December 19, 2016

(click here for today's pictures)

• My people were pretty excited this morning but that didn't help the girls wake up any earlier. I had to eventually wake them and Whitman up around 8. We started first on breakfast and then moved on to our chores.
• The kids can work well when they have an exciting day planned for them and this was definitely an exciting day. Before 9, we had all eaten our breakfast and were working on picking up the house. Robby had barely made it out of the driveway, when our homeschool buddies started showing up.
• The Heltz, Kamps, Skinners, Stotts and Powells were all here today and it was a houseful. There were 2 extra kiddos so I think that kid count was 19. The first activity of the day was Bingo. We played 3 games since there were 3 prizes and then we moved on to making cards. 
• The group made around 50 cards and I was pretty excited to put them in envelopes tonight because I know that there are going to be some pretty happy people when they check their mailboxes in the next few days.
• Then the group played some minute to win it games with Jodee. She had a game for everyone-pulling tissue paper out of the box, throwing snowballs on a plate, stacking marshmallows, picking up candy cane and stacking cups. The kids had a blast and could not contain their excitement-that is a polite way to say that it was crazy, crazy loud in this house.
• Next up was lunch and then we finally let the kids go outside and play.  They had been going outside whenever they had a chance but we kept calling them in to do something. They all played for a bit and then it was finally time for the long awaited presents.
• This year we played dirty Santa with the kids and it was wild. At first no one stole presents but eventually that was all that they were doing. Most of the kids did really well when their presents were stolen from them-including Whitman. I think that everyone received something that they were happy with in the end so that was a good thing. Now the Moms had their own gift exchange and their gifts weren't a dollar but worth 20 dollars. I ended up with a neat Pioneer Woman mug which I was really pleased about. 
• The kids had some more time to play and then everyone started heading home. By the time Heather had left, she had completely swept my kitchen and is my new favorite. Then the kids helped pick up-they again worked hard because we still had one more thing to do today. 
• I had ice cream cones for the kids to decorate into Christmas trees but we didn't get around to it with the homeschool buddies. So once my crew was finished cleaning, they sat down and got to work on their ice cream cone trees. Everyone was pretty pleased with them and then most of my Dennies had them for a little snack.
• Before too long, Robby was home and we spent the rest of the evening just vegging out. The kids watched some tv, I wrapped some presents and we all did our nightly Christmas ritual of pulling Santa, finishing the What God Wants for Christmas box and even talking about Christmas ornaments. It was a pretty busy day and we are all exhausted!