On Monday night Asher came home super excited because he had a gift from his teachers that he desperately wanted to open. As soon as I gave him the go-ahead the paper was off and he was thrilled to find his very own art set...pretty awesome of his teachers to gift all of the students with such a nice gift!
On Tuesday I celebrated my coworkers birthday with a stress relief toy party to continue our office tradition.
Meanwhile, Asher had his winter break party at school where they got to decorate graham cracker gingerbread houses. He had a great time but I felt a bit like a terrible parent. A few weeks prior to this we got notification that Asher's class would be doing this and that we had the option to submit an application for a background check so that we could join him at school to help him. However, since it was going to take place in the middle of the day and we had Christmas break coming up we decided to skip it. On Monday night though as Asher excitedly told me about how they would be making and decorating the houses the next day he said, "and my teachers said that our grown-ups are coming to help us!" I had to gently let him down and inform him that Eric and I were not going to make it. He was sad but took the news well. However, I realized that he didn't completely understand what I told him when he started talking to Eric about working on the houses with him and taking pictures to show Mommy. Again, Eric had to let him down and tell him that neither of us were going to make it. #parentfail :(
On Wednesday and Thursday Asher was done with school for the year and Eric and I still had to work so the boys headed to daycare together. Thursday they enjoyed their daycare Christmas fun with a pajama party and some spiky hair by Daddy.
That afternoon they got to open gifts from their caretaker, Christina and received some superhero snuggies!! They loved them!
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| The Face of Sauron |
On Friday Christmas Break officially began (for most of us). The boys and I stayed home for the day with my parents while Eric worked. I spent a part of my time off finishing up my Christmas shopping only to come home and find my mom and the boys playing fort under the dining room table. Then, I stayed home with them while they rested and my parents finished up on their shopping before our Klingenmaier Family Christmas party began that evening.
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| My parents bought a small artificial tree for the basement and the boys helped them put some lights on it. |
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| This Christmas I did about 95% of my shopping via Amazon, and I can no longer imagine shopping as I had in the olden days. Not only did I make all of my purchases from the comfort of my PJs and my home office chair, but I also enjoyed the steady stream of packages that came each day...even if they are just gifts for others I still find it fun. On this day, I received a package consisting of a blanket that I DID order for myself. The blanket was a small throw-quilt, but the box was big enough to ship both of our boys! Not only that, but we received one other even larger box on the same day that held nothing but a dog bed that we purchased for Emma. Both items could have easily been shipped together in the same box. |
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| My friend Jen's Christmas card...made me chuckle. ;) |
As I mentioned we enjoyed our family Christmas party on Friday night and Saturday at our home. Then on Saturday evening (after we all took a good nap to recover from the party) Eric, Asher, Avery and I went to Cheddar's for a fun family Christmas Eve Eve dinner together. It was a great time together. The boys were both very well behaved and we all thoroughly enjoyed our meals and the company of one another....and the chocolate cake that we bribed them with for dessert! ;) ...if only all dinners out could be so perfect!
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| Asher trying out his new creation of cheeseburger with french fries inside! |
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| Having our cake! ...which was big enough that less than half of it fed the boys and I and I enjoyed two more servings of it as leftovers at home! |
The next morning was Sunday and it not only finished off our week, but it also finished off our Christmas Countdown as it was Christmas Eve! The day was a little crazy as we prepared for our Christmas day ahead and also dealt with our littlest who was not feeling well and was incredibly whiny and irritated that his nose was a constant stream of snot.
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| Eric and Asher spent a good chunk of the morning working on the Lego Ninjago Garmadon's Volcano Lair that Asher got for Christmas from my parents. |
After a morning of running through our last-minute To Do list and a mandatory nap for our little guy we got dressed up and headed to church in the early afternoon for the Christmas Eve service. It was a very nice time of worship, but a little hard to sit through with two little boys that didn't really want to be there. Asher was supposed to sing a song with the other elementary students in the church but decided he was scared and refused to join them. Instead he wanted to be by my side throughout the service and was quite grumpy. Avery also insisted to be by me and was very grumpy and whiny as he still was not feeling well. I did my best to keep them both quiet so that those around us could enjoy themselves but eventually Eric had to take Avery out into the hallway until we lit the candles and sang Silent Night to close out the service. Even with the bad moods though I was able to bribe them into cooperating (mostly) for a family photo before leaving by promising that they could open a present when we got home.
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| Eric got a book and jammies too... |
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| After Asher forgot Eric's childhood "The Way Things Work" book outside in the rain, I purchased him a copy of "The Way Things Work Now" book for him to enjoy with the boys. |
After they opened their presents, and before they changed into their PJs, the boys did a little excavation with some archeological toys that Auntie Erika had given them. It was a MESSY project, but it did keep them busy for a bit while I worked on cleaning up some things and prepared for dinner.
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| Grandma, Avery & Asher reading while we wait for the lasagna to cook. |
When dinner was ready we enjoyed a delicious meal prepared by my amazing chef of a mom. Then, with full bellies the boys opened up one more present each (some new slippers to go with their PJs) and a family present (the Lego Ninjago Movie) and then snuggled up on the couch to watch their movie before heading to bed.
When it was time for bed, the boys were more than ready. Asher couldn't wait to go to bed because he was incredibly excited for Christmas and knew Santa wouldn't come until after he slept. We put out some cookies, milk and carrots for Santa and his reindeer, wrote a letter to the Big Man in Red and then headed off to bed. Asher was so excited that he didn't even want to read with me before bed, which for anyone that knows of his bedtime routine the fact that he was willingly speeding up the process was amazing in and of itself!
Soon after putting the boys to bed, both of them were asleep. Eric and I wrapped up the final unwrapped gifts, laid them under the tree, filled the stockings, ate the cookies, carrots and milk, wrote a little note to the boys and then headed off to bed ourselves to close out the week in anticipation of the joyful Christmas ahead.
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