The week when Christmas came…

The season is here!  And if you want to know the truth, last week felt like a gift, right?  Thanksgiving was so early, anything I did last week was counted as getting ahead start on the Christmas expectations.  James and I started a tiled kitchen back splash and it’s about time, because the counter tops have been installed for over a year.    
Adelaide and I played Rock Around the Clock in Robyn’s duet piano recital.  It was really fun and now she’s working on the simplified Christmas hymns.  

Ben likes piano, he started lessons a few weeks ago from Catelyn, a 17 year old sweet heart, that likes White Collar (start at the beginning and pace yourself, right Vanessa?) as much as me and James.

We started eating like the French!!! Well, not the food or ridged rules, but from the book, French Kids Eat Everything I learned that at lunch, their biggest meal of the day, kids are required to "sit and dine" for 1/2 hour!  At dinner last week we set the timer for 30 minutes of rest and relaxation.  You know, eat slow, savor, converse, use manners…  No conclusions yet on if this half hour will stay but the kids really liked it.  However on Monday James and I were so relaxed after dinner we couldn’t clean it up.  A trick I took from Becky Beck was to have everyone share their high and low.  Kids love to share and it’s an official rule that you don’t have to have a low… 

Adelaide’s high every day was that she got to be a LUNCH WORKER!   She wore a  paper service man hat and wiped tables; fifth grade doesn’t get any better.

Stuart went to a birthday party on Saturday and gave, for the third time in two months, a trip to lunch at McDonalds.  We’ll be taking Josh, Noah and Cole for happy meals pretty soon.

Isaac watched me pack away all the bottles in the house, we do still have sippy cups though.  

Paige earned every X on a new job chart we tested out this week and was paid half her age in dollars on Sunday, before tithing settlement, where she tithed .30.
  
The Lutherans sold us our beautiful tree again this year which we had to screw two times to the stand because the first screw-in is, as always, crooked.  I can’t concentrate for more than ONE minute and holding a tree straight for James to screw takes a bit more than a minute (Adelaide helped the second time around).   A real tree does that to me…Ohhhh the excitement, towels down on burnt sugar to protect  it and LOTS of help offered by kids.   
I ate my weight, this time in artichoke dip (thank you Krissy!) and eggnog, at the 4th annual tree sniffing gathering.  Would you like to make a tree from an old Everyday Food Magazine?  Thank you Family Fun and all that came to take a whiff.
 
This week I’ll commit to a Christmas Card and make a list of stores to go visit.