We've been busy during this Christmas Break. With Grace home from school, I've been trying to come up with enriching activities for her. So far, we've made foam Gingerbread men, styrophoam ball bugs, and she's been busy practicing her gift wrapping. She just takes whatever she can find and wraps it up! On Christmas morning, I have a feeling we'll have a few surprises. She tried to wrap up a pile of ripped up paper the other day. I told her that probably wouldn't work -- that she'd have to find something hard and solid to wrap. She has.
Matthew has been in fine form. He has broken several of our creations, keeps feeding the dog balogna, keeps stealing flashlights because it's funny when the dog runs around trying to bite the light, and I've had to glue one of our Nativity Scene Joseph's head back on three times.
Grace and Joey are busy teaching each other about money. Their conversations have been pretty cute. They frequently exclaim "Whoa!" when they find a particularly neat one.
I ate lunch with Joey today at school for the first time this year. Eric came along, and so did Grace and Matt. It was very interesting to see Joey in his element. Ben said that he's like the Godfather around there. Everybody knows where Joey is, what he's doing, where he's going, and makes sure he approves of everything they do. We got there a little early, and Joey wanted to introduce Eric to his class. Everybody stopped to listen and give Joey their undivided attention (something I thought I'd never see in a Kindergarten classroom). Joey said, "This is my uncle Eric. He lives in New York. And when he got there, he got sick and went to the hospital. He was there for a long time." Eric was very pleased with Joey's unique introduction of him. Then, Joey lead us down to the lunch room before the rest of his class. We all sat down, and the lunch ladies kept coming over to see how Joey was doing. It was obvious that they converse with him on a regular basis, as they came and talked to him about their little "inside stories". Then, as his class began to file in, the other kids started taking their seats. But nobody would sit right next to Joey, and we heard a few comments among them about how that is Brekklyn's chair. A few other little kids came by and longingly looked at the chair as if they wanted to sit there, but nobody dared. Well, turns out Brekklyn sat at a whole other table (which doesn't happen very often, of course). But it wasn't until a lunch lady finally gave some poor soul permission, that another kid finally took the royal seat next to Joey. Very interesting lunch. We learned a lot. Eric was confused as to what was happening the whole time. He's glad he's not in elementary school anymore -- too stressful for him.
I've been busy, too -- catching up on housework that I didn't get done last week because I was too busy with church stuff. Please tell me I'm not the only one who does this: (and yes, I am glaring at Ben for taking so many pictures of me being "crazy")
Ben took the kids on his annual "Get The Kids Up Early On Christmas Eve So They'll Go To Bed At A Reasonable Hour That Night" 6 AM breakfast/shop for Mom's present day. They had a blast, and really enjoyed eating breakfast in a restaurant. They are so excited to be served by somebody besides their mother. And to think -- other people actually get PAID to do that!
It was such a beautiful day, and we really did want to wear out the kids as much as possible, so we took them to our favorite sledding hill and had a blast. Matt didn't want to leave, but the others were "starving" after a good half hour of fun, so we headed back home for naps and lunch.
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