On the Third Week of Christmas

By the third week of Christmas, everyone was finally on the mend. Aubree wanted to play her violin in Sacrament meeting, so she reached out to her violin group friends, found a pianist, contacted the ward music coordinator, and arranged a time to practice. I was able to video the tail end of their practice. 

That night we had our rescheduled Christlike dinner. This year the decision was pretty clear; we all agreed that Graham's primary teacher, Melissa Dillon, is definitely an excellent example of Christlike love and service. To Graham and all her primary kids, she is endlessly patient and enthusiastic and it's obvious she adores each of them. To the rest of us she is a loyal and consistent friend and can regularly be found seeking ways to fill needs.

Melissa brought three of her children to dinner with her. The oldest of these kids, Malcolm, became an instant favorite with my boys. Malcolm, despite being 18 and having grown up with three sisters, spent the whole visit wrestling and playing with the boys. They pulled on him, tackled him, sat on his feet, and wanted his attention constantly, but he showed patience and good humor the entire time. He must have learned that from his mother. (As a side note - I did regularly check in and let him know that anytime he wanted them to stop, all he needed to do was say the word. "No," he answered, "I'm loving this.")

I'm not sure if this falls under the Christlike love and service heading, but Melissa is also a phenomenal baker. She brought these enormous and delicious Mississippi Mud Pie cookies to share.

For Family Home Evening on Monday, we invited a couple families over to do our Nativity Play. The two families we invited also had five children each (and Aubree was the oldest kid), so it a pretty wild and enthusiastic endeavor. We had some good looking shepherds and wise men, lovely angels, a few sheep, Mary and Joseph, and even an elephant!

Our script keeps the play pretty short and sweet, and the kids did a great job.

Afterwards, we shared treats (the kids were wild about all the tasty options), the kids played, and the adults chatted. So fun.

My friend Ashley and I swapped babysitting days so we would each have a chance to do our last minute Christmas shopping. I spent my three hours searching in vain for a gray suit for Bryce. I believe Ashley had more success. At least the kids loved the extra time to play together.

Another friend, Brittany, spearheaded a Christmas service project. It came to her attention that some missionaries, for a variety of reasons, don't get any gifts at Christmas. She set out to remedy this situation. She contacted mission president's wives in three area missions, got a list of missionaries in need, and spread the word. Within a short amount of time, we had people signed up to provide packages for over 40 missionaries. I offered to help with organizing and coordinating the process. I also got to be a drop off location for the packages heading to the Everett mission. It was such a wonderful and inspiring opportunity!

Tuesday night was our much anticipated Minivan Express. Throughout our drive we kept returning to the point that it was so nice that no one was sick or puking during this year's outing. It seems like that's our standard protocol. We stopped at a nearby house with elaborate Christmas lights and music and let Nellie get unbuckled and turn around. She was in awe. We enjoyed watching Nellie enjoy the display almost as much as we enjoyed the show itself.

On Wednesday we finally got around to making our graham cracker houses. Mark was working from home, so we were able to make and decorate the houses in the afternoon. That worked a lot better than trying to do it in the evening.

Aubree thought we didn't have enough candy this year. I laughed.

Nellie and I worked together, but the other kids were totally independent.

Bryce and Thane kept adding more and more candy until I finally told them, "Just so you know, you will NOT be eating all the candy you've added to your house!" At that point, they decided their houses were good enough.

That night I took Thane out for his half birthday dinner (just a month overdue). He chose to go to Red Robin and was really excited about the bottomless rootbeer and mandarin oranges.

Turns out he must have been a bit too excited. About 30 seconds after we climbed in the van to head home he said, "I feel a little pukey." 

"Uh oh," I responded, "Do you need to get out? Do NOT puke in my car!"

Too late. There was vomit everywhere.

At this point, I just started laughing. Once he was done heaving, Thane apologized, "I'm so sorry mom! I really didn't mean to." 

"Of course you didn't," I reassured him, "though it would be a pretty cool talent if you could puke on command."

When we got home, I put Thane fully clothed in the shower to rinse and wash off. Then I tackled the mess in the car (though I admit I did wonder if I couldn't just throw the van away). Thane was furious I wouldn't let him help clean the car out. Once I got most of it wiped up, Bryce helped vacuum everything. I think that's bonus helping points.

Thankfully, Thane wasn't really sick. He just ate too much too fast. He didn't feel sick before or after his puking. He still insists Red Robin is delicious. I, on the other hand, might need a good long time before I find that particular restaurant tempting again.

Another afternoon Mark stayed home while Nellie napped and I took the four big kids to a semi-local gymnastics gym for open play time. They had a ton of fun running and sliding and jumping and rolling for two hours. It had been a cold and rainy week, so we were all grateful they had a chance to get out their pre-Christmas wiggles.

Christmas Eve fell on Sunday this year. Nellie wore the Christmas dress my mom made for Aubree 10 years ago. It's always fun to compare the sisters.

Aubree had another chance to perform on her violin. Sunday morning she joined with her friends to play "Angels We Have Heard on High" in a different, morning ward. She loves all the chances to perform that come in December.
We only had Sacrament meeting, but again, the Bishopric organized doughnuts and juice for a short linger-longer afterwards. You certainly didn't hear my kids complaining!

That evening we invited over friends for our traditional lasagna dinner. Instead of our regular nativity scavenger hunt we decided to do our salt dough nativities (that had been bumped early in the month due to illness).

Considering the Skinner's have pretty young kids, I think that ended up being a good choice. We loved spending the evening with them! We also learned that although we've been doing salt dough nativities for over a decade, our skills are not improving!