A Covid Christmas

 It's been longer than usual since my last post.  Covid hit here and everything was a little different than expected.  Kelly brought the omicron variant home from a business trip to Miami the week prior to Christmas.  He started to feel sick the very next day and started to quarantine, but it was too late for me.  I tested positive a few days later.  The kids never tested positive, but every one other than Benjamin (I assume because he self isolates in his room so much) got sick.  I had sore throat, congestion, and chest tightness for days and hoped that would be all, but one morning I woke up with a headache so severe I couldn't focus my vision.  That led to nausea and vomiting and pretty soon I was in bed, unable to function.  I spent 24 hours in bed vomiting and sleeping and then woke up the next day feeling remarkably better. Kelly and I still haven't really been able to get over the congestion - cough, stuffy head, mild sore throat, but otherwise we're good and the kids have all recovered except Peter who continues to cough.  I guess although the vaccine didn't protect us entirely, it helped us recover quickly.

Had the sickness been the only issue, though, it would have been fine.  The bigger issue was the timing.  We had three dinner parties planned plus guests for Christmas and multiple play dates for the kids.  Everything had to be canceled.  It was so incredibly sad.  Luckily my mom chose to risk it and still come, but we sure missed getting together with everyone else.

Leading up to Christmas and before covid we continued to do various fun little things.

I got the older three kids tickets to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for their annual Christmas concert.  Benjamin refused to come last minute so it was one wasted ticket, but the rest of us loved it.  So wonderful - Nutcracker, Handel's Messiah, and tons of common Christmas songs all together.  So well done!  

Then Kelly tested positive, so we canceled all other plans and tried to make the best at home.

Fun little shenanigans - toilet paper stacks with karate kicks, colored water and paper towels, sliding on frozen trampolines, etc. The trampoline was hilarious.  Ice caked on the bottom of our shoes and standing up was literally impossible.  We were slipping and sliding so much we couldn't make it to the exit.  It was a riot!  

Then we decorated gingerbread houses.  We'd planned to have friends over to join us but Kelly had already tested positive by this point so we couldn't.  We had way too many supplies, but otherwise we had a good time.

Christmas Eve looked different this year.  We had our quarantine table for me and Peter and our "healthy" table for everyone else.  Several at the healthy table weren't all that healthy either but at least they hadn't just spent the day prior vomiting everything they ate.

We all tried to wear masks as much as possible to protect my mom and those who hadn't tested positive yet.  That was so hard.  I hate masks!  Peter was willing to wear one for about 10 minutes one time and otherwise refused.  He learned how to cover his mouth pretty well when he coughed, though.

Doing the nativity play with cranky Benjamin who refused to participate properly and misspoke all his parts on purpose,  not enough guests to fill the roles,  Peter who refused to play the baby Jesus but couldn't really properly do anything else, and me in a mask kind of made the whole thing a bust.  We've had some really fun nativity plays over the years, but this wasn't one of them.  We made it through for the sake of tradition, though and tried to make the best of it.

Luckily by Christmas morning, most of us felt better. Before we opened gifts:

I didn't get any more pictures after that. I love watching my kids open their presents.  Peter was the best this year - every present was old toys from the attic, but he loved them.  It was so fun to see him get so excited about opening the gifts.  The single most popular thing was hoodies.  Between the kids, I gave 9 hoodies.  They were thrilled and have worn them all in rotation ever since.

Since Christmas, we've tried to keep from going crazy  Benjamin is taking driver's ed and takes his test on Friday.  

It snowed, so we've been playing in the little bit that fell.  Otherwise, this is just that lost week where it's so hard to be motivated, especially when you're still getting over an illness.  We'll see what the rest of it brings.  Looking forward to 2022!

Christmas Delights

Before the concerts which I wrote about yesterday, Bella had a smaller audience at church.  The young women of the ward invited all the older single ladies to join them for an evening of music, art, and poetry.  Bella played piano (both solo and duet) and said she really enjoyed the evening talking to the women and performing for them.  Several of them told me later how much they enjoyed her playing.  We have so many talented young women in our ward.  It's so fun to have such a great group of friends for Bella.

I have loved seeing Peter's delight at our Christmas tree and outdoor lights.  I will regularly find him like this:

So far only one ornament has been broken.  What a vast difference from Benjamin and Bella and their average of 1 per day.  When he goes outside after dark, he'll look at the lights and exclaim, 'Oh look!  How pretty!"  So adorable.

While grocery shopping I saw a bag of unshelled nuts and decided to let Peter have some fun with our nutcracker.  He'd seen it come out with the Christmas decorations, but all we had in the house were shelled nuts.  He excitedly popped nuts into its mouth and crushed them to bits for over 30 minutes and asked to do it again the next day.  It was the perfect activity to keep him happy while I cooked dinner.

Amazingly, he also helped me clean up the mess.  He's been quite good about cleaning up his messes.  Tonight I called him up for dinner and he told me, "Ok, I be right there. Have clean up first!" then he put his toys in the box before coming up.  WHAT?!  He's the only kid I've got who's ever done that.  Love it!  Although, one funny story.  The other day, the mess of cars was extreme and I asked him to help me clean them all up.  He took one look at the pile and said, "Bye Felicia" and dashed off.  What an effect having teenage siblings can have!

 

Holiday Concerts

 December is always the month of school band concerts and so we got to attend Benjamin's and Bella's this week.  Benjamin didn't even tell us that he would be performing in small percussion ensembles during the concert, so it was a pleasant surprise to hear songs we had no idea he would play.  He did a wonderful job.

Bella was asked to do a piano solo again during her concert and also a saxophone duet.  She played the piano piece while the band was still back stage getting ready so she was without friends or band leader on the stage and as she went to place her music on the piano, she discovered it had no stand portion, thus no place to put her music.  She walked off the stage to find someone who knew what could be done but no one was willing to help and so she came back on, laid her music flat on top of the piano and proceeded to play.  She appeared completely calm and collected, but later she admitted to being so upset.  Her playing still sounded pretty good.  Only I could tell she could do so much better because I'd heard it at home.  I was proud of how well she handled herself in a stressful situation. It was clearly hard to see the music and I felt so bad for her through the whole song.  My mama heart was pounding thinking of how hard this must be for her in front of this large audience.  She complained bitterly about it on the way home but she got over it after a while.

Holiday Fun Continues

 This weekend we decorated Christmas cookies again.  Every year I learn a lot about how to make the perfect icing consistency (filler vs outline consistency) and how many batches to make and which colors work best, etc.  Then I forget it all by the time the following year rolls around and I start from scratch.  So frustrating.  Thus, things got off to a bit of a shaky start and we made WAY too much icing, but once we got into the swing of things, it was a lot of fun. We even gave Peter some dough and let him make and decorate some cookies.  At first he was pretty upset that he couldn't just eat the dough.  The whole process seemed far too time-consuming to him.  However, we got him a fish shaped cookie cutter and he seemed to think that was pretty fun and he was finally willing to go along with it. In the end, he managed to swipe a little frosting off some decorated cookies and had a few bites of fish cookie when it was all done.  He declared it, "So yummy!"

A sample of the cookies we made.

Peter's fish is the little pink one.

After the decorating, it was matching Christmas outfit time.  Bella and Christian had a blast putting together matching outfits in Blues Brothers style.

Snake

Peter has a hard time saying words the start with St or Sn or Sp.  Most often he'll leave the s sound off and just say the rest of the word, such as stick becomes tick and stand becomes tand.  He was playing with a toy snake the other day and this was the conversation he had with and Kelly.

Kelly: That's a snake.  Can you say snake?

Peter: nake

Kelly: No Snake. SSSSnake

Peter: nake

Me: He has a hard time putting s sounds on the beginning of words.

Kelly:  He does?  Peter, if you can't say snake, what will you say when you see a snake?!

Peter:  AAAUUUGGGHHHH!!

😄😄

Christmas Festivities Begin

 As fall drew to a close, I let the boys do the annual pumpkin smash up.  They had a blast taking all my decoration pumpkins and busting them up.

Then we put them in the compost and we're ready for Christmas! This weekend we started to really get into the Christmas spirit.  We attended the annual Livonia Christmas Parade to watch Benjamin perform with the marching band.  The idea was to watch from the end of the parade route where the mayor turns on all the Christmas lights around city hall and the police station, etc.  However, the weather was so terrible - rain, hail, wind - that we sat at the beginning of the route so we'd get done faster!  It was a fun parade despite the weather.  Lots of fun and silliness, such as the ghost busters and Santa on the firetruck. Benjamin said he was miserable and cold, but the band sounded great.

Bella came to the store with me and bought matching pajamas for herself and Peter that were adorable and we also put up all our own decorations.  Earliest we've ever done it.  Benjamin didn't join in the work, but he was a good sport and willing to join in on the picture.  We'll see how long the ornaments last with a two year old in the house.  

Bella and Christian also had friends over all weekend.  It was so fun to see them happy and engaged with friends and off the screens nearly all day. Bella's friend Emma is Peter's favorite and he couldn't get enough of her.  He kept talking to her and smiling at her. I even found him sitting on her lap as they all played in Benjamin's room for a little while.  I wish I could have gotten a better picture, but I would have interrupted the game! :)

From the Beach to the Sled Hill

 We spent a wonderful Thanksgiving in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida this year.  Well, it was wonderful or miserable, depending on who you ask.  Most of us loved it.  The weather was slightly chillier than we would have liked, but my eskimo kids didn't mind too much.  It was our first time in Florida and I was amazed by the perfect white sand beaches.  You spend enough time around lakes in Michigan and you forget what a real beach can look like. The people were also super friendly, the houses were so interesting (so many pastel colors and up on stilts), and the condo we rented was just perfect for our needs, complete with tennis court, hot tub, and pool.  Although the pool was even colder than the ocean, so we didn't use it much.

We mostly dug in the sand and played in the water, but one day we rented a paddle board and had a lot of fun falling off it. :)  Paddle board in the ocean is a very different experience from paddle board on a lake.

Even Kelly gave the board a try. He did his fair share of falling in too.

Notice someone missing in all these pictures?  This is what Benjamin did the entire time we were in Florida:

This is why if you ask him how Florida was, he'll say awful.  In all fairness, Bella spent nearly all her time doing the same.

Even Kelly was no exception.

Most of the vacation was me, Christian, and Peter playing.  So we're the ones who loved Florida the most.  Bella says it was fine.  In order to get people off their devices, Kelly and I forced everyone to come to Camp Helen State Park near Laguna Beach Friday afternoon.  Due to the late season, it wasn't everything the websites claim it to be, but it was a really nice thing to be together for the one and only time all vacation.  I really think Benjamin had fun too.

Long jump contest.  Benjamin won, obviously.

Give Bella your camera and you get tons of fun selfies and trick photography.

The hot tub bubbles at the condo were so much like soap that Christian and Peter loved to play with it.

Our Thanksgiving dinner was super simple and just right for me.  So much better than cooking all day long for a 20 minute dinner.  We had actually made plans with another family from Michigan who also vacations in Florida every Thanksgiving, however, they contracted covid just days before our trip and so our dinner was cancelled.  That was really disappointing but maybe we'll do it another year.

We also spent an afternoon at the boardwalk at Destin, Florida.  They had a giant chair that every person who passed took a picture in.  When in Rome... as they say.

And we found yet another giant chair.

We attempted to ride go-carts because Benjamin said on day one that he'd like to do that, but when we got there, he refused to get out of the car.  So, no go carts.  Maybe next time.  I'm really not a beach person, per se. I'd much rather be in the forests or mountains, but Florida beaches are pretty amazing and I loved the time we spent there.  Playing on the beach at sunset and watching the waves crash in is really wonderful.  Reminded me of Mexico and how amazing that trip had been.  I'm so glad we decided to go.

Then we came home to snow.  That was a shock.  We tried to make the best of it.  Peter got right into the spirit of it and grabbed Bella's headband.

It was also the first advent, so we had our traditional advent wreath lighting along with cookies and hot chocolate.  It turned into a marshmallow sniper shot contest.  That's really only one marshmallow Christian threw, but it looks like a ton in the picture.  Siblings can be a lot of fun when they don't drive you crazy.