I take it back

Apparently, putting the gifts under the tree sooner than Christmas Eve would not work. :) I'm basing this off of the drama currently happening in my front room as Micah literally pounds the floor in a mock tantrum demanding that I tell him what's in the presents. Hee hee.

To be fair, I'm kinda mean. (See last Christmas) I find it much more entertaining to *not* label the gifts traditionally. 

This year, three of the piles are labeled with character names from three of the boys' favorite shows...with no indication as to which boy goes with which pile (or even if the piles should stay together). The rest are all labeled with seemingly random numbers...like 47, 48, 49, 7, 8, 9 and so on. I have given them the following hints:

• Asher is not Tony.
• Micah's will be the easiest to sort out.
• Gifts with numbers in the 20s are from Asher...in the 30s are from Micah and in the 50s are from Noah. (Yeah, that's what you get if you don't wrap the gifts to your brothers yourselves, so there, lol.)

This has not appeased the boys. ;) 

Bwaaahahaaaa!

Late night "night before Christmas Eve" thoughts...

1. My cards and packages are all in the mail! (The packages actually went out early last week, so I'm totally good.) 

2. I'd like to point out that my cards are NEW YEAR'S cards, not Christmas cards. They have been for years, as they generally wish you a happy or lovely or joyous coming year. So. They're not late. Ha. :)

3. Do you give gifts to your neighbors? According to Pinterest, everyone does, lol. Just curious if that's true in real life. ;) We always have...but only the nine or so neighbors that we actually know and talk to somewhat regularly. I really love our neighborhood, though some years the extra work of putting together neighbor gifts is just one more thing, kwim? 

4. To that end, I *had* a plan for this year. But, in the end, we reevaluated our time and such and went with an old standby recipe that was easier. Got half of them delivered in the wind this morning...will try for the rest again tomorrow.

5. Growing up I remember there always being gifts under the tree throughout the holiday season...more were added as they were wrapped. Traditionally, for us, I end up not wrapping things till the last few days and then putting everything for the boys under the tree at once. (When they were younger, this was partially to keep boys from opening things early, lol.) What do you do?

6. I'd really like to put things under the tree sooner from now on. Gonna work on that. :)

7. Is it just me, or do there seem to be more movies in the theater that I actually want to see than normal right now? :) 

Feeling incredibly blessed this year and less stressed than normal. If I've completely forgotten something, please don't tell me. ;)

Little Shop of Physics

According to a quick glance through my records, it had been more than five years (wow, time flies!) since we'd been to the Little Shop of Physics event with our homeschooling group. I didn't realize it had been so long. (Oops, lol.) In any case, we signed up to go this year and even Noah joined us since he's out of school and there was the promise of food following the function. ;)

This wasn't their big open house event...just time set aside for our group to wander their four rooms packed with experiments. (We prefer this, as it's not such a mad house and the boys actually get time on each of the things.) Kids get to try out everything on their own, with signs explaining the science behind the experiment at each station and volunteers always available to step in and help. Here's Micah and Asher in the magnet room:

And here's Noah being polite and listening to a volunteer tell him about this experiment (even though Noah fully understood all the experiments and asked me why the volunteers kept offering to explain things to him, lol):

(Personally, I think the volunteers were stoked for the opportunity to talk science with someone who probably would understand it rather than just think it looked cool, lol.)

The boys are all old enough now that I pretty much just let them do their own thing throughout the rooms while I visited with other moms instead. Everyone wins. And then we got food. ;)

Encore

So, after Micah's last foray into ice skating, he decided we should all go. :) Last night, then, we headed out to the Centerra Ice Rink again...which was much busier than the last time Micah and I were there (practically alone), as it turned out to be a free night, unbeknownst to us. Still. It was pretty fun. 

Yes, Nathan was deliberately pulling on Noah. :) (Noah, btw, would like to point out that taller people apparently have a more difficult time with ice skating due to their higher center of gravity, lol.)

This was actually Asher's very first time ice skating (he missed out when his brothers were initially introduced to it due to his broken arm) and it went okay. We managed to snag one of the assister things (like a big plastic walker on the ice) about half way through our time and that made a big difference to his happiness. :) By the end, he was back to trying on his own...not nearly as steady as Micah but keeping up somewhat with Noah. (Micah was skating about two or three laps to his brothers' one...which helps explain why he's still excited about going back, lol.) 

Regardless of speed, though, a good time was had by all. :)

No lines

Score another point for homeschooling! :) With Noah out a week earlier than the other local schools and Asher and Micah still homeschooling, we hit Old Town today just after lunch to see Santa...with absolutely no lines. Woohoo!

Here's our picture:

Noah actually put up considerably less of a fight than last year (he acknowledged ahead of time that he'd cooperate since the younger two would just badger him until he joined in anyhow, lol), and we were all just thrilled to get in out of the cold. :)

The younger two were quite efficient in their list-sharing with Santa and I love how easy the Old Town Santa station makes things. (I always just buy the picture on CD.) Asher was a bit distraught that I wouldn't let him take the candy cane from Santa (thanks, braces!) but Micah thought it was awesome, as he ended up with two. ;p

And that was our annual Santa visit.