Day 19: Happy Meals at Grandma's

Confession:  I had nothing written on the inside of Day 19's envelope.  And it was 5:50 pm.  The boys were asking when we were going to do our activity.  We needed an Advent activity.  We needed it asap.  I had no energy.  It was already dark outside. 

I looked at Jon and said "I really wish we could go to dinner just the two of us."  And he said "Let's make it happen."

So, we called his parents (who live about 15 min away) and convinced Grandpa & Grandma that they needed a visit from 4 little, loud people while we sneak out for an hour or two.

Holding their happy meal boxes in front of Grandma's house.

We took our impromtu "date night" and turned it into an Advent activity.  I read the envelope to the boys saying "Today's activity is to get happy meals and eat them at Grandma & Grandpa Shogren's house."  My announcement was met with cheers from the boys (the current McDonalds toy is TMNT toys).

Earlier in the day, James had asked me if we could drop a present off at Grandma Shogren's (a craft he had made in school) so he was super excited to actually be able to deliver it.

James delivering his present.

By 6:40, Jon & I were at Chili's enjoying a relaxing dinner.  Afterwards, we hit up the Target that was in the same parking lot and loaded up on some essentials (pop and ingredients for teacher gifts).  It was a beautiful two hours.  We talked uninterrupted and felt relaxed by the time we got back to pick up the boys. The boys were none the wiser that Day 19's advent activity was definitely way more for OUR benefit than theirs.

Quick shot of the boys with the babysitters, I mean, Grandma & Grandpa.

When we got home, we did have each boy pick out a stuffed animal to donate to our friend Laura's school (she's a teacher).  Her school is putting together bags for kids staying at homeless shelters this winter.  Each bag was to contain a book, a blanket and a stuffed animal, but they were short on stuffed animals.  I was SO happy to have a reason to get rid of a stuffed animal as they are slowly taking over my house. 

The criteria was that it must be a nice, new-looking one.  The twins quickly went upstairs and came back with a Clifford and a Dr. Seuss Brown Cow (from Mr. Brown Can Moo).  Aaron came downstairs with Andrew's Curious George.  I guess I should have been more clear in my directions that you had to select one of your OWN animals, not one of your brothers.  I sent him back up to pick one that was his and he eventually settled on Elmo.  We delivered the stuffed animals to my friend Laura's house the next day.

My main goals for our advent activities this year were to either be creating memories with people or helping someone else.  Today we got to do both, even if it was a little lame and last minute in planning. 

Day 17: Movie Night

Tonight, we did a family movie night.  I had bought a copy of The Nativity Story and wrapped it.  When the boys opened, they were excited.  James kept saying, "this movie is the true story of Christmas." 

This movie is a good hour and forty minutes long and we didn't start it until after 7.  Aaron didn't quite make it as you can tell from the picture.  He fell asleep about 30 minutes into it.  Before he fell asleep he asked me to wake him when Baby Jesus arrives.

He fell asleep holding the angel from the Little People Nativity.  He got up and got the angel after the scene the angel visits Mary to tell her that she would have a baby from God.

Jon & I had never seen this version of the movie.  Its rated PG.  It has a few scenes that some kids might have trouble with including the opening scene where King Herod sends his soldiers through Bethlehem killing all the young male children.  Our kids are really familiar with the details surrounding Jesus' birth, so it wasn't a surprise to them.  However, I think reading that Herod killed the baby & toddler boys and seeing images of Bethlehem being ransacked and baby boys being torn away from their parents is very different.  And in light of the recent shooting in Newtown, it was especially hard for me to watch.  I have a whole new appreciation of the evilness of King Herod now that I'm a mom of lots of young boys.  Thankfully, its a short scene and they don't really show anything.

Another interesting scene for our family to watch was the scene of Elizabeth giving birth to her baby boy (John the Baptist).  Our kids have limited knowledge of childbirth given their young ages.  Also, I delivered all my kids via c-section.  So when I was pregnant with Caleb and the boys wanted to know how the baby got out, I told them that the doctor would take the baby out.  When they asked if he would cut a hole in my stomach to take Baby Pancake out, I said yes.  So, we haven't really discussed exactly how a baby is born naturally and the pain associated with it.  And of course, we couldn't find the remote to fast forward this scene.  We turned the volume down low.  In the scene, Elizabeth is making painful labor noises and she is sort of squatting and holding onto a rope above her head for support.  About ten minutes later, James (our thinker, talker and maker of theories) says "That's pretty interesting.  I had no idea that they had babies by holding on to ropes."  Clearly we are going to need to discuss this a bit further.

When we got to the end of the movie, I tried my best to rouse Aaron from his sleep to see that baby Jesus had indeed arrived and was lying in the manger.  I had no luck.  Instead, we finished the movie and Jon carried Aaron up to bed. 

Since we own this movie, I definitely think we'll watch it each December.

Day 21: Dollar Store Shopping

A few years ago, we started the tradition of taking the boys to the dollar store just a few days before Christmas and they shop for each member of our immediate family.  They love it as they are allowed to pick ANYTHING they want in the dollar store.  The only stipulation is one item per person.  I keep waiting for someone to pick up the at home marijuana, ovulation predictor or pregnancy test kits and ask me what they are to see if they should buy it.  So far, the tests haven't caught any of the boys' attention, even though our store stocks them in multiple places.

Today our Advent activity was dollar store shopping.  Jon took Aaron while the twins were at school and Caleb was having tubes put in his ear (do we know how to celebrate the Christmas season or what?!?).  He took James & Andrew after school and pretty much just waited for them at the front of the store while they shopped.

We've tried to keep what they buy a secret from the other siblings and the parents, so it usually involves multiple trips to the dollar store (I mean, who doesn't LOVE multiple trips to the dollar store right before Christmas?).  Poor Aaron wrapped his present for Andrew in secret tonight and then inadvertently told Andrew that he could look at "the other army guy" that he bought for James since James was gone.  Whoops!  Now Andrew knows that he's getting an army guy too.  Thankfully Andrew played it off without acknowledging the verbal slip on Aaron's part (are we actually growing up?!?!).  Aaron covered his mouth with his hand and went upstairs before he gave away anymore secrets.


The other nice thing this year is that the boys are actually able to wrap some of their own presents.  I had to give them some assistance with name tags, but they are able to do bags & tissue paper on their own.  They each hid their presents in their room and wrapped them in secret. 

This year Grandma Mary & Pa Lynn will be here on Christmas day, so we let the boys pick stuff for them too.  Their picks are always interesting and if you ask, they have reasons behind what they picked (but only ask James about his if you have a spare hour or two because he pretty much never stops talking these days).  The boys are all convinced that Pa Lynn & Grandma will LOVE their presents, so we shall see.  I'm sure Grandma & Grandpa had lots of practice feigning excitement and delight with present opening over the years from their own children (myself included).

We didn't do Daddy's presents yet, so I'll have to take the boys back to the dollar store tomorrow.  Today, I'm too tired and its late.

Its a simple tradition but I love this one.  I can't wait to see what I got.  Last year it was ponytail holders, lotion, and gum. 

Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad

43 years ago, these two crazy kids got married in Dallas, Texas over their Christmas break from college.  

My parents leaving their wedding reception.

In the past 43 years, they've survived medical school & residency, raised 4 children, moved many times, added 2 daughter-in-laws and 2 son-in-laws to their family and enjoyed the arrival of 10 grandchildren. 

My parents last Christmas - December 2011.

Mom & Dad--Thank you for being a great example of marriage for us and for supporting us in our marriages (especially with babysitting)! We love you! Here's to celebrating many more years of your anniversaries!

Day 13: 13 kids for our Gingerbread Party

The whole crew

This is the 4th year that we've done a "Gingerbread House" decorating party.  My kids remember it and now consider it a must for our advent season.  It takes some prep work on my part as I usually put the houses together the night before using graham crackers and the wilton royal frosting recipe.  Once dry, the icing is like cement and holds up really well to kids.  I learned the hard way that it is SOO much easier to have the houses assembled ahead of time. 

Honestly, the kids like the decorating & eating of the candy better than putting the house together.  I did have my kids help me get ready for the party.  They are still willing and excited to help so I put them to work unwrapping leftover Halloween candy and setting out craft supplies.

This year, we had 13 kids.  And yes, I planned that 13 kids for the 13th day of advent (okay, maybe not, pure coincidence).  Its actually 14 kids if you count Caleb (who woke up just in time from his nap to get in on the craziness).  Thankfully our good friend Chris, who came with his 2 children, took over "Caleb duty" during the party so that I could get our games and other activities going.  Many thanks to Chris who also did diaper duty for me when Caleb stunk up the playroom!

First we decorated ornaments and goodie bags (for our candy cane hunt).

Then we headed downstairs for our "Candy Cane Hunt" which consisted of picking up candy canes from fairly obvious places.  But hey, this was for a room full of 3-6 year olds, we can't make it too hard.

Its hard to find candy canes among all those plastic toys.

Next up, we played Pass the Present.  We pass a wrapped present around and when the music stops, whoever opens has the present gets to open it.  Before we started, I assured all the kids that there was a small prize for each of them inside no matter who opened it.  I had wrapped the prize (16 sticky hands) in 5 boxes, so it was opened several times. 

It ended on Aaron and with some assistance from his buddy Brendan, he got it open and each kid was given a "sticky hand."

Quick note here:  It might not be the smartest thing EVER to give 13 kids each their own sticky hand that can be whipped around and made to stick to ceiling, walls or other people.  Since I am a mama of all boys, I had no idea until tonight that sticky hands can easily get tangled in girls' hair.  Now I know.  I gave the kids about five minutes and then decided the sticky hands needed to go back IN the goody bags until the party was over.

Next, we had a "snowball" fight.  Again, this is a game we play every year, so my kids aren't surprised by it.  In fact, I'm surprised that they still think its cool, but I guess when you have a house rule that you aren't allowed to throw ANYTHING, EVER (which we do), you get very excited about being allowed to throw "snowballs".  Even if the snowballs are made out of crumpled tissue paper.


For this game, we divided the kids into 2 teams on opposite sides of the room and told them that they wanted to get all the snowballs on the other side.  It was a free for all.

And my littlest one had a good time getting in the middle of it (no surprise there). 

We cleaned up the snow and played it again.  We also threw in a round or two of the Freeze Dance game just to get the kids rowdier.

Next, we went upstairs where we had a gourmet dinner that I slaved all day in the kitchen preparing.  Okay, maybe not.  I had my wonderful friend Melissa pick up Little Caesar's pizza and more importantly breadsticks (I've yet to meet a kid that doesn't inhale these breadsticks) on her way. 

After their super healthy dinner, we got down to business.  The business of decorating gingerbread houses.  And by "decorating", I clearly mean putting two candies in your mouth for every one that goes on the house and frosting all over your hands.

Each kid got their own dish with store-bought frosting in it (I like to cut corners anywhere I can) and a spoon to spread it on their house.  Then we passed around bowls of different kinds of candy to put on the houses.  Our guests each brought a different type of candy to decorate with and I had saved some of our Halloween candy so there were lots of options.

I think the sugar is responsible for this crazy face.  And if you look closely, you'll see that he pretty much hogged the bowl of kit kats to shingle his roof.  Smart boy!

Aaron's little buddy Brendan, isn't he the cutest?

The girls being orderly and neat with their decorating.

James and his friend Dylan are hard at work.

Our good buddy Joshua.

Andrew with his finished house.

All in all, the gingerbread party was again a success!  Its always a bit loud having this many kids around, but I seriously LOVE how much fun my boys have and I think their friends do too. 

This guy got out the broom and got to work on cleanup as soon as our guests left.  Love this boy!

Day 12: Date night with Daddy

Day 12 has rolled around and I'm a bit tired (okay, super tired).  On top of the extra Advent activities, we've been working to get our youngest in to get tubes put in his ears before the end of the year.  There have been some slight complications including the fact that he got a cold, so we've been squeezing in lots of extra doctor appointments which is making our schedule even busier than normal. 

Today's activity was originally suppose to be a family movie night, but when I saw that 2 Toots (a train themed restaurant in downtown Bartlett that delivers the food to your table on a toy train) was giving away free kids meals to any child that donated a toy, I decided it sounded like a good thing for the boys to do with Daddy.

The best part is when the train pulls up with your burger & fries.  Choo Choo!

Thankfully, Jon willingly took over this advent activity and I stayed home with Caleb.  It was nice to get caught up a few things around the house (And it gave me some free time to get ready for our big "gingerbread party" the next day with several friends).  We gave each boy a toy to donate and two quarters to spend as they wished.  The restaurant has a pony ride for a quarter as well as a vending machine with several options (one being a tiny alien toy for a quarter).  Andrew skipped the pony ride and opted to get 2 aliens from the vending machine.  James and Aaron both took a ride and one toy alien.

Big bro James giving Aaron some assistance to get down.

Decisions, decisions.  So many options of how to spend his quarter.  In the end, the tiny toy alien won out.

James taking his turn very seriously.

I sent the camera along with Jon to get a few pictures.  This is just one of the many reasons that I love my husband so much.  Not only is he happy to take 3 small children out for dinner by himself after a long day of work, but he's also willing to drag along my giant camera (we don't have a small point & shoot right now) to document the outing for me.  Sadly, he didn't think to have a waitress take a picture of him WITH the boys (and I didn't specifically remind him to), so he's not in any of the pictures.  Oh well!  There's always next year as I'm pretty sure the "daddy date night" is going to stay as one of our yearly advent activities (if for no other reason than to give me a break about halfway through advent).

Day 10 & 11

Day 10 needed to be low-key after our all day party the previous day.  Our activity was opening a new Christmas book, The Legend of the Candy Cane, and reading it.

James with our new book.

After that, we did our normal nightly reading of the Advent book before bed.  Right now, the boys still get very excited about new books, so there were no complaints of this being a lame activity.  I have seen this book before, but hadn't bought it.  I was excited to add it this year to our collection.

Day 11 was another big outing.  I've heard good things about the Santa Wonderland activities that Brass Pro Shops has for kids during the month of December, but we've never checked it out before.  The closest one for us is about 40 minutes away.  To make it more fun, we went with our good friends, the Patricks.  They went last year, so they could show us the ropes.  Between our two families, we have 7 children, so we couldn't fit in one vehicle.  We made a caravan instead and exchanged our Aaron for their Liam on the drive to and from Bass to make it extra fun.  I don't know what it was like in Jaime's car, but swapping out one of our kids made for a super easy drive in my car.  There was absolutely NO fighting.

We didn't leave until Liam got out of Kindergarten around 11ish, so we made a stop at McDonald's for lunch before going into Santa's Wonderland.  I'm pretty sure my kids were more excited about the Rise of the Guardians toys that they got in their happy meals than anything else from today.  I'm not sure if that kinda annoys me or not.  I'm still deciding.

After lunch, we headed in.  It was a high of 31 today, so the first thing we did was warm up by the giant fireplace.

Then we headed to see Santa so the boys could tell them what they want for Christmas.  All 3 of mine asked for somewhat obscure Super Mario themed stuffed animals.  When I say obscure, I mean the kinds that you have to order online ahead of time and cannot find in Target or normal toy stores.  I did manage to talk them out of characters that aren't even made into stuffed animals.  I'd like it to be relatively easy job for me  Santa this year.

I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out.  Not amazing but better than I had anticipated.

Big surprise, James did the most talking to Santa about what they wanted.

Caleb was a little confused but pretty comfortable with Santa. He might have sat there all day if I hadn't picked him up so the next kids could have a turn.

After that, they did some of the free activities like shooting guns.

They rode the carousel several times.

I'm pretty sure that this was Jaime's favorite part too!

Since it was during his naptime, Caleb watched from his stroller while hugging his blanket.

They also spent a lot of time "riding" on the ATVs that were on display.  I think the kids spent a good 30 minutes total trying them all out.

James and his best buddy Liam.

Aaron with the other 2 Patricks: Brendan & Rori.

Excited to have it all to himself.

Again, Caleb was strapped in to the stroller, so I pushed him into this photo op to prove that he was there.  Don't worry #4, we'll let you out of the stroller next year so you can have some real fun. 

During the day, they don't have crafts out, but they do have stationary that you can write a letter to Santa with and then mail in his personal mailbox.  If you include your email address, they will supposedly send a note back to your child from Santa.  We shall see.

Working hard on writing their letters to Santa.  You don't want to get it wrong because then you'll have the wrong present under the tree.

Time to mail them.

Each boy also stopped to pose in front of a decoration.

Aaron loves nutcrackers.  He has a small collection going at home and loves when he sees life-size ones.

Not the best picture I could get of James, but this was before the visit with Santa, so he wasn't able to focus too well.

Andrew with his serious smile/look.

On our way out, we made a potty break which took a good 15 minutes with 2 moms, 6 kids and a diaper change for Caleb.  Then we attempted to take a picture in front of the giant Christmas tree.  The first attempt didn't go well, but here was the second try.  Pretty good considering it was at the END of the outing and about two hours after Caleb usually starts napping.