Is This Normal?
The chaos that is the KerbersArchive for oh those kids!
Cookies for Santa
I stayed home from work today with Ben. Emma was finally well enough to go back to Danielle’s, but Ben was still pretty droopy, so we thought one more day home would be good for him. And to be honest, having absolutely no voice made me more than willing to stay home instead of talking to kids all day.
We decided this would be the perfect time to make our cut-out cookies (better known in our house as the Santa cookies because we always leave cut-outs for Santa). Disclaimer: we both washed our hands very well and were careful not to cough around the dough. I was diligent in having Ben cover his mouth and wash his hands several times throughout this process, so if anyone gets a cold after eating our cut-outs, it’s not my fault!
We had a great time, and even though I felt a little guilty doing this when Emma wasn’t home, I knew that I had made things much easier on myself! She will definitely get in on the decorating part, anyway.
We’re hauling them to Florida with us in hopes that Santa (and our family) loves them!
Not just Ems anymore
Unfortunately, Ben is now hacking, too. I had really hoped that maybe we could avoid the whole family getting sick before vacation, but it doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen. Emma did go back to daycare today, and she wasn’t feverish or feeling too badly, but she’s definitely not healthy by any stretch. Her cough is just so bad. And, as I type, I hear Ben coughing as much or more as his sister. 
I’m really hoping that the fever won’t come back for Ems and Ben will avoid getting it at all. Keep your fingers crossed for us!
Poor Ems
Emma barfed again this morning, so she was home from Danielle’s today. The poor little girl had 103° temperature at one point, and she was just so droopy that it really broke my heart. Dave stayed home in the morning, and I came home from work in the afternoon to stay with her. We pumped her full of Motrin and Tylenol trying to keep that stinkin’ fever down. Luckily, she had a really good nap and seemed to be a bit perkier after that. I don’t think it’s anything more than a bad cold, so we’re not planning to go to the doctor anytime soon. Hopefully it will run its course, quickly, though, because she was pretty miserable today.
Fun with Ry Ry
Ryan stayed over last night, and the kids were so excited to see him this morning. Ben wrestled and wrestled with him, and to Ryan’s credit, he just let it happen. It actually brought back so many memories of me playing with Ryan when he was that age. Ben reminds me of him so much. I can still hear Ry Ry shouting, “Wrestle!” as we rolled around on the floor, and then this morning it’s like I was reliving the past as I heard Ben shouting the same thing. It was awesome.
The kids are lucky to have a cousin like Ryan. Although it’s tough having him so much older than Ben & Emma, he really seems excited to be a part of their lives, and they will certainly learn a lot from him. If our kids turn out to be like Ryan, we would be very fortunate parents.
Our first Christmas party
Although seeing Santa would make for a very full day for us, we weren’t done. The Atherton family was having a holiday get-together at Bob & Marla’s in Earlville, so we headed North from State Farm to attend. Ry Ry hadn’t planned on attending, but at the last minute he got a ride over to Normal and hopped in with us. Grandma Judy and Nancy were surprised to see him when we got there. They were both so excited that he came with us, that I think we scored big-time brownie points bringing him! 
The most unfortunate part of the evening was when Emma barfed all over herself while we were eating. I think that she just gagged because she’s been coughing some today, but regardless of why it was pretty gross. Thank goodness we had thrown jammies into the diaper bag…her cute Christmas outfit was covered in vomit and she had to be changed. As usual, she recovered fine, and had a really good time with all the kids. Ben struggled to deal with Digger, Bob & Marla’s dog, most of the night. But a couple of the older kids were big helpers with Ben. Reiss, my cousin Lisa’s 8th grade daughter, finally got Ben to pet Digger a couple of times, and he wasn’t freaking out quite so much when Digger would run by. The poor kid is just scared of dogs, and as much as he doesn’t want to, he just is.
We certainly don’t see that side of my family often enough anymore. It was fun to visit with my cousins and it was definitely great to see Grandma Jane. It had been way too long since we had. She looked great, by the way, and seemed to be pretty coherent tonight. It’s difficult for her when there’s a large crowd, but at least she knew my kids, which was great for me. Even though it made for a very busy day, the party was fun and I was glad we went. It’s nice to keep the family together as much as possible.
Santa!
Today was Santa day, and it pretty much went exactly as I thought it would. About three days ago, Ben started saying that he didn’t want to talk to Santa. You could hear in his voice that he was not going to be talked into this. He did not. want. to talk. to Santa. So Dave and I thought we would have him write a note, and maybe when we got there he’d change his mind. Wishful thinking, but one can always hope.
Just before we were ready to go, I asked Ben to come help me with a note
for Santa. He was way more into the Christmas show we had on, and really didn’t even want to do it, but I insisted, and he finally half-heartedly dictated to me. He even signed his own name, although I’ve seen him write it so much better before. Like I said, he was very distracted by his show. I got Emma all dressed up in her Christmas outfit and she loved it. In direct contrast to Ben, she was dancing all over the kitchen and was so excited to go. We were all set. Ryan ended up coming with us, because we were going to a family Christmas party afterwards and he was riding with us. So off we went to State Farm to see the big guy himself.
When we got there Ben started in right away insisting that he didn’t want to talk to Santa. 
I tried to get a few pictures of the kids at all of the photo spots while Dave was in line, but as usual both of them were pretty wild running to each one like maniacs. At least I got one very cute shot at the fireplace, though, so I was relatively happy with that. That atrium is a crazy place on Santa Day, so I can’t really expect them to be calm when they’re so excited and around lots and lots of other wild kids.
Finally we were next in line. Ben was behind me and didn’t even want to hand his letter to Santa, so I finally convinced him to hand it to the elf who was helping. After that, he hid behind me the entire time…most of it with his head buried beneath my sweater. Meanwhile, Emma walked right up, sat on Santa’s lap
, told him she wanted “a toy” and then posed for her picture beautifully. She loved it! Santa did read Ben’s note while we were still standing there, so at least Ben was pleased to know that Santa knew where to leave his gifts.
I shouldn’t say that I knew exactly what would happen with Santa, because Emma actually surprised me. I figured as soon as she actually got close to Santa she would chicken out, too. I should have known she would talk to him, though. She told me she would do it, and when that little girl makes her mind up about something, not much changes it!
Making treats
One of my favorite Christmas traditions is making Christmas cookies and candy. Now it’s something I look forward to even more since both of the kids love to help. Tonight we started with something very easy, the circle pretzel treats. In case you’re not familiar with these, it’s a very simple recipe…you lay circle pretzels out on a cookie sheet, put one Rolo or Hershey Kiss (I really like the candy cane kisses) inside it, pop it in the oven for a very short time, top each one with a Christmas colored M&M to squish it down into the pretzel, and then let them cool. They are super simple, super cute, and very yummy.
Both Ben and Emma were very serious about helping. Basically all they did was unwrap candy and set it in the pretzels, but it was enough for them. They were super excited. Shockingly, though, the next night after dinner, neither one of them really liked the treat they got for dessert. Go figure…my crazy kids!
I’m sure we’ll make much more before we’re done, but it was definitely fun and helped me get into the Christmas spirit even more tonight!
Home daycare day
Sadly, Danielle has been sick the last two days, and hasn’t been able to watch our kids. Yesterday Grandma Kerber was able to sit for us, which was a huge help. Today, though, I stayed home from school to watch the kids. Ali and AJ’s mom Addie was in a bit of a bind, so I told her that she could bring her kids over here, too. So technically, I was operating a home daycare at the house today.
The day started at 6:40. Ali & AJ arrived while my kids were having their breakfast, and they had brought theres along, so they were all up at the table eating together when Dave came downstairs to leave for work. “You’re crazy,” he said. “Good luck!!” With that and a couple of kisses good-bye, he was out the door and I was left completely outnumbered by toddlers. I was confidant that I could do this, but I wasn’t sure how easy it would be.
Actually, I was very pleasantly surprised. The kids entertained each other very well. There was no meltdown from Ben when I said that we were turning off the TV after breakfast. They all went downstairs and just played, played, played. AJ especially loved it down there, because there are so many cars, trucks and tractors that he could drive around. The big kids were excited to play up in Ben’s room for a while. It cracked me up to listen to them chatting away up there through the monitor. Just before lunch I did turn on “Merry Madagascar”, a Christmas cartoon we taped the other night, so I could fix everything. And after lunch, the big kids must have been re-energized because they were all crazy! By that time poor AJ was so tired that he just wanted to go to bed.
But…we had to stay up until it was time for Ben to go to preschool. We all loaded up in the van (which was NOT an easy job, let me tell ya) and headed to Tomorrow’s Promise. I met Addie’s mom there to drop off Ali & AJ, and Ems and I took Ben into class. After he was settled we headed home so Emma could take her nap. By 1:30 it was actually silent in the house, and let me tell you I was very thankful for this.
I’ve always known that I am not the stay at home Mom type, but the occasional day home with the kids is kind of fun. However, I now know that there is absolutely no way I could ever be a daycare provider in my home. I did it for 6 hours and I thought I may lose it a couple of times. My plans for getting laundry done, my Christmas cards stuffed and stamped, and dinner made were all dashed because I was so busy keeping peace and keeping the kids entertained. And that was with the kids all being mostly well-behaved! (When I say mostly, I mean that Ben and I had to have a few “talks” throughout the morning…the other three were all very well-behaved!) Anyway, I guess a day of perspective is good for us all. We’ve always appreciated Danielle, but right now that appreciation is at an all time high!
The finished product
I’ll admit that I was worried about decorating the tree this year. The kids were so excited to help and I knew they’d go at it full force with no regard to ornament placement at all. Anyone who knows me knows that this would be difficult for me. I love decorating the tree, and part of that is finding the perfect spot for each ornament. But when you’re two or four, it’s all about getting as many ornaments on the tree as quickly as possible in an area you can reach. Obviously we have very different approaches, which is a challenge.
Happily, though, I found that I could relax and let the kids hang their ornaments wherever they wanted. We had so much fun sorting through all of the ornaments…each one bringing back so many memories. The kids especially liked seeing the ones with pictures of them as infants. Emma couldn’t quite understand that the cute little baby was her. We kind of worked as a team…Dave was at the tree helping and I was at the ornament box pulling things out a little more carefully than they would have. As they hung more and more (most of them on the same few branches, of course) 
we all just had more and more fun. I will admit that we had to move several of the ornaments to other branches later, but the kids didn’t really notice, so they were satisfied and proud that they did it all by themselves. It was so awesome to watch them have so much fun doing this. I was happy I could let them!
We had such a great time, and we ended up with a gorgeous tree again.
The perfect tree
The kids and I got home from Sycamore this afternoon, and as soon as we did we all headed to Growing Grounds to get our Christmas tree. 
It’s nice tree shopping there, since all of the trees are inside their greenhouse. But today was warm and sunny outside anyway, so no matter where we were going, it was a great day to buy a Christmas tree. The kids were excited, and it literally took us about 5 minutes to find the perfect tree. Then they just started running. 
The greenhouse is probably about 30 feet from where we were to the end, and both kids just ran back and forth and back and forth about a million times. It was great to see them burning off some energy. It made me sad we weren’t at the tree farm getting our tree this year, because they would have loved running around there. Conversely, we would have had to keep track of both of them when they just wanted to run freely, so maybe Growing Grounds was big enough!
We have the tree in the stand, and I’ve got the lights on. We’re all very excited to decorate it tomorrow. I hope I have patience while doing so, because I’m pretty sure the kids will not be able to contain themselves.
