Year 2, Day 347-351: Where'd We Go?

Wednesday, December 13th, through Sunday, December 17th, 2017.  8 days until Christmas.

Whoops!  We kind of went MIA for the rest of the week didn't we?  I guess I've been in a funk and knowing that the more photos I take, the more I have to process, I took a break.  And most of the days were pretty straight forward and normal with school and activities.  We've had a nice break this weekend from all the busyness, and this next week and weekend look fairly open as well.  We don't attend many parties and my family is scattered and we are going on vacation with Jared's family soon and will do Christmas stuff, so this year is pretty low key in terms of visiting and traveling.  And church is just doing it's Christmas "Eve" service during the normal service times on Saturday evening and Sunday morning, so we don't even have a proper Christmas Eve service the evening of Christmas Eve (does that make sense?)  I was able to finally buy some Christmas gifts and bake a little bit more this past week.  And this morning (Sunday), we cleaned up several hot spots including the living room and Keturah's bedroom.  I've been working on cleaning up and organizing my desk as well.  With business booming, I have more paperwork I need to control so I need to create a real system to take care of that.

As far as emotions go this Christmas, I am doing better than I have been in the last couple of years.  With each item crossed off on the Christmas "bucket" list or to do list, I feel much better that I'm actually doing some of the things I always like to do or have wanted to do for a long time.  Like going downtown and seeing the lights on the circle or trying gluten free gingerbread cookies (still mostly a fail, I just don't have what it takes to make my Grandma's gingerbread men!)  We've seen Santa and the live nativity.  We got the Christmas picture done for Christmas cards tonight, so those will need to be printed off.  I'm polishing off some Christmas gifts and need to make one more run to the store for stocking stuffers and maybe a little bit of food for Christmas Eve.  We will make cherry winks this week, but I've made them gluten free the last couple of years just fine so I expect them to go well.  I might make more cranberry bread as well.  At least my kids don't care that most of it's made with almond flour and dairy free ingredients.

I'm sure there are some funny moments I'm missing from the last few days but I can't remember them.  I haven't even posted that much on social media this week, which usually helps me to capture some of those.  But I will tell you one that happened this afternoon.  We were eating lunch with Gary and Leah at their house.  Abishai was done eating and was wandering around as normal playing with his trucks and cars.  All of a sudden, he comes back to the table and says, "play cars?!" carrying a brand new car track set.  We all kind of verbally jumped on him and started laughing, which scared him.  Apparently, he had found the hiding spot of the Christmas gifts Santa had already dropped off.  Well, this particular toy was in a big brown box, AT THE BOTTOM of the box, hidden from sight, and Abishai STILL FOUND IT.  None of my kids have ever found the hidden gifts at either Gary and Leah's or our house before.  And the door was shut to the room that the gifts were in, and it's not usually shut, so maybe that's what piqued his curiosity.  The gifts were all around the floor, but mostly in their brown boxes.  What a booger!  And he was so scared that he had done something so wrong, plus now he wanted to play with the toy that as clearly for him.  We felt so bad!  Both Keturah and Abishai believe in Santa, so we go along with it, quietly for the most part, balancing it out with Baby Jesus.  What a hoot, though!

Warning, there IS a bunch of pictures, so take it slow!

I'm trying to do more preschool activities with Abishai like stamping and play dough.  We had stamps out because Keturah was doing fingerprints and skin in her human body studies.

Paleo Gingerbread Dough.  No grains. No dairy.  Which, according to Jared, means it doesn't exist.  Oh, and the only sweetener is molasses.

Creating stories together.

I saw this cool idea of making shadow box theater with Duplos.  I made it, but Abishai turned it into a garage for his cars.  The idea sparked Justin to go build his own theater.

It's a drive in movie theater!  He put the minifigures on a red brick so he could move them around and the red blends in better with the background.  Very thoughtful!

Rolling out the very sticky dough.   That's why you need to keep it in the fridge until it's time to make and bake.

I haven't done roll out cookies in years, and now I know why.  Too many cooks ruin the broth.  No, it wasn't that bad, but I have to be in the right mood to have the best patience with them.  Next time, we'll just use regular flour and I won't eat them.

We need to do this more often.

They really enjoyed it.

I make cookies too!

Raisins for eyes, just like Grandma Koski.

I made Benaiah come in and do one, too.

All ready to go.

They turned out ok.  Nor burnt, thank goodness, but drier than I like.  Again, next time, we will use regular flour.

Skip to Saturday evening, here's some downtown sights like window shopping.  My kids have never window shopped.  Justin really wants to explore the Circle Centre Mall so we'll come back on a Friday in February or something just to explore at a slower pace.  We went with Gary and Leah after church and did our best to enjoy what we could, but bedtime was looming.

Aw, walking downtown.  Although we saw plenty of homeless people, which I wasn't sure how to handle or process that.  There were a few groups of people huddled together.  Very sad, but I didn't have anything to give them tonight and the men were on a mission, so we didn't stop to engage them.

City County building where Jared worked when we were first married and where he was on the morning of 9/11.  He worked as a gun processor which takes care of any weapons police bring in from their rounds as well as handle gun permits.

We went up to the top of the building that house's the Mayor's office and courts.  Perfect night for it!  We have never been up there before!  You could see the whole city!  This is looking East.

Looking west.  (I skipped North).

Look!

"The World's Largest Christmas Tree" although a) it's not a tree and b) I'm sure there are world breaker trees out there.  It's really just a war memorial covered in lights.  And yes, you can climb the 100 stairs to the top.  You can take an elevator, but you have to start from the bottom.  It doesn't stop mid way.

Looking south with Bankers' Life Fieldhouse where the Pacers play in the foreground on the right.

There she be from the ground level.

So random, but funny, Abishai wanted to look down and see what was there.

Gary and Leah getting their selfie game on, which I find amusing because well, not everyone in their generation tries to stay hip and in the know with technology.

Big and little.

One of the buildings on the circle always does this every year.

Family picture time!

All lights, not tree, just wire.

Lights!

Goofing off.  It was a lot warmer than I thought it was going to be and I was very warm because I overdressed.

I'd love to window shop some more.  I don't think my children have done it much.  Look at Abishai's excitement.

Benaiah and I really wanted to go this eclectic shop called "Rocket Fizz" where they sell so many different kinds of pop from all over the place, especially things like bacon root beer, bubble gum flavored, and oh so much more.

Bulk Barn wannabe!

Look, a trolley looking bus!  Abishai did notice the different vehicles and said "Tayo! Rogi! Nore!" from his Tayo the Little Bus tv show.

Jared bought expensive water.  I got cherry something.  Justin had Key Lime Pie, Keturah had bubblegum, and someone got Abishai just red cream soda, which, this brand was from Canada!  How appropriate!

Eating gingberbread cokies for breakfast.  Yum!

Yummy! For about one day.  They do get stale easily.  So I dunked mine in my tea.

Not even close to my Gramma's famous gingerbread men.  She only made them for Christmastime and we would eat them for our Christmas morning breakfast.

No room in the inn.

This guy has been up several times this week after supposedly going to bed on time.  So he hung out while I finished some things.  This was about 11 pm one evening.

He even made a bed for himself and mommy.

Playing cars on the back of the sofa at 12:30 am.

Watching Star Wars Rogue One and putting on and taking off his backpack full of cars all by himself around the room.

How and why? I'm still working on taking it untangle.

Cuteness overload.

My selfie game.

More lights.

Skip to Sunday evening at Crave.  Benaiah's is doing the sound mixing, just like his Dad at his age.  He worked the camera for big church this weekend and said he almost fell asleep!  He's got finals this week and he's trying to get all of his papers typed up and ready to go, so he's been up late every night.

Meanwhile, outside the church....YES! There was a donkey dressed up as Rodulph and Keturah and I helped!  Miss Julie brought her 10 month old donkey, Ruby, as well as two mini horses, 1 1/2 yr old Spanky and 3 1/2 year old Daisy Mae, to play the part of Santa's reindeer.  Keturah and I helped them get ready, lead them into church and clean up afterwards.

Abishai got a turn at petting the horses, and he loved it!  He stopped down and looked up at their eyes and said, "aw, horsey!"  And yes, Jared had to hold one for a few minutes as we prepared to go INSIDE the church!

Spanky (the horse) led by a friend of one of Julie's boys who attend Crave.

Sanata was a good sport and took in Daisy all by himself.

Stay on the carpet!  They really make Crave a fun place to be every week, especially when it's the holiday party!

Keturah was the treat girl for the horses.  She got right in there and helped lead the horses into the church building.

It took a lot of effort from Julie, with a bit of help from us, to keep these costumes on these spunky creatures.  Julie's fingers were frozen by the end and she was exhausted.  Plus the donkey didn't want to load up on the trouble.  Thankfully, Julie's boys helped her for that part.

Aww, I know Julie loves doing this!

Benaiah and company playing reindeer games.

And this is why I appreciate our youth leaders but I can't be one right now.  It was loud and crazy and messy.  I get all of that at home all day every day.  No thanks.  But I'm glad they all enjoy themselves!  Justin was in the other area of the church, so he didn't get to see the animals.

Like I said, crazy!

Yup, a woman's stocking filled with balloons to make reindeer antlers?  And Frosty the snowman and crazy sweaters and a few people in shorts.

And with memories of that craziness, it's time to end today's blog.  Next up, a field trip to a newspaper for a behind the scenes look at how they are made!  Yeah!