Coming and goings of December

As it was for most people, December was extremely busy here.  I was in charge of the Christmas party for our church congregation.  That ended up consuming the first half of the month.  The second half was spent playing catch up.  

In the hustle and bustle, I still managed to take a second or two to jot down a few notes about our comings and goings. 

E's fortune cookie said, "you'll make a name for yourself".  His response was, "I already have a name.  I need another fortune cookie."

While eating something crunchy E started singing out in "I'm crunchy and I know it".

We were approached by a woman and her daughter in the parking lot asking for money to get home.  Br gave the ladies enough money for bus fare.  As we turned away and started walking away, yet were still within earshot of the ladies, E exclaimed, "You should have given them the $10!"

I don't remember the story, but somehow the question was asked: "Why don't we get a goat?"

I asked E to tell me the Christmas story.  It turns out that the wise men brought Gold, Silver, and Frankenstein to the Christ child. King James really needs to recheck his translation.

Miss A and my usual Tuesday lunch activity going to Ikea for free lunch, free babysitting, and toddler time with the balloon lady. One afternoon Miss A was particularly rambunctious and more than once I looked over to find her swimming/diving in the huge bins of stuffed kitties.  It's pretty hard to subtly remove your child from that situation and pretend it didn't happen.  It's especially awful when you have to do it more than once.

I took Miss A to buy some new shoes.  She put one pair on, thrust out one of her little hips, popped her toe and then announced that those shoes wouldn't work because she "couldn't pose" in them. I was really sad because they were so cute.  The problem was they were just too big because they were wide.  I told her "they aren't going to work because your feet aren't wide".  Miss A quickly responded, "ya, my feet are brown".

We celebrate Christmas a day early which is possible when your kids don't have a calendar.

We decided to take a little road trip to Albuquerque for Christmas. The road trip itself was quite an adventure.  I made note of a few of the exciting elements on Facebook
" So it turns out that you get a really exciting reaction when you add a flavor packet to seltzer water. I wish I hadn't discovered that as we were zooming down the highway. It also turns out that rolling down the window and sticking the overflowing bottle outside when you are going 80 mph does not keep you from getting soaked. I'm wet and the hubby is mad most of his drink is gone and it is no longer carbonated."

" Christmas road trip misadventure number 2... insisting the boy pee in a bottle since he insisted he didn't need to go at our last pit stop. Wish he understood that I was handing him the bottle so he could take care of things not holding the bottle a couple inches away so he could aim into the small necked bottle. I really should have packed myself more clothes."

The fun continued as the snow began to fall in North Texas.  It got so bad that we stopped in Wichita Falls for the night.  The kids enjoyed having a white Christmas.  At the hotel, Miss A wanted to take a bath.  It was kind of an odd time of day so we told her "It's not late enough".  She waited for a second and asked if she could go outside and play in the snow.  We told her it was too late.  She immediately replied, "See, I told you it was late enough for me to take a bath".

 (if you look closely at the picture you will notice that neither of Miss A's shoes are appropriate for the winter weather)

We distracted her long enough to have a little Christmas dinner.  With the combination of a snowstorm and it being Christmas, there was only one option in town.  We had a very memorable evening at Denny's.  It was 2 hours, and lot's of Miss A's asking the manager "um, mam.  Where are my pancakes?  I'm really hungry" before we finally had our Christmas dinner.  3ish hours after leaving the hotel and we were finally in bed ready for a good night's sleep so we could finish our journey to ABQ.  

Overall it was worth it so our kids could spend some quality time with their cousins.