The Worlds Busiest Week. Ever.

During the holidays we had the opportunity to stop by Sister Riley's house (Levi's old teacher who is awesome and we miss!) Mostly I was there to drop some stuff off but she is such a sweetheart and immediately invited all three crazy boys in. She had drawers for little ones so Davis thoroughly ransacked it, she showed us her hot chocolate bar and gave the boys some and then took us all up to see their pet turtle. What a fun lady.

I found mom's old initials. One day I'll find mine.....

We were off to Winco to get stuff for a last minute Christmas shop. Davis in his footie pjs, so comfy and keeps him from scratching. Of course the minute we get a few isles in both big boys have to go to the bathroom, EVEN THOUGH I just had them go to the bathroom maybe a half hour before. I swear they have bladders the size of a thimble.

We got some treats for Jason that the boys picked out. Max loved that he got to write the numbers on the tags. How is he old enough to do stuff like this?

And since it was the last trip before Christmas I decided to have the boys pick out their favorite boxed cereal. Normally Santa brings it but I knew I wouldn't  be able to go and I thought they would have a blast picking out their own. Which they immediately did and sprinted off down the isle. Normally we don't do boxed cereal, just bags or off brands. But this time we let them get the sugary ones with prizes in them, whatever they wanted. It's the little things.

Throwing the boys out of the house. That fort is a mess and part of me want to make them clean it out but I know it will be a day before they start dumping the Legos out again. Plus it is a fort. A BOYS fort.

I found some one who makes and sells signs on IG and have worked with her in collaborations. I saw she had this beautiful sign that goes perfectly with the Willow Tree nativity which I have been working on collecting for years. At first I didn't think I would get it before Christmas but she was amazing and had it to me in time. Love it.

My new shredder boy. This is why I had kids.

I also make him put mail in the mail box. I'm all for child labor. He actually usually volunteers for it. House work? No way but any other project he's in.

Going on a drive before watching a couple Santa Claus movies. Davis enjoyed them for the most part but could only watch for short periods of time.

I got these Pj's at the beginning of November. I HAD to. Aren't they cute?

And anytime after a movie during the credits their is always a dance party going on. This time Davis joined in. I love watching them dance!

PS See the vertical blind on the floor? That is #4 for Davis. Punk.

Our cereal picks. Reeses for Jason, Pops for me, Lucky Charms for Davis (and me :), Crunch berries for Levi and Apple Jacks for Max.

Santa ate some cookies

The presents were wrapped and the tree was ready to go. Our tree looks a little Charlie Brown-esque because we could only decorate half and the needles at the bottom would fall off if anyone so much as breathed close to it. But it was our tree and we all loved it.

Stockings were filled. Yes, Davis got a cooking spoon which he loves.

And even Santa left some presents in the sleigh.

So after Jason and I were up late working on things we went to bed and didn't wake up until after 8:30!! The boys actually put on a Christmas movie and let us sleep until Davis woke us up. That was their gift to us I guess, the gift of sleep, which is one of my favorites. While they watched the movie and had cereal they took a peek at their stockings. I love these guys! They didn't seem to mind waiting much. Uhhh I don't think I could have done that as a kid. We never did and would jump all over till every last present was opened.

We decided to take things slow and open things one by one rather than a mad dash at things. I like it better that way and you get to enjoy things longer. I would just see them sometimes when we have every one in my family who are all adults (except when the Whites come to visit) and so they of course have the most presents. Then I would see them open something and it was obvious they wanted to take it out and play with it but would have to be pushed on to the next thing because they had a huge pile to open and I knew some adults had places to be later in the day and so I would still have to push even though I didn't want to. Anyways. I like this way slow and steady where they can pace themselves.

The first things they found were the lego duplos whic I was too tired to wrap. I got a bunch of them this summer and I knew they would love them because they could play with them in the house and I knew Davis would love being able to do legos with them too. They played with those for well over 45 minutes, I almost thought they had forgot about the rest of the presents.

Next Santa got both boys tool kits, with real live tools. Hammers, screw drivers, along with screws, nails, gloves, goggles. Perfect for some boys who like to help their dad with projects. Handy men in the making.

Davis found the Magformers box. He's easy to please.

Levi and his Hero Factory guy!

Mr.Art man and his crayons (they actually both got art stuff, a big set of crayons, colored pencils, paper...)

I love these series of pictures. At first Max looks like he hates what he's going to get, like maybe it's clothing or socks or something. Then he finally sees it's Pete the Cat which is now his new favorite stuffed animal. He loves those books.

Doesn't Jason look amused? Since we took it slow it was more sitting around and hanging while the boys played around.

Eventually he found something to play with, Davis new drum set from Grandma and Grandpa Goodrich. He loves them. And so do all the other boys in the house.

Messy, happy chaos.

Toward 2 or 3 people started to come. I think they liked having us do it this way so that they all could sleep in and didn't have to get to our house at the crack of dawn to see the kids open all their presents. They did save some presents for them downstairs, so it's not like they didn't see some of that kiddy chistmas.

Doesn't Jared and Davis look good together? They totally matched. I am still amazed sometimes at how good Jared handles my kids, even when they are babies. I hope he and Miranda have kiddos of their own, they would make great parents.

Once everyone got there we did a downstairs Christmas with Gram, The Elmores, Goodrich's, The Origional White Kids, my mom and even Barkley sporting his awesome sweater vest.

And like last year Barkely got to open the first gift of Christmas (for the downstairs that is). It was a giant bone which he couldn't wait to grab and run to the garage with.

And all Davis wanted to do was inspect the presents.

I didn't take many pictures but presents were opened by all and Aunt Kate and Aaron brought some party poppers with these fun crowns in them. 

During their visit Jason was also able to take them to a tour of the Nike Campus and have lunch with them. I think they had a fun trip!

 

  Trying to get Max to let me go over his teeth to brush. We still go over because let's face it they're still terrible at it and we don't want to pay all those dentist bills. Anyways. Max decided to set up a dentist chair in the office so I could do it. He loved it. I don't care so long as it gets done and their is no pouting.

Lots of playing happened. Lots.

Oh and I didn't mention it anywhere before but some one secret santa-ed us and gave us a bag with 12 days of Christmas. It was so sweet and the boys absolutely loved it. I have no idea who did it but thank you to whoever was so kind and thoughtful. I try my best to make Christmas fun and special while at the same time having ridiculous amounts of orders coming in which keep me pretty busy. With everything that I do I often feel like I'm not doing all I should to make the holidays special and that I'm doing enough (most of this I know is just me being hard on myself). I loved that they had these to look forward to every day leading up to Christmas. I totally want to do them sometime for some families next year.

After all the kids had gone down Christmas night I made these up. Making something relaxes me from a crazy day and normally I make stuff with my business in mind like how much do the materials cost, would I be able to get everything from one of my suppliers, how long do they take to make, what kind of profit would it be, would it have enough profit margin and is it worth it to make. It's nice just to make things for me and take my time not having to think about all that. I love these ones! I'm not selling them, they are just for fun and for me. So Marry Christmas to me.

The day after Christmas was my dad's birthday and my step mom had set up a big birthday party at Big Al's. Lots of people, lots of food and bowling. I did my best to keep up with Davis because at the bowling ally all he wanted to do was follow around a big spotlight that was all over the place. Everyone had fun though. I didn't really end up bowling but all the boys did. By the end with me trying to keep Davis out of other peoples areas and from trying to eat all their food I just went into our private room (right next to the ally) and shut the doors so he could go crazy while I talked to some people, like my sis and bro.

Max was left out with grandpa because Levi had gotten tired so by the end of the night Max was pretty much the only person on his lane and just kept rolling down ball after ball. He loved it.

And after that. Operation redo office was underway. I seriously have SO. MUCH. STUFF. In this first picture you can actually see carpet which isn't usually the case. I knew I only had Jason to do the floor until New Years so I didn't really go through much of my stuff, I just put everything in the dining room. Between Jason and I we completely filled it. Again. So much stuff.

This reminds me of hoarders. But it was right after my busy season? Is that a good excuse? Not really if it usually looks like that to some degree.

York peppermint patty break. That thing was a big as my hand.

Jason was able to go through a lot of his stuff and do it way faster than me and got some carpet pulled out. So exciting to actually get to paint and get new flooring. We actually never painted that room when we moved in here. When we moved in all of Gram and Grampys stuff were still here. Furniture, clothing, I mean everything. So it was a gradual transition where we didn't really clear out the rooms but just started living in it then gradually moving them out and us in, took over a year to get most of it done.

And while we've painted, de wall papered every other room this room hadn't been painted or patched up and desperately needed it.

So embarrassing. This is all my jewelry making stuff, packaging supplies, mixed with Christmas prep work, primary music and lots of other random crap. Please, no one call hoarders on me. Oh and this is the reason I laugh when people say they have a messy house or room. Hands down I win in that department.