Craig's birthday was on Friday. As I mentioned previously, I was actually lucky enough to be off that day, mostly just because I could. Originally it was to go to the funeral home for my great aunt, but then the weather took a turn for the worse and I decided driving to Buffalo might not be a great idea, so I stuck closer to home and got a few things done instead. One of those things was baking up Craig's birthday cake. He wanted a cookie cake, which I used to be good at making, but finding a gluten-free recipe that wasn't totally from scratch proved to be a challenge. But I finally found one, and this was the result...
We went out for a tasty birthday dinner at Outback and came home to enjoy some cookie cake, which was pretty darn tasty itself!
 |
| Selfie with the birthday boy! |
On Saturday, Carter attended a birthday party for twins in his class at school, for the second year in a row. Like last year it was a bowling party. I didn't take any pictures this time, but suffice it to say that he had a good time, mostly just running around like a maniac with a couple boys from last year's class who he's still buddies with. He bowled, ate pizza, drank root beer, and finished off the party with a giant cupcake. He had a great time, and I kept my sanity chatting with his buddy's dad while we tried to keep them from destroying the place with their sugar high!
On Sunday morning, Carter had his Sunday School Christmas program.
I don't think remembering words and motions to songs is Carter's particular forte--and to be fair, they only practice them every Sunday at Sunday school, and I didn't make him go to the practice the previous morning--but he did well considering. It was a very sweet program, as always.
Craig and Jacob had to leave in the middle of it, because Jacob had his first day of games with his new basketball team. This is a town elite team in a Rochester-area league. He practices twice a week, which he enjoys but which definitely keeps us busy in the evenings. The only downfall to the league is that the game schedule is last-minute. We're used to sports where we get the schedule a solid couple weeks in advance and can plan it out for a couple months, but with this one we only know games around the Thursday before, if not later. In addition, there's two per weekend so it's a pretty solid chunk of time. With one parent who travels, that's not ideal! It's going to get extremely difficult once Carter's basketball starts in January. Let's hope for no overlap, especially when Craig is out of town!
He did well in his first game, with six points, and added two more in the second game. He also plays solid defense, though it's tough when he gets matched up against the opponents' bigger players at times. His team went 1-1. This league doesn't do three-pointers, which steals a bit of his thunder, but all of his points were in the paint for the first time ever, so that was good to see him broadening his horizons a bit!
We had his second round of games first thing this morning (which meant Saturday night church for the first time ever last night!). Once again his team went 1-1. He chipped in 10 points in the first game, which could have been 12 if they counted threes (which would have been an all-time high for him). He was a huge contributor in the win. The second team played them tough and their big men were just a bit much to overcome. Jacob had four points, including two clutch free throws in the fourth quarter. The loss was a bummer, particularly because the ref wasn't awesome and things got a bit heated--including one parent who got tossed out of the gym. That's not really how you want things to go, regardless of the outcome.
We have some tournaments coming up over the holidays, which will be fun but no doubt a scheduling challenge, especially because last minute holiday prep is hard enough and my brother and his kids are coming in on the 26th and I'm hoping basketball doesn't complicate being able to spend time with them.
After spending yesterday running around like a crazy person trying to wrap up more shopping, today was able to be a lazy Sunday afternoon. I even got to cuddle this guy for a while...
Craig has his work holiday party tonight--and yes, in a perfect world we'd have had a babysitter and I'd have gone, too--but good for him to get a fun night out before things get busy again. They're providing a limo ride to and from the party, and since the boys hadn't been in a limo before, they had to check it out when Craig got picked up. They look like naturals, don't they?
So now it's just an evening of trying to keep the boys away from each other and off screens if possible, and getting ready for the last week of school and work before Christmas (well, mostly--I have a half day next Monday to hopefully set me up for only a half day later in the week). Just a few gifts left to get, and probably evenings full of wrapping this week. Baking next weekend, and then the final push will be on! Not sure how we got here already...but here we go!
No comments:
Post a Comment