Christmas Countdown

Putting up the tree: three weeks to go.

The ornaments are no longer so evenly spaced.  They are all clumped on the top third.  It's a good look.

The kids had to check the blog to see who's turn it was to put the angel on.  Libby also realized she was wearing the same shirt as last year.

Making gingerbread houses: two weeks to go.

Libby was kind enough to take pictures of the finished houses as I got distracted.  I didn't manage a single picture of the decorating process.

Everyone down with the flu: one week to go.

Hanging the stockings: just 12 more hours.

 And now all the children are tucked in their beds, ready for Christmas morning.

I'm a Princess!

Work Christmas Party/Winter Garden Aglow

Friday we shed the homeless look and and went to Michael's work party. 

 

I had a white Christmas tree growing up.  It never, ever looked this good.  I always wondered what possessed my mother to buy a white tree.  I guess she had visions of a tree that looked like this.  Alas, she had seven kids that may or may not have used the branches for sword fights in the warmer months.

Look at that.  A picture with the whole family and all the kids are even looking at the camera and not making weird faces.  Now if only Michael wasn't squinting.

Then we went next door to Winter Garden Aglow.  It was magical.  Or it could have been, but we have kids.  Instead there was a constant refrain of "I'm cold!" - um, you might want to put your hat and gloves back on.  Then, "Can we come back when it's light?" - that sort of defeats the purpose.  "I'm tired, I want to go to bed." - Arggg!

The view from above.  Don't we look happy.

We did see Santa's reindeer Prancer.  That was exciting.  Sam kept pointing and proclaiming, "It's a moose!"  We also learned that all Santa's reindeer are female, as the males lose their antlers in the fall.  (Insert comment about women doing all the work and men getting all the credit here)

We also saw Santa!  Of all my children Ethan was the only one willing to sit with Santa.  So glad I waited in line 10 minutes so Sam could sit on Santa's lap and proceed to scream at the top of his lungs and the girls could refuse to go within 15 feet of the man.  Santa is terrifying!

We finished the evening with hot chocolate and cider.  The kids were more than happy to crawl into their warm beds when we got home.  Maybe we should drag them out in the cold more often.

What I'm Thankful For

I'm thankful for the end of November.  Michael finally got rid of this thing

and went back to this:

Yay for the end of Movember!

Laundry Math

I do a lot of laundry.  Laundry is that one chore I can never get under control.  Actually there are a lot of chores I can't seem to get a handle on but laundry is the worst.

I've taken to washing and drying it all on Monday and folding it all on Tuesday.  This leads to mountains of clean clothes in the laundry room making it impossible to fully open the laundry room door.  By the end of Monday I am climbing onto a pile of clothes to empty the washer, and have to send part of that mountain into the hallway to open the dryer door.  I'm sure there is a better system out there, and I've tried plenty, but this is the only system I have found that even vaguely works for me.

So one day in the midst of my laundry pile I started counting.  If each kid wears a full outfit a day that amounts to two socks, underwear, shirt, and pants; five pieces of laundry per day per child.  Now sometimes they don't always change certain articles of clothing without express urging but it evens out with the days Grace changes her shirt four times.

So each day the kids create roughly twenty pieces of laundry.  Plus PJ's.  Let's say one piece per child, per day.  That takes into account footie pajamas, and two piece pajamas, and the occasional just underwear night.  So that brings my daily total up to 24 pieces of laundry from the children each day.

Michael and I also wear clothes (big shocker, I know).  That adds roughly another 10 items a day.  So now we are at 34 pieces of laundry, per DAY.  Multiply that by 7 days in a week and you get 238 pieces of laundry a week.  This is on a good week when no one has any accidents, no one pukes on anything, no one is playing in the kitchen sink and ends up soaking wet and needs a dry outfit.  Okay, so we don't have good weeks.  This also doesn't include the 15 or so wash rags and kitchen towels nor the same quantity of hand towels and wash cloths.  Let's not forget bath towels and sheets.  All these add at least 50 more items.  So all together we dirty 288 items in a perfect week with no extra laundry.  288.  That is crazy.  No wonder I can never get laundry caught up.  I spend all day Tuesday folding ALMOST 300 items.

I hate laundry.