Samantha's Fever, Baby Cuddles, Aedan's Artwork, and and Irish Date Night

Samantha: 90 Months, Week 3
Aedan: 56 Months, Week 1
Owen: 14 Months, Week 3

Sunday was a day I had been looking forward to for awhile. We had church in the morning where we taught our elementary small groups. Then, we stayed for second service as well so we could go to church. Being at church all morning like this really tires out little Owen though, so it was difficult to get him to eat lunch because he just wanted to go to sleep. However, he went down for his nap well and slept for quite awhile that afternoon. The thing I was looking forward to was a church Christmas party that afternoon. We were going to meet at Karl's, one of the best restaurants in town, and we were going to do a white elephant gift exchange and just have time to talk to other leaders in the church and enjoy a good meal. We got Mary to babysit our kids for us, and she was in charge of feeding them dinner and hanging out with them for a few hours while we were gone. It was really nice to get away from the house for awhile and enjoy some company with other adults. We got a Merry Christmas decoration and a small crock pot as our presents, and we really enjoyed all the delicious food that was prepared for us. We were thoroughly stuffed when it was time to leave.

When we got home, Samantha and Aedan were upset that we were back already, but Owen was glad to see us. I was holding him in my arms, and Ben was playing with him, coming at him and being silly, making him do these great belly laughs. He was tired and ready for bed, but he was glad to see Mommy and Daddy again.

Aedan has been obsessed with this white shirt lately, as soon as it's clean and hung back up in his closet, he chooses to wear it again, and he specifically picked it out to wear on Monday, while also telling Ben to wear a white shirt so they could match.

Samantha wanted to get a picture with Daddy as well. He commented later about how old she looks in this picture.

And here's one of Izzy jumping into the picture, too.

When I picked Samantha up from school that afternoon, she immediately told me that she wasn't feeling well that day, but it was getting close to the end of the day so they didn't contact me. One of the teachers told me that she wasn't acting like she felt well, as she was just sitting in the lobby not talking to anyone like she usually does. Sure enough, when we got home, she had a temperature. I felt bad for her and that she stayed at school even when she wasn't feeling well. We encouraged her to take it easy that night, and she knew that she wasn't going to be going to school the next day. I hoped that it would be just a quick thing that she could recover from. Poor girl, she definitely was lacking energy and not acting like herself.

It was my turn to take Aedan to hockey that night, and again, we were encouraging him to push off with both feet and try to get himself going faster. You can see Aedan in the orange number 12 jersey skating across the ice. He was doing a pretty good job and really was going pretty quickly, even though he was still only using his right foot. We will get there. He has made huge strides in the last few weeks of practice.

Tuesday morning I had my MOPS Bible study, and it had been so long since we met that I didn't want to miss it. Even though Samantha's temperature wasn't that high on Monday evening, on Tuesday morning before leaving the house, I took her temperature and it was 102.4. I debated what to do, but I figured she could just rest on the couch in "the living room," just as easily as she could at home, while Aedan and Owen would go to the childcare room. The topic of Bible study was discipline, and it was really good to watch the video and share our struggles and ideas of how we discipline our children with other moms. I'm glad I was able to go. Bible Study is always encouraging to me.

On Monday during my shopping trip with the boys, I stopped at Joann Fabrics to buy this berry wreath and Advent candles so we could have our own Advent set at home. This is one tradition that I wish the church would keep up. I always enjoyed the lighting of the Advent candles at ECC. Every year, especially since we don't do Elf on the Shelf or Santa, I like to find an Advent Devotional to follow where we read Scripture every night and focus on the true meaning of this season of Christmas. I found a good devotional on Focus on the Family's website again, and they encouraged you to have your own Advent wreath, so I was really happy when I found this candle set. I put it together during nap time that afternoon, and I thought it looked beautiful as a centerpiece for our table.

That afternoon as I nursed Owen to sleep before his nap, he fell right asleep in my arms, which is what usually happens at nap time. However, I was just struck with his sweet, precious, sleepy face that day, and I decided to take a few pictures of him and hold him just a little bit longer, because I never know when it might be my last chance to hold him while he's sleeping. He doesn't usually fall asleep in my arms at nighttime anymore, so I will take my nap time snuggles for as long as I can.

As we went through the rest of the day, Samantha's fever still was not breaking. Ben and I decided there was no way she could go to gymnastics, and when I told her that, she just broke down in tears. She loves gymnastics, and this was the last day which was Parent's Day when we could go out on the gymnastics floor and watch them do each station. She was really looking forward to this day, but really, she probably wouldn't have had energy for it anyways. She was pretty much just sitting on the couch most of the day. Then, before I left to get Aedan and take him to gymnastics, I took her temperature again, and it was 103.4, even before it had reached the six hour mark on the ibuprofen that I had give her. I felt so bad for her. She was talking about feeling cold, she had no color in her face, was very lethargic, and had no energy to do anything much. I let her watch a movie on the couch that afternoon because she had already spent most of the day reading, and she was getting tired of reading. Her head was hurting from the fever and dizziness. I was worried about her temperature being so high, so I called the doctor and talked to the nurse. She wasn't too helpful, but she said that it was getting high, and that I should probably bring her in and get a swab done to see if she had strep. However, I looked in Samantha's throat and didn't see anything. They didn't give me much advice other than that, so we figured we'd wait and see how she felt the next day.

Aedan comes home with papers from preschool almost every day. He has been enjoying coloring a lot more than he used to, and I love seeing how he writes his name on the back. He's getting so good at writing his name! He was struggling with making his d and a the right direction, so I practiced with him a little bit and now he's got it. I also love how he's writing his initials "ATA." It's like he is writing his own monogram. The first paper he did from him.

And then the second paper he signed as if he were Samantha.

I left Samantha at home with Calla and Owen was still asleep, while I went to get Aedan and take him to gymnastics. He was VERY excited for me to come out on the floor with him and watch him do all his moves. He definitely loves gymnastics, and it's great because they keep the groups really small so he is almost always active and moving the entire hour of their lesson. Here are the videos I took of him on this day of lessons.

Here he is doing his starfish jump all the way down the long trampoline.

Then, he was jumping down the trampoline backwards and was bouncing so fast that he caught up with the girl that went before him.

Here he is hanging and swinging from the rings.

The big foam pit in the back was definitely his favorite part of gymnastics. He loved jumping into it and squiggling himself way down into the foam blocks so that only his head was sticking out.

I asked if he could swing into the pit on the hanging rope, and he had a little bit of trouble getting on the rope, but then once he got on he didn't want to let go and let himself fall into the pit.

Here he is doing a bear crawl along the parallel bars.

Here Aedan is showing off his two forward rolls, sound effect included. :)

Here he is hanging on the parallel bars.

And last but not least, walking across the balance beam.

After gymnastics was over, and we got their report cards and participation ribbons, we headed back over the bridge and back home. Mr. Ken and Mrs. Linda were already at our house waiting for us, getting instructions from Ben, in preparation for babysitting for us that evening as Ben and I went out for a quick dinner before going to the concert "Irish Christmas in America" at LSSU. We got these tickets a long time ago and I was really looking forward to this date with my love. I thought of asking Ken and Linda to babysit right away because the kids love them so much and are so comfortable with them. I knew they would have to put them to bed, and I didn't just want a random college student to have that job. Other than the night way back in March when Ben took me to see Les Miserables in Indy and Aunt Jeni put Owen to bed, no one else has put Owen to bed before. But I wasn't at all worried about Ken and Linda being able to put them to bed.

Ben and I went out to dinner at Zorba's because we knew they got food out to you fairly quickly. We had to eat a little faster than we would have liked to so we could get to the concert on time, but it was nice to eat by ourselves and just be able to enjoy a fun date night out together. Here are some videos of the lovely Irish music we enjoyed listening to that evening. Ireland will always have a special place in our hearts, as it is the place where Ben and I first met and fell in love, and we look forward to the day we can take a trip back there again. During intermission Ben and I were scheming and decided we need to try and get back there for our fifteenth anniversary. (Now we just have to convince some grandparents to watch the kids for us.)

I felt bad leaving Samantha that evening since she came home from school with a fever, but Ken and Linda weren't afraid of being there with her. They took good care of her, and said she felt cooler when she went to bed that night. I hoped that a good night's sleep would make her feel better.

Over the weekend from Saturday into Sunday, we got 5-6 inches of snow along with more flurries on Wednesday, but it's already gotten to that point in the season where I have gotten used to seeing the snow outside. I don't really even check the weather because I assume it will just be cold and snowy for the next several months.

I have officially cut out nursing Owen during the night because he doesn't need it, and I'm trying to encourage him to sleep through the night more, so now he is down to nursing after he wakes up in the morning, before I put him down for his afternoon nap, and then before going to bed at night. Even those times he probably does not really need, but I am in the boat of nursing him for as long as he remains interested, especially since he will most likely be the last baby I will nurse. I enjoy the closeness nursing brings and the connection that only he and I share, so we will continue doing it for a little longer. :)

After nursing him for a little while in the morning, I bring him upstairs, change his diaper, and then we give him some baby cereal mixed up with whole milk. He probably is ready to move on from this, but I just want to make sure he gets enough food to start off the day, so I like to give him just a little bit of that cereal along with a banana or some more dry cereal he can eat himself. Owen has expressed a lot of interest in feeding himself lately. He wants his own spoon and fork to use most of the time, and on Wednesday morning I actually let him attempt to feed himself his cereal. He was so proud of himself and was actually doing a really good job getting the cereal into his mouth. I figured it would be an easy thing to start with because it wouldn't fall of the spoon as easily.

 

With Samantha still having a high temperature on Tuesday night, I kept her home from school again on Wednesday so she could rest and recover. Aedan was pretty excited to have her home and they enjoyed having some extra time to play together. She was definitely starting to feel better, her fever wasn't as high that morning, and she had more energy to play, instead of just sitting on the couch like she was doing the previous day. I know Samantha and Aedan really miss having this time just to play freely with each other because Samantha has to go off to school and then we have different obligations in the evenings during the week. These more relaxed days at home were kind of a blessing in disguise.

Owen found Aedan's fire hat and gave it to me to put on him. I took a couple of pictures of him in his fire hat, and he liked being able to see what it looked like on his head.

Izzy and our neighbor dog, Koe, go crazy barking at each other when they are both outside at the same time. So around lunch time that day, I messaged the  neighbors to see if they just wanted to have Koe come over to our yard so she and Izzy could run around, chase each other, and play. Here's a little video I took of them enjoying our snowy backyard together. It's good for both of them to get some energy out and wrestle with another dog rather than one of us.

Unfortunately, as the afternoon went on, Samantha's fever came back again and you could tell she was not feeling well. I felt so bad for her because I hoped she wouldn't spike again because that would mean that she would miss another day of school and AWANA that night. Ben and I decided that I should take her to the walk-in clinic while Aedan was at AWANA so that way we could get her checked out and make sure there was nothing going on and at least get a doctor's note to excuse her from these days of school. She was all clear, just a fever and a virus. The doctor said that this virus has been going around with a 102-104 fever that spikes in the afternoon/evening, and then breaks after 3-4 days, so we just have to wait it out. I was glad she didn't have anything more going on, but I hoped that her fever would break soon. She was missing being at school and really didn't want to miss Thursday, too.

Since Samantha was pretty sad about having to stay home again on Thursday, I decided to bust out the gingerbread house kits Aedan and I had bought. I bought a set of 4 mini ones so that they could each decorate two. We tried using the icing to hold them together, but it just wasn't work and we didn't have the time (or patience) to let them dry for a couple of hours, so I decided we would just use a hot glue gun for the walls and roof, and then the kids could get to the fun part faster of putting the icing and sprinkles on. (We weren't planning on eating them anyways, so it didn't matter that the glue made them inedible.) The kids did an excellent job of decorating them very creatively. Aedan needed more help squeezing the icing out of the decorating bags, but Samantha pretty much did all of hers by herself. They were very particular about the candy they used and where they put it, and they had a great time working on this little project. It took at least an hour and a half, and it was a great way to spend our morning at home while Samantha was recovering from being sick.

(On a side note, Samantha looks so big in this picture. I don't know if it's because she has her hair down or what, but sometimes I am just flabbergasted at how much and how quickly she is growing. She is getting so tall, and you can tell she is growing by the healthy appetite that she maintains. This little girl made me a mom 7 1/2 years ago, and I am so lucky that she is my daughter. Man, do I love her and the heart and talents God has gifted her with.)

Jen

And here are the kids posing with their completed gingerbread houses. (You can see in Samantha's eyes that she still isn't feeling 100%. Poor girl.)

When Aedan was all done putting the decorations on his house, he got the white icing, which we had a lot left of, and started squirting it all over the tops of his houses, saying, "It's snowing all over! It's snowing!" I love this personality, his sense of humor, and the way he decides to do things in his own particular way.

Here are some more pictures of Aedan's artwork for the last week or so. He enjoys coloring so much more now, and I can't believe how awesome he is at writing his name with his letters all facing the right direction and looking so neat.

Owen really has been doing a good job in sleeping for me lately. He takes good naps, usually at least two hours, and most times longer, and he goes to bed fairly easily at night. He very rarely falls asleep nursing at bedtime, but he falls asleep nursing most days at nap time. At night, if he doesn't fall asleep nursing, all I have to do is put him up on my shoulder and walk around with him for a little while and he will fall right asleep. Lately, I have added reading a book or two to my nightly bedtime routine with Owen. He loves his pop-up Thomas book, and he picks it almost every night. Also, since we had just had bath time and his hair was nice and clean, he had the cutest little curls at the back of his head that I wanted to take pictures of. Everyone keeps telling me I need to cut his hair in the back (because sometimes it looks a little like a mullet), but it's too cute when it looks curly like this.

Don't you just love this little boy's smile? He is just the cutest, and I love him so much. Even though he doesn't have too many recognizable words yet, he can say so much to you with just the expressions on his face. I love watching his personality and interests develop more and more every day, and he is such a joyful blessing to our family. 

One night while Ben was out in the backyard getting some more firewood ready for the next day, he took these pictures of the contraptions our kids and the Grundmeiers built in our backyard the previous Saturday. It's like a little campfire with a stick draping over almost looking like they were trying to cook something over the fire. It will be interested to see how long these sticks stay standing as the snow continues to come this winter.

Here is a beautiful fire Ben got going in the fireplace. We have definitely gotten the hang of this and are really enjoying fires when we are home together in the evenings and the kids are all asleep.

On Friday there was a mom's night out painting class and I joined a couple moms for dinner at Applebee's beforehand. I was a little nervous about doing the painting class because I'm not the greatest artist, but Lisa did an excellent job of walking us through it step by step. It look me close to five hours to make this painting, but in the end I was very proud of myself, and I thought the finished product was pretty enough that I could display it in my living room.

On Saturday we had a few things going on. Our first order of business was to take the kids to Goodwill so they could pick out presents for every member of the family. They like to choose presents and give presents, so I figured this would the most economical, creative, and possibly humorous way to let them do that. They were really excited to pick out whatever they wanted as long as it was $5 or under, and we went home with a big box of their presents that they lovingly chose for the family.

Then, after eating Little Caesar's pizza for lunch, Ben decided to take Samantha and Aedan to a girl's basketball game at LSSU. They ran into the Folkersmas there, too, so they were having lots of fun playing with and talking to Eli and Emma. (I stayed home with Owen while he napped.)

After they got back, I then took Samantha and Aedan to something called "A Laker Christmas" at the Arts Center on campus. It was more of a concert than I thought it would be and at times the kids were a little bored, but it was good for them to be exposed to some music as well as sports that day. After the concert, we had a surprise birthday party to go to of a mom in our small group. We were going to eat burgers and hot dogs at their house, so it ended up turning into more of a busy day than we anticipated. That's the one problem with Christmastime, there are always more things to do than what you have the time or energy for. However, it was a good day of doing things together, and that always makes things more fun.

(Blog about December 2-8, 2018)

Hockey Practice Success & a Fun Laker Hockey Game

Samantha: 90 Months, Week 2
Aedan: 55 Months, Week 4
Owen: 14 Months, Week 2

Sunday was our day to head back home from Upland, and the kids were so sad, especially Aedan. He cried almost the whole way from the house to the interstate. He loves being in Upland with Ema and Papa so much, and the only thing that made it better was that it wouldn't be too long before we would be back there again for Christmas. The drive went fairly well that day with stopping at Panera for lunch near Lansing. Then, it was nap time when we got back in the car, and it didn't take long for Owen to fall asleep that day. In fact, he must have been so tired out from our busy week because he ended up sleeping for a couple hours in the car that afternoon, much better than our trip down to Upland.

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As we get closer to home, the drive starts to feel longer and longer, and everyone is just ready to be home. However, we try to make it fun and pass the time being silly. Samantha and Aedan made up what they call their "P Language," and they will talk to each other using this language quite a bit. It's basically just starting every word with the P sound. Well, as we were driving in the car that evening, Samantha reached over and grabbed Aedan's hand as they sang the alphabet song in their P language.

We got back earlier that evening so that we could get unloaded, unpacked, have dinner, give the kids baths, and get to bed at a decent time. Samantha was really helpful in getting things put away, and Aedan helped too, reluctantly. After getting the kids in bed, Ben and tried our hand at another fire, and I know this might be silly to post a video of a fire, but Ben and I have always been a little bit challenged when it comes to starting fires. We went camping a few times and never seemed to be able to get one started, and I know it was a point of frustration between the two of us. However, now that we have two cords of wood stacked up in our shed and this lovely fireplace in our living room, we wanted to have more fires this winter. After some trial and error, we discovered that we needed to make sure the wood had a chance to dry out inside the house for at least a day. Plus, we needed to split the wood that we got into even smaller pieces so that they would catch on fire easier. Now, these may be common sense things to other people, but we just don't know much about this stuff. I even watched some videos on YouTube on how to start a fire, and we discovered that the upside down fire works much better than the tee-pee shaped fire. We were very proud of ourselves and the fire we got going that night, so I took a little video of it. This has quickly become one of my favorite things: to sit on the couch, all cuddled up, with a fire going in the fireplace, and the lights shining from the tree.

It was really nice being gone for Thanksgiving break. It was a welcome reprieve from the busyness of life. Monday morning was going to be a busy day right off the bat. I had set up for MOPS at church and then planned to go grocery shopping right from there. I figured it would be better to just get it out of the way, since we needed food any way, that way I wouldn't have to waste another morning with grocery shopping. I told Aedan we would get all the boring things out of the way in one day. Set up went pretty well, but Aedan wasn't the best listener with cleaning up his toys when it was time to go. It was kind of a rushed and busy morning with getting back home, putting the groceries away, eating lunch, and taking Aedan to preschool. Once back home, I got Owen down for a nap, even though he gave me a hard time going to sleep that afternoon when he was practically falling asleep in the car on the way home from dropping Aedan off at preschool. Once he was finally asleep, I finished hanging up the icicle lights outside. It was something I wanted to get done but just didn't have time for before Thanksgiving. It was a sunny and not as cold day, so I figured it would be a good time to finish them. I just peeked my head in the house every five minutes to listen to the monitor and make sure Owen was still asleep. I also started on the many loads of laundry I had to do after our trip.

Then, right after school Samantha had a family event at her school, so I picked up Samantha, went back to get Aedan, and then we went back to her school for the Gifts in a Jar event. Each kid got to pick three free books, and then we made these meals in a jar that we could then give away as a gift. We made puppy chow, cookie mix, and soup mix. 

Then, we rushed home to drop Samantha and Owen off and pick up Aedan's hockey stuff for practice. I knew it would be a lot for one night, but he needed to go to practice. Hockey has been a touchy subject lately because before we started he was practically begging to be in hockey. But now he complains just about every time he has practice and says he doesn't want to go. Then, he just goes out on the ice and shuffles his feet instead of actually trying to push off, skate, and glide. It's really frustrating to both Ben and me, and we keep trying to encourage him and not be too hard on him, but other kids were around the same ability as him at the beginning, and now they are doing much better than he is. It seems like he just doesn't want to try, or like he's too afraid to fall or something. I don't know what the deal is. We don't want him to be the best; we just want him to give his best effort and not give up.

Anyways, that night I really tried to push the positive with him, giving him a practice step to take in focusing on pushing off with his foot to make himself go forward. Aedan is number 12, and in these videos you can see how he is pushing off with his right foot. In the past, he would never have even been able to get all the way across the ice, so I was super proud of him being able to get all the way across successfully. I could tell he was really trying and doing his best, which made we really excited.

And here he is coming back down the ice toward me. Do you see how much faster he is getting? He was only pushing off with his right foot, so now we need to try to get his left foot involved, too, but this is by far the best he has ever done. I feel like once he figures that out and he can just zip around the ice, there will be no stopping him because he already has such a high interest in using his hockey stick and hitting the puck. In the summertime, he would run around the driveway and hit the puck, so it's only a matter of figuring out this ice skating thing.

And here are the kids playing a pretend hockey game with a soccer ball to hit around. Do you see how he's stopping, starting, and turning? He even was able to hit the ball a few times. You can tell he has a lot more fun when playing games like this, rather than just skating to skate.

To end the night, Aedan gave another great effort skating all the way across the ice to where they exit the rink. He was getting himself going so fast, and I was so proud of much he worked hard during practice that night. I told him how well he did afterwards and how I couldn't wait to go home and tell Daddy how good he did. I hope that Aedan can continue putting this effort into learning hockey because he will get so much more satisfaction out of it.

Tuesday was a MOPS day which always are fun, but busy. It was the first time I was more in charge of getting the childcare workers their name tags and paying them checks, trying to slowly take over responsibilities from Jill. Our topic that day was the Mentor Mom Panel, and I thought they did an awesome job sharing their experience with Christmas traditions with their family, as well as what to do if you don't like your kid's friends. It was great to hear some advice from some older women that have been through this stage of raising young ones and are willing to speak into our lives.

The rest of the day went by quickly with our typical routine of cleaning up from MOPS, rushing home to eat lunch and get to preschool (it seems like we've been doing that a lot lately), and then trying to get Owen down for a nap. He did better going to sleep for me that afternoon, and he took a nice nap for me. He was still asleep when Calla came over to babysit while I took the big kids to gymnastics. Then, after gymnastics we had dinner together, followed by bath time and bed time. It was my turn with Samantha, and Owen decided to do his little show-off routine for us as I was reading to her. He certainly loves being silly and making us laugh. (But I did have to stop him when he decided to start whacking his head on the door.) He's a crazy kid! You wouldn't know that it's bedtime!

I feel like I don't have much to say about this week because it really was just a normal week. I didn't take too many pictures, we didn't do anything too spectacular, just our normal life together as a family. There was no story time at the library on Wednesday, so we decided to just stay home and play. After being away from home the week before, we were just in kind of a homebody mood, which is perfectly okay with me.

On Wednesday night we had Aedan go to hockey again as a way to reinforce that we are serious about him trying his best and not giving up. We ate dinner early that night, ham and potatoes in the crock pot. (Our kids really like to eat ham! It's something even Aedan will eat willingly, and he's been weird with eating lately.) Then, Ben took him to hockey practice while I hung out at home with Samantha and Owen. I arranged for another mom to pick Samantha up and take her to AWANA, and Ben took Aedan straight from hockey to AWANA, leaving a little early from hockey and arriving a little late for AWANA. I don't think we are going to make this a regular habit of having him do both things, but we wanted to prove our point about how we wanted him to take it seriously and keep working hard.

On Thursday morning I invited our neighbors, the Grundmeiers over for a play date. We hadn't had them over for awhile, and I thought that Aedan would enjoy having someone over to play. Before they came, I spent some time picking things up around the house and cleaning the floors that were looking a little dirty. Then, when they got here, we ended up down in the basement where all the kids could find something fun to play with. I even let Izzy stay out, and she did a really good job of not barking at them. Her biggest problem was just getting too excited and getting in their faces, especially Carly's. I hadn't invited anyone over for awhile, and I also hadn't spent much time with Valerie in awhile, so it was fun to sit and talk while our kids played happily.

The rest of the day the boys and I just hung out, and we decided to go out for pizza in Brimley that evening instead of eating food at home. The kids did a good job riding in the car and interacting with each other, so we were extra nice and let them get ice cream as well.

Friday morning was Ben's turn to volunteer in Samantha's classroom, so Aedan and I worked on making banana chocolate chip muffins, but then realized we didn't have enough sugar. That's one of those ingredients that we almost always have on hand, but apparently we didn't write it down on the list when we emptied out the bag. Anyways, he was able to pick some up for me on the way home, and we were able to finish making the batter before heading out to McDonald's for a MOPS play date. There were a lot of moms there that morning, and it was fun for the boys to run around and play. Aedan must have been really hungry because he devoured his entire kid's meal, and they even gave him fries that we didn't order. I got a sausage muffin sandwich for Owen because I figured he would enjoy that more than chicken nuggets or anything like that, and he ate it pretty well. Then, we went straight from McDonald's to dropping Aedan off at preschool and then back home to put Owen down for a nap.

Fridays are nice because Ben doesn't teach. He still goes to campus to work and grade, but he is more flexible. For example, this afternoon he was able to come home early so that I could go get my hair cut. It had gotten too long and was bothering me, so I decided it was time to cut it back to shoulder length again. I then had a little bit of time before I had to pick up the kids so I picked up our quilt from the dry cleaners and stopped at Ace Hardware to buy and ax so we could chop our wood into smaller pieces so it would be easier to get a fire going.

I always breathe a sigh of relief on Friday nights come. Weeks seem long and busy, and this semester has been killer for Ben. This particular Friday night we had tickets to a Laker hockey game. We tried taking Owen to a game awhile back, and it didn't work so well, but I think it was mainly because he was tired. However, on this day he took a really long nap, and we actually had to wake him up so that he could eat dinner. Because of that, he was in a really good mood that evening, and he did so well at the game. For the first period, he was pretty happy hanging out on our laps and watching the game. He was very interested in watching the players skate back and forth and seeing the players use their sticks. (He is always trying to play with Aedan's hockey stick in the house at home.) After the first period we got up to walk around and let the kids get some wiggles out before stopping to get a snack and going back to our seats. We sat up one row higher so that we could contain Owen a little bit better with Ben and I sitting on opposite sides and the kids in the middle. This actually worked really well because he couldn't escape through the bars like he could in the front row, and he happily walked back and forth and climbed up on the seat as well. It obviously wasn't as relaxing as going to a game without Owen, but it worked out pretty well, and it was better than having to pay for a babysitter or miss half of the game because I stayed home to put him to bed. Here are some pictures of us hanging out at the game. :)

Owen just can't help but dance when he hears music, no matter where he is, and I love it. :)

Early in the game, a puck came flying out over the glass and net, and Samantha was able to run and get it. She got to keep it and was so proud of herself. She wanted us to take a picture of her with it. (She kept this puck in her pocket for days after getting it at this game.)

I especially like this action shot with the hockey player in the background.

Here's Owen hanging out on Daddy's lap after we all finished our snacks.

Towards the end of the game, Aedan was getting tired and wanted to sit on my lap, so I took advantage of him sitting with me to get a picture of the two of us together. I love this little 4 1/2 year old boy. He's getting bigger and older looking, but he's still more than willing to sit on my lap and snuggle.

Since LSSU was losing, we decided to leave after the second period was over, but we still got the kids to bed almost two hours later than usual. They didn't sleep in much on Saturday morning, but that was okay, as we didn't have too many big plans that morning. We spent some time just hanging out together, letting the kids have free time to play, and even going over to the Norris Center for a little while so Ben and I could work out while Samantha and Aedan ran around and played with balls on the basketball court.

That afternoon we had plans to watch the Grundmeier girls while their parents went out shopping and just had some time to themselves. They watched our kids for us a few weeks ago, and I wanted to make sure we could return the favor and watch theirs as well. All the kids get along so well, and they started off playing inside together in Samantha's and Aedan's rooms before the big kids went outside to play in our back yard. The two younger girls stayed inside, and Owen was asleep the whole time, so it really was pretty easy. Samantha and Aedan loved having kids over to play, and it's great to do a babysitting swap with another family, helping to save on paying for a babysitter, too. We will definitely have to do this more. :)

After dinner that night, our family went over to the Norris Center again for a faculty/staff Christmas party. The kids got to decorate and eat Christmas cookies, make a fingerprint reindeer ornament as well as a Christmas tree ornament, and also play some games.

And just because I'm a nerd and we are proud of our successful fire now that we have an ax to chop the wood smaller and are letting it dry out before using it. I got upstairs from putting Owen down for bed, and Ben already had a nice fire going in the fireplace. I'm so glad that we can get more use out of our fireplace this year. I love the ambiance and smell from a wood-burning fireplace. It makes for a warm, relaxing, comforting way to spend an evening once the kids are in bed and all the house is calm and quiet.

(Blog about November 25-December 1, 2018)