Around Here: CHRISTMAS Week!

 Holly, Jolly, Merry Magic, Hustle Bustle, full of love Christmas week

photo cred: Michael O'Ship

photo cred: Michael O'Ship

Intentional Outdoor Hours: 572+ hours (of 1000)
Not adding anything to the count this week - oops! 

Reading by Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult but not too much because Christmas mayhem and magic was all around! 

Listening to My Friends by Fredrik Backman

Marco Antics: hanging off of Dad's hoodie without Dad knowing (so funny!), surrounded by dinosaurs, and bringing our baby Jesus to the nativity scene on Christmas eve. We said goodbye to our sweet Marco and Santa picked him up when he dropped off our presents. 

Christmas prep (last minute!): 

• completed all wrapping (Christmas eve morning!)
• last minute stocking stuffers shopping trip
• Christmas eve meal planning & food shopping trip
• Sibling gift exchange shopping trip at 5Below
• Christmas eve dress up clothes for everyone purchased
• cookie baking!
• hosting Christmas eve at our house!

Christmas movies: Gremlins, National Lampoon's Christmas vacation, Babes in Toyland

Children's Christmas pageant at St. David's. Rusty, Reddy, and Olive all sang and did a song with the bells. Violet participated by doing some readings and Gemma helped with communion. The kids are always proud to be part of the service and it feels like the real kick-off of the holiday week! 

Mimi's Christmas - we started the celebrations with Christmas at Mimi's house. We had spaghetti and meatballs, salad, and lots cookies. Mimi got all the grandkids and great grandkids matching jammies. We tricked Mimi by each going into her bedroom and putting on a piece of clothing from her closet to see how long it took her notice. We were all stifling laughter because so many of us had her clothes on (even cousin Morgan had a shirt on that literally said "Doris" on the pocket!) Mimi didn't notice until Brandon came walking out in a full length fleece bright blue robe thing. Oh my goodness, how we all laughed! 

Ugh oh, feeling some illness coming on as my voice started to go on Sunday night and by Monday afternoon I was coughing and had a huge sinus headache. There really is no time for that, so I took Mucinex rapid release, hacked up as much snot out of my body as possible, and drank hot tea like my life depended on it for the duration of the holiday. I powered through it because Momma magic makers gotta do what we gotta do! 

Haircuts for all the fellas just in time! God Bless Lamont - we love you! 

Tire trouble for Lucille the Studermobile (our 12 passenger van). As we drove out to United for the Varsity boys' basketball game - Brandon stopped three times to tighten the lugnuts on one of the tires. It was so stripped that it kept coming loose, but we made it to the game and then back again (thank goodness). Grown ups always say, "It's always something!" but for real for real - it really is always something?! 

New winter tires for Jillian the Honda Pilot. Hooray! We are fully prepared for winter and snowy weather now - yay! 

Sibling gift exchange at 5Below. After school and games on December 23, the whole family loaded up and headed out to the store to complete our sibling gift exchange. Always one of the kids' favorite parts of the holiday. Violet set up the exchange and everyone already had their names picked and then we help them wander around the store looking for items for their $20 budget for the name they picked. Each kid trying to leave hints to their secret santa on what they want while trying to hide their purchases for whoever they picked. It's chaos and hilarious. Then because we waited until the last minute of all time - we stopped at TJ Maxx and picked up outfits for everyone for Christmas Eve mass (LOL which was literally the next day). Good grief, it all got done in just under the wire - I'm counting it as a win! 

Early morning wrapping extravaganza. I woke up by 5a on Christmas eve to head down to the den to wrap all.the.gifts. I watched two Christmas movies in the meantime (Just Friends and The Family Man) but I got it all done and felt so relived that at night we would only need to set things up. I realized also that we needed one or two more things for one kid (those piles did not look even) and Brandon and Gemma went out to meet Pappy anyway - so they grabbed some last minute things at Dunhams. I prepped as much food as possible, ironed all the boys clothes, fixed girls' hair (God bless Gem who was on curling iron duty!), and we all were dressed, dinner on, and out the door in time for mass (got there with one minute to spare!)  

Christmas Eve at our house that was full of delicious food and pre-Santa holiday excitement. We attended St David's mass at 4:30p and as always, while we are singing Silent Night by candlelight, I find myself crying thinking of scared yet brave Mother Mary. Sweet Mary, with strength and love and prayers alongside every mother through time, doing what needs done to bring a baby into the world. After mass, we headed home and found friends and family already at our house (hahah! the best way to come home!) Abba brought enchiladas and pasta salad, Heather sent sweet and sour meatballs, Becky brought her fruit dip (all three of our girls are obsessed - they literally cheered when she walked in the door), Becky's mom brought cupcakes, Aunt Ginger brought a cheese log, Kuma brought chicken tenders, lots of people brought wine and everyone brought laughter and holiday spirit. The kids opened their Christmas jammies, we had NORAD Santa tracker on the tv, and great conversation in every corner. It is one of my favorite Christmas traditions! Everyone got to pick a cookie for Santa and give Marco a hug goodbye before heading off to bed! 

Christmas morning!! magic, magic, magic. thankful, thankful, thankful. 

Christmas at Pappy's. We spent Christmas day at Pappy's house with him and Mimi. He made lunch and we opened presents, and watched football, and I got my annual gift (my favorite!) of an uninterrupted nap! Every year, Pappy (and Gigi when she was with us on Earth) send me upstairs to the bedroom to sleep for as long as I need. And after all that holly jolly magic making - I needed it! I got in a three hour nap while the kids played with all their new stuff and hung out with Pappy, Mimi, and Daddy...it was wonderful! 

Christmas with the extended Adams cousins. We were able to make it to Aunt Dar and Uncle Mike's house on Christmas day to see our extended Adams family cousins. Cousin Kara was in with her sweet babe (our newest cousin) that we all took turns holding and smelling (mmm, that new baby smell!) and visiting with our family. Brandon wore his deer onesie jammie on Christmas day (LOL, when we were walking into my aunt's house I said, "um, you know you are still wearing the deer onesie, right?" and he was like, "they have known me since I was fifteen, no one is going to care"...touché, very true)...while we were there - an actual deer walked onto the lawn and Brandon IN HIS DEER ONESIE went outside and tried to coax it closer to eat out of his hand. It seemed like for a minute, the deer really was thinking about it. I hope the neighbors were looking out the window laughing hysterically at the fully grown man in a deer onesie talking gently to a real deer. Like what even is this life? (hahha, gosh, I love you Brandon James.)

Singing Happy Birthday to Jesus to close out the day. I remembered we didn't do it at Pappy's and then Pappy called and said the same thing! It was one of Gigi's favorite traditions to sing on Christmas - so we made sure to get a cupcake and candle, and we all sang before bed. (love you Gigi xxo)

Enjoying lattes on Gemmi Ro who got her espresso machine and has been mixing up all the yummy drinks for everyone in the family!

Christmas at Abba & Chum's. On Friday afternoon, we headed to Abba and Chum's for Christmas. My sisters, parents, all the fellas, and the nephews were there for food, games, and silliness. Grey got Reddy boxing gloves as part of his sibling gift exchange gift and they were a huge hit overall, but especially at Abba and Chum's where all the nephews and little siblings ganged up on Grey for a teen take down! We played a fun surprise gift game, sang Happy Birthday to Bryan, made a funny reel on Kitty's tik tok, we tried to levitate random things with our minds (lol, if you know us you know that's not strange for us), and we stayed cozy and warm in the sleet and winter storm! It was the perfect close to a week of celebrations. 

Even more time with family and friends. Gemma and Violet had their annual cookie baking day at the Lasure's house with Peyton and Brady (they made chocolate chip cookies and oreo truffle balls). Gemma got to babysit baby Baker on Monday morning and then our neighbor little Lilly that afternoon! Gemma also had a sleepover with Aunt Kitty and got to hang out her coffee shop Moon & Mug for the morning.

Teaching two final days before winter vacation and let me tell you - we were all hanging on for dear life! Whew! I got my budget submitted, my upperclassmen participated in the Holiday assembly and sang Spanish Christmas carols for bonus points, and we made it to the holiday vacation in one piece (barely, lol). 

Sporting Violet and Rusty had one basketball practice. Gemma had two basketball practices, and Grey had a shoot around before one basketball game, two basketball practices, and a basketball team dinner at Tollgate. 

Making meatballs in the crockpot and garlic bread (for Mimi's Christmas), kielbasa and pierogies, crack chicken sammies on Hawaiian rolls, and sloppy joes, For our Christmas eve party we made: Ham in the crockpot, buffalo chicken dip with veggie dippers, haluski (thank you for the cabbage Becky!), Dr Pepper teenie weenies. We had lots of leftovers transformed into dinners after Christmas and breakfast almost every day was cookies!! 'tis the season, lol! 

Christmas cookie baking: A couple more last minute additions to the cookie platter - I made two batches of pretzel/ Hershey kiss/ m&m bites, Hershey kiss peanut butter blossoms, and Pillsbury open & bake Christmas tree cookies (Gemma loves those!)