The 23rd

I bet you are reading this blog entry just because my title was so catchy that you couldn't wait to see what it was about. Well, it truly is about the 23rd (and the 22nd.) Yesterday morning we all attended Alyssa's violin concert, then last night we took the kids to a live nativity at a nearby church. Elijah was particularly enamored with the goats; it made me look forward to having goats again one day.

Now on to the 23rd -

This morning we dressed the kids in their Christmas attire to attend JD's work children's Christmas party. They get a turn to receive a gift from Santa, do some crafts and eat pizza. It's one of the Christmas traditions that they look forward to.

Here's "the little girls" before we left -

And "the boys" -

The kids are called up in random order for their gift. Julia was very first this year and Elijah looked shocked and yelled, "he talks" when he realized that Santa was talking to Julia. Oh, the miracle of Christmas when you are two...


Amazingly, Elijah actually sat on Santa's lap when it was his turn. Elijah hardly goes to anyone, so I would have never though that he would go near Santa, much less sit on his lap.


Ben was almost very last and patiently waited though an hour of names being called. He and Santa had a nice conversation about football though.


After the party, I took the older kids and did the final Christmas food shopping trip and random errand. Gabriel wanted to drive, so he dropped me off at the Post Office to buy stamps. When I came out, he was parked at the far, far end of the lot. As I hiked to the car, he, Alei, Moriah and Alyssa hung out the windows taking pictures of me with their phones like they were the Paparazzi. Oh, it's nice to have teens to keep you on your toes!


Here are a few other noteworthy 23rd happenings. Hunter, our cat, likes coffee. He patiently dipped and licked his paw in the mug for quite some time as we put groceries away. Thankfully, he only likes it cold, so your coffee is safe as long as it's hot.

When we picked up our P.O. Box mail today, Alei received this in the mail from "American Apparel." It is a huge red t-shirt with the neck and sleeves cut off. Neither of us ordered anything from the company, nor can we figure out why anyone would ever order such an item! American Apparel had it addressed to Alei and spent $5 on shipping - go figure. Merry Christmas Alei!

A final 23rd note is that Elijah has taken a liking to the story, "Baa Baa Black Sheep." The way the book is drawn has him convinced that Black Sheep is actually a cow, but that's not my point. This morning at breakfast, Tori and Julia were singing the nursery rhyme to him. They got to the point that says, "one for my master, one for the dame and one for the little girl that lives down the lane." They kept singing, "one for my master, one for my..." and couldn't figure out the word "dame." Tori hummed and thought and came up with, "one for my master and one for my pastor," and she and Julia sung several rounds, happy with solving the mystery of the nursery rhyme.