sleep!

When Alaina finally woke up and we left it was lunchtime, so we all went to Chick Fil A. That was fun! The kids wanted to play, but we didn't have time since we needed to run errands. We went to Lowe's, and I picked out paint colors and had them mixed. That took quite a while. We looked around at other things while we waited, but the kids started melting down. By the time we left Lowe's, it was past naptime, so we decided our other errands could wait ;) We headed home and put all of the kids to bed. That afternoon, David got on the computer for a while, and I started prepping some of our kitchen cabinets for paint. When the kids got up, we went out to eat for dinner, and then I ran in Target. We put the kids to bed when we got home, and then David and I watched The Bourne Identity. We went to bed late when the movie was over.

Thursday: Alaina was up early, and she was on a total nursing strike (she still is..... more on that when I see how it's going to all play out), so I had to get up and pump while David gave her a bottle. Ugh. The silver lining was that I was up earlier than I would have been otherwise and was able to get an early start on painting the cabinets. That was pretty much the theme of the day. I painted. all. day. long. and David watched the kids. I made what felt like super slow progress. I also had to stop and pump several times throughout the day. Not fun.

Little stinker! She's worth the pumping though :)

The kids napped, and David went outside with the dogs. The afternoon was more of the same. I finally got to a stopping point and quit late that afternoon. I took a shower and got ready to go out for my friend Bryanne's birthday. I met some girls for dinner at Babalu's. It was a lot of fun, and it was nice to be out of the house after painting all day! :) When I got home, David and I talked for a little while before going to bed.

Friday: This was basically a repeat of the day before. Paint, paint, paint! I did feel like I made better progress than the day before. David helped me during the kids' naptime. We painted until late afternoon again, and then we got ready. We were all ready to get out of the house! We went to dinner at Mugshots. After we ate, we made another Lowe's run. It was rainy and COLD, so we came home and got the kids into bed. After they were asleep, David and I watched the second Bourne movie. We let the puppy sit with us while we watched :) It was sweet, but she was super squirmy and bite-y ;)

We went to bed when the movie went off.

Saturday: Aaaannd..... more painting! There's really not much else to say :) We were determined to get as much done as possible. We were able to put all of the cabinet doors back on, which was our main goal for the day. A kitchen with all of the cabinet doors removed and young kids do not mix ;)

I cannot believe I'm showing this picture, but this has been the state of my house all week. STRESSFUL. The rest of the house is about as bad, unfortunately.

I still have to paint all of the drawers, but that's not quite as pressing as the doors. I made a meal plan and a grocery list that afternoon.

Getting acquainted :)

We had literally no food, so we desperately needed to go to the grocery store. First, we went to dinner at Soulshine. It was so good! After dinner, we went to Kroger. When we got home, David and I put up the groceries and bathed all three kids. I picked out clothes for church the next day for everyone, and then I put Alaina to bed while David got Aubrey and Jude down. I ironed all of the clothes and read a little bit before bed.