December 2, 2017

(click here for today's pictures)

• It was an early morning around here and surprisingly, we did wake up at a decent time. Robby made cinnamon rolls while the girls were waking up. The boys were already ready-Anderson excited about his day and Graham worried about remembering plays (seriously.)
• We dropped Camryn, Reagan and Anderson off at church. They were soon on the buses headed to Monticello. Before they arrived, they did stop for lunch at about 10:45. I am not too sure how hungry they were but I am sure that they gobbled up the buffet.
• I am not exactly sure what all was done at the children's home but I do know they played a few games, sang a few songs (Reagan is part of the group that stands at the front and leads), ate cookies, passed out presents and stockings.
• Anderson was very excited to see the boy who we bought a present for (a comforter and pillows) open up his present. Anderson's Wednesday night group had also gone shopping for the stockings and packed them, so I am sure that he enjoyed seeing them be passed out.
• After dropping them off, we headed to Walmart. I knew that Campbell needed a new pair of shoes but when I saw her shoes that were on her feet as we were on the way to her first basketball game, we had to get some. We quickly found a pair that she liked and were off to her game.
• Campbell's little team did not win (even though they don't keep score) but they did really, really well. Now, she also kept points and her tally concluded that they won. Campbell has never played basketball before and I think that most of these other little girls have not either. Campbell is almost a foot taller than everyone else so she was able to touch the ball quite a bit. We are pretty sure that she scored 8 points. My goal for her was to just score one time.
• Then we ran to Target to return something followed by a quick stop at Altitude. The radio station that we listen to was having a drawing for Stars Wars tickets. We heard them talking about this as we drove by so we had to stop since the drawing was in just a few minutes. Unfortunately, we didn't win.
• Back at home, Robby worked in the yard while I made some brownies, added ornaments to our tree and then helped him. When it was time to leave, I had to scramble to get Graham ready since I had lost track of time.
• I drove in one car with Graham while Robby and the others followed. Robby was doing some shopping after the game along with picking up Anderson and Reagan. I asked Graham if he was excited and he told me that he was just worried about trying to remember all of the plays. (He shouldn't have been because basically all of the plays consists of the coaches kids getting the ball and the rest of you stay out of the way.)
• Campbell's coach is encouraging yet tries really hard to teach them. He makes the game fun and Campbell seemed to be having a ball playing today. Anderson (who was missing the game due to the mission trip) and Graham's head coach leans the other way with his fair share of yelling plays and his frustration of when the boys are not running the plays correctly. I do try to keep my mouth closed near the boys but listening to their coach yell and holler at the boys took some of the fun out of the game. 
• Graham did get to touch the ball a few times and had one or two good chances to score but did miss. He was a bit quiet at the end of the game despite their win. However, we still couldn't have been prouder of him - listening to his coaches and playing hard the entire time even when it isn't much fun.
• Robby picked up Reagan and Anderson and heard all about their day. Robby told Anderson about all of the plays his basketball coaches called today and Anderson's response was, "they just take all of the fun out of it." Just 5 more basketball games left.
• Robby picked up Chinese on the way home and unfortunately, it was a bust. Now, I still enjoyed it because we didn't have to cook it. Robby ordered the wrong thing for him and couldn't even eat it. I tried but I am not even sure if the chicken I was eating was real chicken. Our standby, sweet and sour chicken, wasn't even that great tonight. We do, however, have a whole order left that we didn't even touch. Maybe it will be better tomorrow even though Chinese food is never better the next day.
• After we ate, the kids had showers while Robby and I worked in the kitchen. He cleaned the oven, stove and microwave. I worked on getting out my dishes for tomorrow and decorating our gingerbread brownies. 
• When we had finished, we did our nightly December Santa countdown. We also let one kid each night take an ornament from the tree and the other guess as Robby describes the trip that it is from. We had two days to do tonight and the kids so enjoy our little tradition.
• The kids then had a few minutes to veg out before bedtime.Tomorrow will be another busy day so they need their beauty rest!