One day we painted. Specifically, Ruby painted Christmas trees and Hazel painted rainbows. Ruby finally grasped the idea of “ish”. She made a greenish tree, needed cleanish water, blueish sky, etc. These little breakthroughs just tickle me.

The Taylor’s invited the girls over on a brisk December morning. So I got to spend some one-on-one time with my favorite boy! He is the best little buddy. He is happy with his blankie and a book in the car and likes watching the other cars pass out the window. He helped me take the groceries out of the cart when we checked out, and was endless smiles and high-fives around the store. On our drive home I was listening to a podcast but had a tugging at my heart to unplug and just be with my boy. So we sang If you’re happy and you know it all the way home. Complete with claps and “wooohooo”s. I was smiling so big my cheeks hurt. My favorite part is the slight delay when I sang, “shout hooray!”……. Levi- “….wooohhoooo!” Smiling ear to ear.

Levi was asking to go down for a nap after we got the girls back. I gave him a big squeeze and patted his back and he put his head on my shoulder and patted my back. The girls were not so easily convinced to sleep.

I need to take a shower so I asked them to please stay in their room, and that I did not want to see any little girls while I was in the shower. Ten minutes later Ruby was in my bathroom to inform me that Hazel was poopy. “Hazel will have to wait,” I said through conditioner filled hair.

After the dirty diaper issue was remedied I sat reading my new book Jojo gave me and I listened to the noisy chattering in their room. But chatting turned to fighting, which turned to screaming, (I paused reading my book to see if it would resolve itself), which turned to yelling bloody murder- at which point I entered stage right. Both girls were on the top bunk. Ruby was pinning Hazel down and was crying buckets of tears as Hazel had her sisters finger clenched in her teeth. Long story short- Ruby was egging Hazel on in their game of pretend and Hazel didn’t want whatever Ruby was offering but Ruby wouldn’t take no for an answer. So Ruby pushed the teasing too far and pinned her and Hazel fought back with her teeth. And let me tell you what, I am amazed that Hazel didn’t draw blood with those wicked teeth marks she left on Ruby’s hand.

I separated the wild animals from each other. And then started at Hazel, “Hazel, you never have the right to hurt your sister ever.” And this is the point in my mom head of what to do for a consequence? Because you can’t start off by saying “you never have the right to hurt someone” and then follow up with spanking them. That teaches nothing. So I remembered something I read from The Crum Sisters, and I told Haze she had to first apologize to Ruby, then she had to do some service for Ruby. I decided on she had to clean up their room of the mess they made together. Hazel said she was sorry, but was not thrilled about the chore. I didn’t help her but I sat and cheerleadered her through it. Then I got them snuggled cozy together on the couch to watch an episode of Magic School Bus.

Downtown there is a special mailbox for Santa, so we wrote our letters and dropped them off for the big guy. So I asked the girls what to put on their Christmas lists

Ruby- Dear Santa, I want a ballerina box (music box with dancing ballerina inside), a mini backpack, and a stick pony (hobby horse), I promise to be good for the rest of my life. I am nice and kind and I really like presents. Love, Ruby.

Hazel- Dear Santa, I want a mini backpack, a stick pony, and a chicken. Love, Hazel. (The chicken part was totally new to me as she was dictating her letter)

We spent some seriously fun times with our friends the Barry’s. One of the afternoons at their house, Meg and Kenneth were going to help me orchestrate getting my car to the shop with three small kids but Kenneth ended up solving the problem when he had to jump my car. #Win! So instead of going to the shop, we made cookies. Hazel insisted on wearing eye protection before she would participate in said cookie making.

It was a very Barry Christmas and other festivities included a homemade pizza night, nerf gun battle to the death (12 single shot guns, a dozen pairs of safety goggles, and literally a thousands rounds of ammo), a giant coloring book page, the best Texas toboggan sledding and the loudest round of The 12 Days of Christmas possibly ever. We love that Barry family.

Getting everyone dressed up in red and green for Christmas Sunday makes my heart happy. Marc sang a beautiful solo of Away in a Manager. And few things are sweeter than hearing Ruby sing her little heart out with the rest of the congregation to Silent Night. One of my favorite scriptures lists the names of Jesus in Isaiah, “and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”

Here’s the girls with Charity. The Simonsen family is just the best and the ages of our three kids line up perfectly. We had a super fun Christmas movie and pj party all together. We watched Elf but the kids started loosing interest half way through, so we switched to an episode of Bluey and all played in the toy room.

Other highlights include: shopping for Christmas gifts

And lots of just playing together