Merry Christmas Eve!

This year Keith has been after me to give him a list of gift suggestions for Christmas. Honestly, all I really want is for him to help me carve some time out of our lives to just relax. I feel as though my job of being a stay-at-home mom is so much more difficult than when I worked. Not to start the arguement of who works harder - moms at home vs. not at home. I mean it in a way that our whole lifestyle is so different now. The kids are older and more active in different things. They want to get out and do stuff. They don't just sit quietly in the grocery store shopping cart anymore, they want to "help" picked out the apples, and then drop them on the ground a few times to give them a good bruising (the apples, not the kids!). There are days where I am so glad that everything is an adventure, and then there are days that I just want to take a break from being Mom for a little while.

Perhaps it's the holiday season to blame for this longing to find some adult time for myself. I've been lucky in the way of going to parties and out to dinner with friends, and it has shown me how much I miss my fun, adult side. So after the twinkling lights are put away, the torn-off wrapping paper has been dropped off at the recycling center, the left-over cookies have been eaten and the thank-you cards have been sent, Keith's job is to gently remind me to relax. I guess I need to hear that it's okay to head out to the gym after the kids go to bed, the dishes can wait. It would be nice if they were done before I got back, but that's just crazy-talk.

So, I went to the gym yesterday after church. Out of habit I went into the parent/tot room to run on the treadmill (our gym has a room with little horse-stall looking areas to corral the tots while the parents use cardio equipment while watching the kids from a safe distance). Once I saw that I was the only person there, I stayed and ran a couple of miles all by myself, no kids fighting over toys, no MP3 player, just the sound of the wind blowing ice up against the window. It was wonderful.

I felt energized enough to take the kids back to church for the Sunday evening service. The service was a Happy Birthday, Jesus party. The kids had a pretty good time and got cake and ice-cream at the end of the party. It was a little surprising to me because there was a lot of running around from kids inside the sanctuary after the service. I was also surprised that cake and ice-cream were served with the intent to eat in the sanctuary. I guess I'll blame my confusion on all those years of going to Catholic churches in my much younger years. So the kids sat on the floor to eat their goodies, as to not make a mess.
Daniel is so cute sporting his sweater-vest that Grandma sent him. We did have a good time, but we probably won't brave another evening service again until they are older. This one ran too close to bedtime.

We woke up to snow, and lots of it!! This morning was beautiful. It is still a little dark in the picture because it was only 8am. As soon as the snow slowed down a bit, I dressed everyone up and we went outside to play. We made snow angels and a snowman. Then the snow turned to rain so we came back in to get warm. We are expecting more snow tonight. I'm so excited! I don't have anywhere to go for another few days, so bring on the snow!