Ready for Christmas

The kids have been looking forward to Christmas since Halloween. Things have slowed down again with fall sports ending and no school. There’s not a lot going on and we don’t go many places. We finish the outside decorations right after Thanksgiving and they were convinced we needed to start right in on the inside decorations. Yesterday Ellie and Clair helped clean the house because they know first come to cleaning before the decorations can come out. David had brought up all of the Christmas decoration bins from the basement up the stairs and so they were very easy access for the girls.

Ellie was quite the little Christmas elf. She did put many things in the places and in the ways that I do them, but then she went on to be creative and insisted every decoration that I have downstairs be used.

We didn’t have time to bake a pie, which is apparently required in this house before decorating the tree, on Sunday. So tree decorating was pushed today. I was lucky to get done work at a reasonable time so I had time to bake the homemade apple pie as well as string 1000 lights onto the tree.

Ellie was extremely helpful with the pie baking as well as making dinner. Without her help I don’t think we would’ve gotten it all done today. 

The kids do really enjoy decorating the Christmas tree. I’m happy that they’ve gotten into the tradition of really appreciating where each ornament came from. They hear me tell the same stories every year and continually ask me mommy do you remember where this ones from? I love that.

This year I saw her let them go through a lot of the decorations themselves. I did hang up several of my most cherished ornaments. The ones I find I cherish the most came from my grandma and grandpa either given to me as a kid or as a hand me down from their Christmas trees. I love the old metal bulbs that have such unique shapes to them. The kids really enjoy that my mom continued the tradition and had given them each a new ornament every Christmas. They like to find them in the boxes and reminisce about when they got them. Ellie has nearly received the entire 12 days of Christmas. She loves putting them all together in one place on the tree. Tonight she even made a video showing the progress of tree decorating. I’m looking forward to seeing that when completed.

I took only about an hour to get all the decorations on. Then it was time for pie. During decorating we listen to Kenny and Dolly sing their Christmas album. I did throw in a little Frank Sinatra Christmas after the third round of Kenny and Dolly CD. 

I do see some of these traditions taking hold in the children’s minds and I am really grateful for that. I started to talk to them about ornaments that I want each of them to have when the time comes. I hope they enjoy this tradition with their children to.

I didn’t take many pictures this year but here are a few that I did crap. Ellie had to help me figure out how to use my phone camera as the settings have changed and I couldn’t find the flash for the past month. Teenagers are great for helping with technology!

13 years of parenting

Today we celebrated Ellie‘s 13th birthday. I think the day worked out almost exactly as Eli wanted. I’m happy that she got to have the day that she wanted at the relaxing pace that she wanted. She decided to open her presents first thing in between enjoying her homemade cinnamon buns. After a lazy morning and her getting present she really really wanted including two big beanbag chairs and AirPods from granny, she started baking the most elaborate cake ever. 

After lunch grandma came for a visit and brought her a cake decorating set that came just in time as she put it. She quickly proceeded to use that to icing the cake and was very proud of the job that she did. His cake was a magnificent heavy sugary peanut butter and chocolate delight. She was very proud of this. 

In the afternoon she got to go for a walk with two friends and play in the trampoline for a while.

She got to have dinner from one of her favorite places, just as she requested. Her daddy dutifully ran off to Frederick to get exactly what she wanted. After dinner and cake, her and I went downstairs to watch a fairly grown-up movie that she had set her eyes on for her 13th birthday. It’s called 5 feet apart. I know it’s time to start letting her grow up and be exposed to more grown-up topics. It is not easy. I know I need to try to embrace it and enjoy it. I always knew I would be a better parent to a young kid than a teenager. Now the teenage years are here and I pray for the strength and wisdom to be a good mom to my teens. I pray I can point then in the right direction to fulfill all God intends them to be. 

I love you Ellie Grey. I’m so proud of you and so very blessed to be your Mom!

These black-and-white photos are some pictures Ellie took of her self on my phone today. It’s interesting to see the way she wants to capture herself.

And here is the cake in the end of our day. 

Birthday countdown

For the past two weeks Kelly has reminded us how many days it was until she turned 13 every day. She has been excited looking forward to her birthday. I know she enjoys gifts gifts. This year she’s also very much looking forward to making her own cake. This is the first year I’ve given him and let her do that. I always said birthday cake making with a mom‘s job. But, that’s what she really wants so I’m giving up my privilege of cake baking for her joy.

She’s already made herself in the family fresh homemade cinnamon buns to start the day with. She has plans for things she wants to do throughout the day as well.

This evening when I was putting her to bed she asked me if the birthday tree would be coming out for her. It was 1015 before I had put Clair to bed and had everybody in their bed. I was exhausted and I told Clair I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to get up and put together all the birthday stuff for Eli. She says mommy you have to get up. I said I was really tired. She looks at me and says “mommy if you’d like I can get up and go take care of it so you can sleep.“ She was serious. She was concerned for her tired mommy and she was concerned for her big sister. She’s super sweet.

So I made my way quickly out of her bed and started wrapping presents, decorating, making sure all birthday birthday traditions were in place. I hope that Eli is happy tomorrow.

As I think about the fact that the baby who made me a mama turns 13 tomorrow I have so many mixed emotions. I wanted to be a mom all my life. I was so excited to have early. The years have flown by. I honestly don’t know where they’ve gone if it weren’t for pictures that remind me. I want them to slow down. I want to spend more time with my kids and appreciate your thinking and their joys and their challenges. My work is really intense and I do not get the pleasure of giving them all that they deserve. I will probably never forgive myself for that. I only hope that they know how much I love them and that they do have positive memories of me spending time with them, and me listening to them, and me loving them.

Ellie is an amazing young lady. She has a heart of gold. She is smart. She is very artsy. She’s very athletic. She’s a great big sister. She’s working hard on being organized. She has a heart for God. She has a heart for those that are weaker and need help. I want her to know how special she is. I want her to know all her wonderful talents. I prayer for her tonight as I put her to bed for God to help me and her always see all the wonderful talents he’s placed in her, and I asked God to please help guide me in guiding her to bring out and recognize and use these talents. I want her to have confidence in how wonderful a person she really is.

I love my Ellie Bean!

Celebrating 13 with friends

During this time of Covid and trying to show some respect for the risk of the virus, I struggle with social interactions even more than normal. We were trying to figure out what we could do to celebrate Ellie turning 13. After much debate we decided to roll the dice and schedule a fall swim party in the new pool for the first weekend in November. I let her invite six friends around and we prayed for sunshine. 

She made special cupcakes and took point on stuffing the pin yada. 

Boy did we get lucky. It was a gorgeous fall day and got almost 80°. We were able to get the pool up to 95°. The girls played games, had a piñata, giggled, and swam. 

Ellie was as happy as could be to get to start her birthday off early celebrating with friends. I’m really grateful that she got to do something with her friends Tamark such a mile stone is turning into a teenager. 

She is now counting down the days to when she turns 13. She’s enjoying a drawn out birthday right now.

All things baby

Recently Clair has shown quite an interest in baby dolls and all things baby. Couple weeks ago she convinced me she wanted to have a bottle of milk in the morning. The past couple days she became fascinated with going for a ride in the stroller. Yes it may be slightly strange that I still have these things around the house, I to still miss the baby days gone by and struggle to give them up.

She’s decided that everything she wants for Christmas stuff to take care of her babies including a twin stroller car seat swings of playground a new baby dolls. She’s asked for diapers and pacifiers and all the things necessary to take care of babies.

Last night when we went outside after dinner to give her a little walk in her stroller, she was so excited. After dusting the stroller off and getting it outside she couldn’t wait to get in and proceeded to try to buckle herself. We pushed her for about 15 minutes and she said it was very relaxing. When we got back she asked about laying down in it and I finally snapped this picture. She is a happy kid and was a happy baby. I’m going to take this as fond memories in the making for her.