Well, the month got away from me between Christmas, family visiting, grading finals, and all the end of year festivities. So here is how December went:
Fun Things
- Katsu and the boys took cookies to a widow while I had to go grocery shopping (cause you know, by Monday, the kids basically are dying from a lack of food!). They had a good time.
- Andrew worked on the tool belt loop in cub scouts this month. He always loves cub scouts and has a great time.
- Had a parent teacher conference with Seth's teacher. She is back from maternity leave - is going to try to advance him in math, but we'll see how that goes. She wants to video tape him explaining things in math because she thinks he does it so well. I still am not loving her, though. She sent home a long homework assignment over Christmas break that was too hard (requiring multiplication and division) and of course, Seth freaks out but won't use multiplication (which he knows) because "we aren't supposed to. I also think a lot of the grading coming home is unreasonable and Seth is not being challenged. Oh, well.
- Kids keep going on tennis and Logan especially loves it. Noah has found a couple friends to play with while they have lessons and has been having fun.
- Noah & Logan had a birthday party and made some art work - they seemed to have fun, but I think it was a few too many people for Noah.
- Andrew was supposed to march in the Winterville parade, but of course, it was the one day that it was cold, so he didn't. Instead the boys went to Buffalo Wild wings for a fun lunch (courtesy of the free gift card Andrew won at the 5k). Instead, we went to see the Greenville Christmas parade at night with lights. We brought hot cocoa and popcorn and the kids had a blast. But then, Logan and Seth both had crazy.spewing vomiting spells in the night - we think food poisoning, but who knows. We all stay home from church (except Katsu) to be safe and catch up on Christmas movies.
- Book Club at my house - it was fun! We read a book about WWII - I didn't love at first, but ended up enjoying it in the end).
- The morning of my final, Logan was laying lethargically on the floor, and we realized he was running a fever and sick. Katsu stayed home with him. It was movie and pajama day for Noah at preschool, so he went anyways. Logan slept all morning and I was able to grade my finals super fast while they rested and watched Christmas movies and get grades up by that evening.
- Logan was still sick and missed his preschool program. We were able to make it to Andrew's orchestra performance. He was pretty nervous and said he slipped and missed a lot of notes, but I think he did a good job. So glad he is enjoying the viola.
- Friday we picked up a pizza and spent about 5 minutes at Chick fila seeing the live nativity. Andrew was being a pill and sat in the car, but the rest went. Noah was kind of scared of the animals if they were too close.
- Saturday, my parents came into town. We mostly spent the week low key, though we had tons of parties in the evenings.
- Sunday, we went to Katsu's work party. It has tons of good food. Logan and Noah were tired and stayed home, but the older boys came. I erroneously thought we could let them be and go and socialize together until the boys knocked over a lamp (!). Then, Seth went outside and got soaking wet, so it was time to go home.
- Andrew and Seth still had school through Wed, but the little boys were off preschool.
- Monday night we had a Christmas family home evening at our neighbors and the boys acted out the nativity. It was great and we didn't have to do it at home later in the week as they tend to get wild and it all goes off track.
- Tuesday, Logan had a dr. appt - which went well. He is about 75% for weight and is pretty tall (75% - 90%), so he is growing well. Then, we left the boys with my parents and went to the beach for a day. It is the first time in almost 10 years that we have had a night alone without kids!
- We drove to Manteo. The drive seemed fast without any kids. The Inn we stayed out was on the waterfront and very cute. We walked around and saw the lighthouse and all the decorated boats. We had the afternoon cookie snack, did some Christmas shopping, had the evening cheese and crackers (skipped the wine) and then drove around trying to find anywhere open to eat. Out of luck, we ended up at an Italian restaurant and slowly the other three sets of people staying at the inn all ended up there, too. We ended up falling asleep at 8! How boring are we! We had gone so we could see the lights at the Elizabethan gardens, but of course, it was closed because it was too damp! Isn't it always damp at the beach ... The next morning, we drove down to the beach and went walking down it collecting shells for awhile. We drove over to the Jockey Ridge state park and walked up the dunes. Then, we drove up the outlet store and decided to drop by since it was deserted. Then, we drove home. The kids survived and it was fun.
- We got home in time to finish up our cookies to go to the caroling and cookie party at our friend the McCraes. We delivered several plates of cookies and then came back to their house and ate lots of food. It was lots of fun.
- My dad got sick the next day, so he took it easy. I had a dentist appt and then we went to dinner at our friend's house that we were carpooling with. The kids had a blast.
- The next day, we went to our neighbor's house from church for an open house. Almost everyone else there was family, but there was tons of food. It was great that we didn't have to really cook for a week! We also had a friend over for Andrew in the morning and had nerf gun fights.
- Saturday, we went to Brother's Keeper in the afternoon and served the homeless. Then, we had some Christmas Eve fun. We watched Home Alone 2 before dinner, then we had some appetizers for dinner and did our Advent and caroling and opened our book/chocolate presents. Then everyone went to bed. It was a great evening. Perfect.
- Christmas morning was kind of crazy, but to be expected. Lots of present opening ...
Katsu - big present was the PS4 and associated games
Amanda - big present was some painting and cookbooks.
Andrew - big present was Nerf guns and a circuit set.
Seth - big present was video games and a coding game.
Logan - big present was a dragon, nerf guns, and a telescope.
Noah - big present was a laser gun with lights and some super hero pajamas.
Also, we got a new Japanese game called Tookaido and Booche (a kid version that is pretty fun).
We went to church for an hour and then spent the afternoon watching Christmas movies, playing with games and toys, and having entirely too many screens. Actually, a theme of two weeks - we bought a whole bunch of movies from Clo and Dick's Christmas money and have been watching one a week and then going crazy this week and the next week. Plus the screen time - they got games for the DS which they love.
- Monday was the last day with grandparents. We went to mini golf at the new place with lots of pirate and Christmas presents. It was so fun! Even Noah wanted to try but he couldn't really do it. Then, we went off to Bojangles for some lunch. And then, we had to say goodbye to grandparents.
- We wanted to do more experiences, so we got less presents and then, went and did something fun the rest of the week.
- Tuesday, Katsu and the older 3 went ice skating while I worked and Noah napped. Andrew kept trying and had a bit of hard time getting it, but Logan and Seth really enjoyed it once they got the hang of it. They are already asking to go back.
- Wednesday we took a little road trip to Wilmington for the day. We are hoping the boys are more game for road tripping now that they have the DS to play with. We went to the history/science museum (a lot more history than science), Cape Fear and the boys had a lot of fun, for the most part. The museum had a lot of interactive parts, so that was nice. Then, we went to a restaurant that was highly recommended - Amy's Flaming Burrito. The kids were apprehensive, especially Andrew, because he didn't want to eat there and Seth was whining since we got out of the car that he wanted to go home. But in the end, it was awesome - great portions, cheap prices and fun. I got the Flaming Burrito - which was so hot that my lips went numb and then I couldn't taste for awhile. It was quite good then. We stopped at a nature park next to the elementary school. It had a carnivorous plant garden. Wilmington area is the only place in the world where venus fly traps are native. It was pretty cool to see them - there were hundreds everywhere. We drove to the North Carolina battleship and took some pictures outside. We didn't feel like paying to go in, especially when it is pretty similar to the battleship we saw in Virginia. There were signs for alligators and the kids didn't want to leave until we saw one, but we convinced them to come back. We drove to a National Park battelfield (Moore's Creek) nearby that was for the revolutionary war. The kids had fun watching the movie and looking at the display (well, Noah loved the guns, Logan was interested, Andrew was doing the junior ranger program, and Seth wanted to leave the second we got there). We enjoyed walking around the battlefield and then it was time to drive home. It was a great road trip, though the boys would have been as happy staying home and playing on screens.
- Thursday, I took the older boys to Air U - a trampoline jumping place. The boys have been wanting to go forever. We bought them t-shirts so they can go and jump for $10 for two hours on special days. Logan was crying because he didn't want to go by himself so I paid to jump with them for an hour. It was fun, but a woman who has 4 children can just not jump that much! We spent a lot of time on the obstacle course, some on the trampoline jumping, and also jumping onto the big balloon / cushion.
- Thursday was also Katsu's birthday. Sadly, he was sick so we didn't get to celebrate as much as we would have liked to. We had a little breakfast and sang with candles in his french toast. He rested and played video games most of the time. After Air U, we stopped and picked up an ice cream cake at Dairy Queen and sang again and enjoyed it. He cooked up some steak for dinner. That was about it ... too bad he didn't feel well and we didn't get to really enjoy it.
- Friday marker the start of celebrating New Years. We watched movies during the day, Katsu made curry for dinner. I decorated the house for New Years.
- Saturday, we cleaned the house nicely to get ready for new years. We had udon for dinner. We had some special cookies and made bread rolls that looked like 2017. We had bags that we got ready, although then we pretty much ignored them. We played a new game - Tookaido while I read books to the littler boys. We played Just Dance and then we put on a movie, Naussica which is apparently our tradition, although it always puts me to sleep. We stopped and did a countdown for Logan who was dying to blow the horn. He promptly feel asleep, I feel asleep about half way through. Noah made it almost all the way to midnight and Katsu, Andrew and Seth did. I woke up for the last 3 minutes before the countdown. It was a pretty good evening.
Other Notes
- The most notable thing is how fast Noah is growing up and how much more he is talking. He just talks and talks and it is so interesting to see what he is saying all the time.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment