December 20, 2016

(click here for today's pictures)

• When my alarm went off this morning, I didn't stick around in the bed too long-the heat was blaring right on me. I ended up walking down the hall and went upstairs to check on the girls. I had been pretty convinced last night that my little girls were going to wake up with the stomach bug in the middle of the night (they didn't - thank the Lord) but I did head up there to see if they were sleeping still.
• The big boys and Campbell were already playing their ipads in the living room but I heard someone awake upstairs. It was Whitman who was crawling around in his room like a dog. He asked me to make a train track so we made a pretty big track. I then headed back downstairs and turned off the heat before climbing back into bed for a few minutes-it was a good thing that I did because soon Keaton, Campbell and Whitman were all in the bed with us.
• Robby cut the boys hair this morning before he headed off to work. After their showers, we started on a tiny bit of school work. Then it was chore time. When the kids had finished chores, I told them that it was time to clean out their desks.
• They headed off to work on that while I went to Graham's desk to help him with his. He was quickly finished since he doesn't have too much in his drawers. Then I walked to the school room and every piece of paper and every pencil was pulled out of all 4 desks and were on the floor. It was chaos-I did ask them to do this but my, oh my. It took a good 45 minutes but their desks will be so nice for the next week or two. Of course, our trash can was already overflowing outside so probably generating a complete trash bag full of new trash a few days before Christmas was probably not the best idea.
• We had our lunch and I read a few Christmas books while the kids ate. Then we had a short little afternoon-the kids managed to squeeze in playing outside, wrapping presents, making a few cards and even watching a movie or two. Then it was off to deliver Ms. Stacy's Christmas present that I forgot to take to school the other day.
• Then we headed to the Crafts house for a gingerbread house decorating extravaganza. They had everything all set up and the kids went to work. They had a blast. My Reagan was the most intense on hers and created a masterpiece. Anderson worked on his but when it fell down, he just started adding candy. He told me that he wanted his to look like a candy monster threw up on it and it did. Graham worked really, really hard on his and it looked great. Campbell was down a bit from me but she and Keaton loved decorating their houses. Whitman would just stand in front of his adding candy and when I had to step away to help the others, he would just stand in front of his saying that it was "so pretty." 
• When the kids finished with their houses, they all headed outside to play and could have stayed out there a long, long time despite the cold weather. I finally broke up the party when I loaded up our houses and my people to head home for a few minutes.
• As soon as we made it home, we turned right back around and went out to see Christmas lights. Our first stop was the capitol building. The kids climbed the steps and then we walked inside to see the tree. Then it was onto the crazy house in North Little Rock.
• After seeing that house, Reagan had to use the restroom so Robby told the kids that we would drive to the prettiest house on the next street and stop there for the bathroom. We turned, saw a house with lights, pulled over and stopped the car. Robby told Reagan and Anderson (who also said that he needed to go) to go on to the door. Anderson was quick to say that he could wait and Reagan was not going to get out of the car for any reason. It was Patrick's house so everyone did climb out of the car for the bathroom. After the kids had all pottied, we jumped back in the car to drive by a few more NLR houses.
• Then it was back across the river to McDonalds to eat a quick bite of supper. The kids enjoyed climbing on the new play stuff and as soon as we had finished eating it was back in the car to see a few more lights. We drove around Chenal a bit and then headed home. 
• We pulled in right at 10-Whitman was asleep and everyone else headed to the showers. They were soon all sound asleep within minutes-it was a big day.