The Last of Christmas

Usually we don't buy our kids very much candy for Christmas.  They are so inundated with treats during the season, I can't justify buying them much more.  Sometimes, though, a person just has to live a little.  Michael and I saw this huge chocolate bar at Trader Joe's and couldn't help but imagine the Christmas morning delight.  The kids were pretty excited, but then it got set aside as we ate other treats.

Six days before Valentine's Day, we finally broke into the giant bar.

The bar even comes with a disclaimer.  I laughed.

Sam did not.  He discovered the disclaimer was accurate after it slipped from its cardboard container onto his toes.

Unwrapping the candy, we discovered it wasn't unscathed, either.  He imprinted the bar with his toes.

 Perfect sized candy bar!

We may finish it by Easter.

Royalty

 Grace asked for a piece of yellow paper.  Next thing I knew there was a well-dressed royal court in my living room. 

Grace wanted me to participate.  I was doing homework.  Then they told me I just needed to put on my red shoes to be the queen.  So I dressed up my outfit of yoga pants and hoodie with some stylish shoes.  And continued to read the chapter I was working on.

Even the dog was pressed into service as the guard dog.  Not a bad way to pass a rainy day.

Stylish

Grace usually wears her hair in one long braid to minimize tangles.  Occasionally, she will let me do a french braid, or two braids.  That's as creative as she is willing to be and only on special occasions.  Today she requested this hairstyle, adamantly. 

I decided to humor her (and add a little humor to my day as well).

Buried

So much snow.  Michael is dedicated to riding his bike year-round, although there are usually about a half dozen times each year he rides the bus due to bad roads.  He rode his bike in to work a week and a half before Christmas.  As of today, February 6th, it is still there.  The snow and ice have buried our city and made bike riding a treacherous, fool hardy endeavor.  He is hoping to finally ride it home today!

Ethan and Libby also had seven snow days this year.  I wasn't sure our Christmas break would ever end.  One or two snow days is fun, but not being able to schedule anything starts to stress everyone out pretty quickly.  The snow was beautiful though.

This was our road.  Thankfully, our minivan did really well in the snow, but not everyone was so lucky.  It started to feel like our new family hobby was pushing people out of the snow.  We got pretty good at it, too.

Right now, though, I'm loving my muddy, slushy, slimy front yard.  It might not be as pretty as the snow, but I find it beautiful. Mud means melting snow and above-freezing temperatures!

Honesty

I'm not always (or often) the sweet, soft spoken, mom I long to be.  I've been stressed with all the snow days and my current semester of college.  Shuffling everything to make sure I can also do schoolwork has stretched me.  One Friday, Grace refused to go to her homeschool classes, so I missed my precious 4.5 hour homework time.  I was not gracious.  I may have had a mini nervous breakdown.  When I crawled into bed that night, after a very long day, I found these notes:

Grace's stated, "I'm sorry I shouldn't of (have) done that and ruined your schedule.  Please forgive me."  I felt like a bad, crappy mom.  Mom guilt is real.

Then I read Sam's card. "Please calm down.  You're just stressing everybody else out." I admire your honesty son, and you are correct.  I'd done enough crying so I decided to just laugh. Really, really hard.