Pre-Christmas Everything

We had quite a busy week before Christmas...so busy that I barely thought to blog, let alone actually sitting down to do it.  And now, as predicted, Christmas has come and gone in the blink of an eye.  But let's get to all the stuff before Christmas first.

Carter got to make a gingerbread house at school on Wednesday.  He was very happy to show it off at home.  The roof became a little detached en route, but he still did a nice job.

The following day was Carter's big March of the Toy Soldiers, which Jacob also did in first grade.  He had been very excited about it, but very nervous!  They worked hard all month and he wanted to do well.  

He did awesome!  He actually led his whole class, and his form was amazing.  They did two different marches and he had them down pat.  They also had to be serious and not flinch for anything, which he did so well at, too!

I got a short video of the first one...


His class looked great in their hats!

We were so proud of our little marcher!

Each kid designed the crest on their hat, and I was very impressed by Carter's!  It has an "R", two basketballs, and what's supposed to be a trophy.

When I left off on my last post, Jacob had two basketball games on Thursday evening.  The games were actually on the U of R campus, which I think marked the first time I had to be on campus for something unrelated to work.  My work parking pass came in handy to get us a decent parking spot, which was helpful considering it was frigidly cold.  His team went 1-1, and probably should have won the second game.  Unfortunately, Jacob had a really rough night.  He couldn't get any shots to drop.  His team had similar problems, particularly at the foul line.  The loss was tough, but Jacob's rough night really ended the day on a sour note.

Jacob at the foul line

That made for a couple rough days around the house, with Jacob left to think about his performance for two days, until he played again on Saturday.  Craig left on Friday to go on his first road trip of the season, ironically to Halifax where the Knighthawks moved.  I had a fun day at work, thankfully, which kept me in a better mood.  We had catered Olive Garden for lunch, along with cookies people brought in for dessert.

Hello, giant box of breadsticks!

Later that afternoon was our office-wide gingerbread display.  We'd worked on it during the week and each department displayed their final products.  They were all so amazing, but I was partial to our creation, with a Christmas Vacation theme!

Jacob's Lego collection provided the RV and the characters.  Note the cutout of cousin Eddie near the RV.  The hand-placed lights on the side of the house were especially cool. 

If you look closely, Clark is on the right with licorice cords to plug in, and then his wife and kids are next to him.  It was all pretty outstanding.

I was stuffed from lunch, but couldn't resist the awesome hot chocolate bar!  It was a filling but fun way to finish off the work week!  

Saturday Jacob had another game at U of R, and rebounded fabulously with eight points!  I was so proud of him, and his team got a big win.  He had another game on Sunday morning that caused us to miss church (as we only had one service in preparation for Christmas Eve), this time at his usual gym.  His team had a big last-minute win, and he got two points and made a couple great plays that helped them make the comeback.  They finished second in their group in the tournament, which actually was fine with me because we probably would have had a game on Monday, which would have completely blown up our already busy day.

Most of the weekend was spent getting all of the last details done.  I was finally able to pick up our Christmas cards on Thursday, so those went out Saturday.  I tried to squeeze in shopping wherever I could, and started my wrapping.  Craig came home mid-afternoon Sunday and I pretty much ran out that night to finish shopping.  It was a challenge but aside from a couple things that needed to happen Monday, I finally got the last things figured out.  I even managed to get some cookies baked.

On Monday morning I had to go to work for a half day.  The tree looked extra pretty in the bright morning light before I left.

I got my work done almost in time, survived terrible traffic, and did my last two errands.  Then I met the boys at home so Craig could run into work, and I dragged the kids off to Jacob's last therapy appointment.  We're wrapping up his individual therapy and will hopefully be transitioning into full family therapy soon.  Both kids seem to be equal contributors to the problem now, so I think that's the route we need to go.  I knew when I made the appointment (because it was about the only time we could do it) that I would have about a million other things to do that day, but I did it anyway--and it was pretty much as stressful as I imagined!  But we got through it, and then it was home for a quick dinner so we could head out to Christmas Eve Eve church, since we'd be on the road the next day.  As is standard for us, we could not get out the door on time, and of course church was jammed.  Not only did we have to park pretty far away, but we ended up in the overflow in the gym, which was still pretty but not quite the same effect as the main church.  I started out the night very grumpy and frustrated, but thankfully church chilled me out a bit.  But I still had a ton to do--including last minute wrapping, cinnamon roll prep, and so much more.

Before I get into the good stuff in my next post, I'll leave you with our Christmas card from this year...Merry Christmas from all of us!