Dec 1 (Tuesday): This morning was my P90 workout followed by a walk around the neighborhood. While we were out last night picking up gift cards at Café Rio there wasn’t a single customer in the restaurant. Granted it was close to 8pm, but I still felt a bit worried that they weren’t getting enough business to stay open during the current covid restrictions (no indoor dining). So since today was Tasty Tuesday AND they sent me a double points offer today it made perfect sense to support them for dinner. It was delish. As we were eating Katie spit something hard into her empty salad lid. It was quite the “ping” so I investigated and was pretty sure she’d just spit out a tooth! Not just any tooth – a huge molar! Thankfully it turned to be her tooth that she had no idea was even loose. It did give us a good laugh.
Dec 2 (Wednesday): This morning was busy office stuff, Justin and I went to Covington to take advantage of that stores 12 days of Christmas since today they gave us free sandwiches. Since we were in the area we picked up a sampling of this weeks Crumbl cookies. Yum! Jason had a ortho appointment in the afternoon and was given the choice of getting braces in two weeks or after Christmas – Jason decided to move ahead and get them in two weeks. After his appointment Carly, Jason and I played tennis which was fun and great practice. Jason threw balls for me so I could practice my backhanded volley – each time he caught the ball that I hit he earned a candy – 22 candies later… Today was also a fun day for JKD in that we told them they could download Pokémon Go – we are MANY years behind that craze.
After tennis they all wanted to walk around the neighborhood to capture Pokémon with their neighbor buddies. Fun times. Aunt Brenda has already “friended” them and they are quite impressed with her Pokémon stats and appreciate the “gifts” she gives them. My end goal for today was to get our Christmas cards ordered – I was able to finish typing up our Christmas letter just before midnight (with Carly’s help), but didn’t want to order until Justin was able to proof read it tomorrow. So close!
Dec 3 (Thursday): All day in the office today reconciling some financial stuff and yes, I got my Christmas cards ordered. When I failed to get Carly and Jason to make dinner tonight I threw together some lemon pasta with spinach and it was actually quite yum – very lemony. Jason was eager to go on a walk tonight and catch him some Pokémon. Justin went with us and redownloaded the account that he created on at the Hipwell reunion a few years back. Now we have four Pokemon players in the house.
Dec 4 (Friday): I enjoyed a morning hike with some ladies friends this morning and Jason and I played a little tennis in the afternoon. We’ve had gorgeous weather this week so it’s wonderful to be outside enjoying it. K&D had lots of fun playing with the bubbles from a bubble truck that was parked outside our house for over an hour. The passenger in the truck even got out with a large bubble wand and made huge bubbles for the kids to enjoy.
We made some biscuits and gravy for dinner and then I baked some banana bread. We’ve had SO much bread this week as I also made sourdough earlier in the week! We capped off the night with JKD played a full round of Phase 10 twist.
Dec 5 (Saturday): This afternoon Jason, Justin and I went for a hike down off the ridge which ends up connecting back up to the ridge. It was a nice hike and we didn’t see a single soul on the trail. The boys however saw LOTS of Pokémon – ha!
Carly decided to give Katie a haircut tonight. She did a great job! That’s one more motherly task I can pass off to one of my mini-moms.
Katie and Drew were invited to the neighbors tonight for a Polar Express movie night complete with lots of yummy treats, hot cocoa and activities. Love creative moms that share the fun with my kiddos.
Abigail sent us this video tonight of her evening activities – ha!
Dec 6 (Sunday): When we went out for our evening walk tonight I was surprised to see that Justin had put some lights on our little Japanese tree in the front yard. Baby steps, right? Someday we’ll have lights on the roof and finally take advantage of the outlets we had installed under the rafters when the house was built.
Dec 7 (Monday): Justin took today off. He has lots of unused vacation days this year since we didn’t do much vacationing. Unfortunately, he’s got too much work to do that he won’t be able to use them up before the year is over. He and Carly took in the van and corolla this morning to get some recall work completed. The van, of course, came back with a laundry list of things that need repaired/replaced but it’s not worth as much as the repairs so I think we’ll hold off. He and Katie went for a walk in the late afternoon along the same trail we hiked Saturday. He was hoping to branch off to a trail that had views of Snoqualmie Falls. Apparently this is the closest he got to the falls.
Our library system changed their borrowing policies during COVID and allows patrons to renew books 5 times (which equates to 5 months so long as there aren’t others waiting for the books) they also removed all fees through the end of the year. Which means even if you can’t renew a book because there’s too many holds or you’ve maxed out your renewals there’s no penalty to keep it anyhow. So – I have a quite the stack of books I’ve been hoarding. With the end of the year nearing I’ve decided to start reading more so I posted a picture of my stack on Facebook and asked for opinions on what to read and what NOT to read. It was helpful and I was able to return some that I don’t think I’ll love and I read two of these books over the next week and started a third.
Dec 9 (Wednesday): Speaking of books I checked the status of some of the recent requests I’ve made for books I’d like the library to purchase so I can read them for free. I was pleasantly surprised to find they were ordering the religious ones I requested.
I’ve been wanting to revisit my old mix tapes for years and put together a playlist in apple music so I could listen through them. I started with a tape my friend Jill made me back in January 1996 – nearly 25 years ago. It’s been fun to listen to them and see what songs she felt I would enjoy or need to hear during that first year of college. I sent her these pictures so she could see what she’d put on there. Back in the day it took a lot of time to put together a set of songs like this.
Playing some sort of game is a near daily occurrence around here – love seeing my kids play together!
Dec 11 (Friday): I got a call from the assistant principal today letting me know that Katie had been selected as some sort of “Leader of the Pack” award (which will be coming in the mail). He read me this little blurb from Katie’s teacher which I asked him to email to me.
“Katie has taken on virtual learning with a positive attitude this year. She is very organized and works hard to turn in nothing but her very best work. I love that Katie is not afraid to ask questions or share her ideas during class discussions. That sets a great example for the rest of the students class. I appreciate how she takes charge of her learning, and I am so grateful to have her in my class this year!” – Ms. Primus
So proud of my girl!
Dec 12 (Saturday): We had a couple free breakfast items at Chick-fil-A to use up and the freebie for today (the final day of the 12 days of Christmas) was a free brownie. So four free brownies and some yummy breakfast made it an easy decision for us to head to Covington this morning. Katie was the only kiddo that wanted to join Justin and me. We were able to hit up Wal-Mart and Costco for a few items as well so a productive morning. I was hoping that Carly and Jason would be up for playing tennis this afternoon after the courts had a chance to dry up. Carly instead got an offer to head to Target with her friend so Jason, Justin and I played instead. It was lots of fun. Afterward I was going to head to the library to return and pickup books however, Justin suggested we walk down instead. He’s usually up for a walk but definitely more so now that he’s playing Pokémon with JKD.
Justin and I got take-out tonight for dinner. The Light the World campaign was to support local businesses today so we told ourselves that redeeming a BOGO free deal was still supporting our favorite local restaurant since they need all the business they can get without any indoor dining being allowed.
Dec 13 (Sunday): We had in-person sacrament meeting today which was nice. It seemed like there were a lot less families this month.
We’re having a much easier time getting kiddos out on walks since they want to capture Pokémon.
We’ve been watching some Christmas movies here and there which has made for some fun relaxing evenings. Only one more week until Christmas break!
