December 19, 2014

Ringing the Bell!

(click here for today's pictures)

• I wasn't really sure what day it was today but soon realized that it was Friday.  Graham and Campbell left their bedroom and went to play in the toy room quietly like good little children and then someone started yelling and Reagan yelled back at them to be quiet. As Reagan continued screaming for them to hush, all we could hear Campbell shout back was "never, never."  Oh, that child.
• Pancakes and waffles for breakfast today and I almost had a riot when I said that I wouldn't make chocolate milk for breakfast.  The time was slowly ticking away and we needed to get school started.  Reagan was the most upset and she was ticked with me pretty much all day about it.  I had said that we would have chocolate milk for lunch but then corrected myself that we wouldn't be home for lunch-she didn't hear that.  So when I drove up to Taco Bell to pick up lunch, she said "see if they have chocolate milk.  YOU SAID we would have chocolate milk for lunch."  Oh, that child too!
• We worked and worked at school and pretty much finished the day.  The kids have about one and a half days worth of school left to finish on Monday or hopefully finish some this weekend. For some reason, Anderson has no school left to do for me but Graham and Reagan have the day and a half left.  I have no idea what I have done to cause that to happen-probably gave his work to someone else!  
• It seemed like we weren't doing school very long before it was time to get ready to leave.  Our first stop was to drop off Keaton and Whitman at Grannymom's house.  (My Keaton would have enjoyed going today but she enjoyed playing at Grannymom's more-though she has kept asking me today when she is going to ring the bell.)
• We joined our buddies in taking a shift ringing the Salvation Army bell in front of Hobby Lobby. I wasn't really looking forward to it at all and had decided that maybe next year I would just donate ourselves out of this job.  But despite the rain (thankfully we were covered) and despite the cold (thankfully the wind was blocked), we had a blast.  The kids rang the bells and sang and sang some more.  I do believe that adorable singing and bell ringing kids probably helped the kettle total.  I probably should start giving more to the Salvation Army during the Christmas season-I would say about 75% of the people gave money and over 75% of those people gave bills of some sort.  That makes my change look pretty pitiful that we stick in the kettle when we walk by-though with my amazon shopping, I don't even think that I have been near one bell ringer this Christmas.  
• I don't think that the kids could have rang for more than an hour since they were getting pretty restless but they so enjoyed it-Amber had even brought candy canes to pass out during her shift and left them for us to pass out.  Towards the end, I told the kids to see if we could get 4 more donations and they were practically jumping up and down when those 4 donations came in.  Next year, we will have to count how many folks we have donate-that would really make the time go for us.
• Robby showed up for the last of our bell ringing and then he took us to Krispy Kreme to celebrate our hard work. The kids ate their doughnuts and Campbell made sure that we saved her one to sing Happy Birthday to her tomorrow (a day early.)  We saved some for Grannymom and Grandpa and Keaton and Whitman but Whitman grunted and pointed until he had eating 1 and a half doughnuts.  That little guy-he is a bit sickly today but doesn't feel bad at all and spent the day going strong!
• Once at home, the kids had some downtime this afternoon and then it was time for another session of Christmas music and supper.  The kids picked a Christmas song and we listened while we ate our supper.  I don't think that Let it Go is a Christmas song but it has been played so much that Whitman now sings "Go" along with the music.
• After cleaning for a minute or two, we had a scavenger hunt with our nativity scene people. The kids had to look up a verse in the Bible-like Isaiah 45:8 and then read the verse.  That verse said something about "let the clouds shower it (righteousness) down..."  So they were to determine that the nativity scene character was in hiding in the shower.  My big kids got the concept but it was still pretty hard for them to do.  But that was probably due to the fact that everyone-all 6 of them-were crazy tonight.  They couldn't sit still at all-like we had only eaten sugar or red dye for supper!  It was a pretty wild night but everyone survived and no one is sleeping in the shed so that is a good thing!