Is This Normal?
The chaos that is the KerbersArchive for Ben
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!
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!
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.
Ahh…I love me some Thanksgiving
Last Thanksgiving I wrote about how thankful I am for all of the blessings in my life…and at the top of that list of blessings sit my loving husband and wonderful kids. So this year I thought I should probably change it up a little bit for my Thanksgiving post. Unfortunately, I can’t even pretend that I am thankful for anything more than Dave, Emma & Ben. They truly make my heart full and my life complete.
I hope that anyone who reads this blog has the same kind of happiness I feel on a daily basis. Sure, the kids make me crazy sometimes, and Dave and I bicker more than I’d like, but my life is truly filled with three monumental blessings.
I hope that I can always remember how lucky I am when the little stuff gets in the way.
I truly am thankful, but not just on this Thanksgiving night.
- I am thankful when I have to get up in the middle of the night to someone yelling, “MOMMY!”
- I am thankful when I and trying to get dinner on the table and someone’s at my side begging for attention.
- I am thankful when I’m the only one who can stop the fights, the fits, or the tears.
- I am thankful for the arms thrown around me every day for giant hugs.
- I am thankful for the millions of smiles and giggles that fill up this house.
- I am thankful that I get to hear, “I love you” absolutely every day of the year.
I’ll say it again…Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. I hope you stay thankful all year, too.
Another warm Saturday=neighborhood fun
It was gorgeous outside again today, which is crazy considering it’s November. But we certainly took advantage of it, and we spent almost the entire afternoon outside playing. In the summer, we play outside almost every night with our neighborhood friends. But those days are becoming fewer and far between, so it was great to spend so much time with them again.
The biggest attraction today was sidewalk chalk. All of the kids were totally into it. They drew words, they scribbled big sections of colors, and they drew pictures. I even joined in, because let’s face it…there’s not much better than drawing with sidewalk chalk on a warm fall afternoon. The kids were all covered with chalk, and it was a really awesome afternoon. Hopefully this warm weather will hold on so we can stretch fall out a little bit longer.
Ahhhh…
Today was seriously one of the laziest, most relaxing days we’ve had in a very long time, and I enjoyed it very much. Since we set the clocks back an hour last night, the kids were of course up super early, but we all laid around in bed watching cartoons for about 45 minutes before technically starting our day by getting up and ready for church.
After church, we came home and did very little the rest of the day. Both of the kids had a lot of fun working in their new Halloween coloring books from Aunt Theresa, and Ben worked especially hard on some sticker puzzles she gave him. Emma had a three-hour nap, which was desperately needed, and Daddy got a short nap in for himself, too. I enjoyed watching the Bears game without interruption for once. It was great, and they even looked good and won! We had a couple of battles over wanting more candy, but Ben didn’t beg for it too much, so I was happy with that.
It was one of those days where Dave and I look at each other, smile and say, “This is the good stuff, Honey.” The kids were in good moods and had fun playing with each other. The crying was at an all-time low, I think. Ok, sure, Emma did fall off the back of the couch downstairs, got a big lump on her head and cried really hard for a few minutes, but hey, no day is completely perfect, right? Overall, there wasn’t a ton of chaos in the house, and we all spent some really enjoyable time just chillin’ out together.
