Still December-ing!

Last weekend was unexpectedly busy for us!  I had to frantically change plans for hiking club when alert reader Chantell pointed out that the trails I had planned to hike were closed!  Fortunately, Adam came through with another suggestion, and we ended up climbing Round Top, a 4-mile trail which runs along the Boar's Head golf course.  We managed to do the entire hike and still be home in plenty of time for piano lessons, so that was great.  The weather was gorgeous, AND we met up with Chantell who seems great, so it was a very successful day!  (I was so pleased to meet someone who had been doing hiking club without me knowing it!  I'd been worrying that my weekly emails were just so much spam to those on the receiving end!)

Colton liked these plants-- he thought they could make good pompoms!  Also, those eyes!

There's Chantell!  She's the YW president in the 1st ward.

We made it to the top!

Adam got this picture of Kendra and Camille together-- so sweet!

After piano lessons (and a very quick nap) I had time to frantically vacuum the main floor before we had another 4-year-old coming for respite care!  This time it was Rodney (although we kept wanting to call him Landon 😬) and he stayed with us for just a couple nights.  

Meet Rodney!

As I suspected, we had so many new toys for him to play with, that he was no trouble at all.  The second night we did see a bit of his temper that his foster mom had warned us about (screaming NO and trying to hit me when I told him it was time to go to bed-- nothing all that unusual for a 4-year-old, honestly...) but for the most part he was really good.  These poor kids-- what have they been through?

Our primary had dropped off a gingerbread house for the kids to decorate, so Craig helped them do that while I did my usual puttering around tidying up the house...

I was a little nervous about taking six kids to church, but Rodney was super good and the other kids were, too.  And since we were all wearing masks, I'm not sure anyone else even noticed that I had an extra kid with me!

His foster mom came and got him shortly after church, so that was very short.  The kids all agreed that they really liked having him with us.  So that's good-- I do worry about the effect fostering will have on my own kids.

That afternoon, Colton and I enjoyed some snuggly time:

He put a sock on his hand and held it up blocking my face, so this is a terrible picture of me, but such a cute picture of Colton!

Monday I gave blood, which had seemed like a great idea when I signed up to do it, but no longer felt that way when my little kids' schedules changed AGAIN and it was pouring rain so they were going to have to pick up their lunches in the rain.  Ugh.  I hate things that I can't plan for!  But we got the schedule mostly figured out, and a neighbor offered to get their lunches for them (we usually get them for her, so she was returning the favor), so I guess it all worked out.  But between Rodney waking me up early all weekend and giving blood, I was exhausted.  I came home and took the longest midweek nap EVER.  Sort of embarrassing, but I think I needed it!

Wednesday they were predicting a huge snow storm, so school was canceled, but the snow wasn't supposed to hit until after 7am, so I was still able to lead my exercise group for the first time!

Jogging up and down the downtown mall, and stopping for a picture with the Christmas tree!

And then I got to just go back to bed!  Huzzah!

Bentley was supposed to go to the orthodontist on Wednesday.  They called the day before to postpone it for a week, thanks to the storm.  Fortunately I was thinking clearly and realized that they were trying to schedule him to get his braces tightened on December 23rd!  I told them that I couldn't do that to my son and we'd wait until January, thankyouverymuch.  Can you imagine trying to eat a turkey dinner with sore gums?  Horrors!  So I want points for being a good mom for that!

As it turned out, our snow storm was terribly disappointing: it just sort of sleeted and iced everything over, but there was no actual snow.  It looked beautiful, but the kids couldn't play in it at all, so that was lame.  They could have used the outdoor playtime.

When you work hard on dinner and this is all you get for it...

And this morning we had a 2-hour delay, which turned into school being canceled for the big kids because both the middle school and the high school lost power!  The little kids still have school but-- get this-- on another totally different schedule!  We can't go two days without changing the schedule on them.  It's insanity.  And they aren't learning anything.

Tomorrow is "asynchronous" so I guess my big kids are officially on Christmas break now!

So pretty!

Look at these cute presents under the tree!

In just a few hours we will officially ALL be on winter break!  I wonder if I can hide my kids' laptops for the entire two weeks...