Chad in CA

What a busy week it has been. I always forget how crazy December is, with all the shopping, running of errands, decorating, etc. I love this time of year, but boy is it hectic! The good news is that I'm pretty much finished with Christmas shopping - just one or two small things to grab and some things to mail. I've also purchased about everything I need for all the various holiday parties we are attending over the next few weeks - those parties are more work than Christmas!Toys for Tots donations, food pantry donations, appetizers for parties, books for the kids to receive as party gifts (yep, I have to buy and wrap multiple books for my children to receive at various parties), the list goes on. Plus, I'm hosting a yankee swap at my house tomorrow night, so I had to clean the house and buy various supplies for that. Wow, what a lot of errands I have run lately!

Chad left this morning for CA for his grandfather's funeral. I wish we could have made it work for all of us to go together, but I know that he'll enjoy the time with his brother and uncle. Usually we always get our Christmas tree the weekend after Thanksgiving, but since Chad is gone this year, we actually got the tree yesterday afternoon, when Chad got home from work. It was kind of nice, actually, because the farm was so quiet as compared to the weekends. We decorated the tree this morning before taking Chad to the airport. I tell ya, decorating a tree with a 4 year old and 2 year old and many delicate and fragile ornaments is a real challenge! I think I finally convinced them to be gentle with the ornaments, but then they pretty much just wanted to hang everything in the same small area of the tree... I had to introduce them to the concept of spreading the ornaments all around. Anyway, it looks beautiful now! We also hung the stockings, but we still have a bunch of other little decorative items to unpack.

I just wanted to say, for the record, that my kids have been screaming, whining, and or plain old crying the entire time that I've been writing this. Makes it hard to concentrate. I would say that 95% of the time, "quiet time" is a huge success in our house. Not so much today. The boys are both tired... the trip to AZ and the time change has really thrown them off. Parker took a couple hours to fall asleep last night (I think he got too used to my singing him to sleep in AZ, which is pretty much the only way to get him to sleep in strange places. Sure, for 2.5 years he's been going to sleep fine on his own... 5 days of singing to him, and all of a sudden he cries when we put him to bed? Hours of crying, may I add), and then Brandon was up from 3am -4am for reasons only he fully understands, but during that time he got out of bed a good 7-8 times to hang out in front of our door either crying or calling our names. So that was a long way of trying to explain why I think they might be so cranky today. Plus, I think they are a little off because they didn't want to say goodbye to their Daddy. I've really had enough of them this week though, which is unfortunate because it's just me and them solo for the next 5 days. Yikes. No weekend for me this week! I also might be admittedly a little cranky because I seem to have picked up the cold that the kids were starting to come down with at the end of our AZ trip. And to top it off, I have to take Cranky 1 and Cranky 2 to a huge MOMS Club holiday party this afternoon, which will have literally over 120 moms and kids running around, but somehow I have to keep track of them while I also meet and greet by the door. Luckily, I'll know pretty much everyone there, so I know they can't get in too much trouble!

I joined my gym from last winter this week, which will tide me over until my new gym opens in late January. It's actually kind of nice to be back at the gym, just for the change in routine. Of course, by March, I'll be dying to get out of there! I like being on the treadmill though because it conditions me to run consistently at a fast pace. I just have to once a week haul my self out onto the icy tundra of the local streets for an outdoor run so that I can maintain my strength and speed on hills. I found last year that changing the incline on the treadmill really doesn't prepare you that well for outdoor running. I have never taken the kids with me to the gym (to the childcare/playroom area) because I always go before they get up in the morning. But, I'm going to try it out with Parker a couple times while Chad is gone since it's the only way I can work out. I'll drop Brandon off at school and then head to the gym with Parker. Hopefully, he'll be okay with that. I know he'd be fine there with Brandon, but I can't really ever recall Parker being anywhere alone before. It will be a little experiment.

Update: my children seem to have recovered and are actually somewhat quietly playing together. Maybe I will survive the day!