The reality of holiday cheer

First of all this past week was hard. When I went to pick Jadyn up from school on Monday she was sitting on her teacher's lap complaining about not feeling well. Sure enough she had a temperature, laid on the couch the rest of the day and woke up multiple times that night to make a deposit into the "blah" bowl. By Tuesday she was feeling better, but Joe wasn't feeling so hot. Repeat Wednesday with me and Thursday and Friday with Jake and you basically have the entire week being eaten up by illness. Fun times.

I had a whole day of fun holiday activities planned for us on Saturday. I could post pictures of the kids participating in said activities with little captions to help explain what we did and leave it at that. But that, my dear friends would not be the reality of the day.

Jake would have been content to stay at home and play video games and build Legos all day. He was not too excited about going to Home Depot for their Kids Workshop. He whined and complained about it all the way there. The bright spot is that once we were there he really got into and enjoyed it. Once we get a chance to paint them at home, their little creations are going to make great gifts for the grandparents (who if/when they read this are going to get a sneak peek but that's okay).

Jake concentrating on his hammering skills:

Jadyn putting every ounce of focus on using the screwdriver:

With their completed projects in front of the visiting fire truck. How cute are the little aprons?:

After the build, Joe needed to get a few things and the kids proceeded to squabble, whine, cling and generally make me want to tear my hair out. At one point, I think I jokingly exclaimed, "We will have some holiday fun today!" like it was a demand.

Later in the afternoon, I had promised the kids we would decorate this year's gingerbread house. I should have, however, never have even mentioned it or even let them know of its existence because while I was trying to get some work done and eat lunch Jadyn must have asked 50 million times when we were going to do the gingerbread house. At least she was excited about it, right?

Decorating the gingerbread house:

Finally, in the evening we were going to head out to the town's annual tree lighting ceremony where Santa would arrive via firetruck and visit the kids. Again, tons of questions from the kids, some reluctance on Jake's part to even go in the first place and lots of resistance to dress appropriately for the cold weather (Why do I need my heavy jacket? Do I have to wear my hat?). Once we arrived, we of course had to wait in line to see Santa during which time there was tons more whining, squabbling and clinging. Jadyn wanted hot chocolate but then it was too hot. I had to hold it while having both kids continually grasping at me resulting in a constant juggling act not to end up with hot liquid all over me. But the kids were happy to see Santa and quite in awe of all the lights on the huge tree. I am happy to report that we all left in good spirits.

Can you believe this is the first time our little sweet tooth has ever had hot chocolate? She was in love (once it cooled down of course):

The lighting of the tree definitely got Jake's approval:


Obligatory photo op with Mr. and Ms. Claus. At least this year their are no candy canes coming out the back of their heads:

As we were leaving, the kids really wanted me to take their picture with the tree. I obliged knowing the picture would not be able to do it justice:


I know that a lot of what happened today was a result of recuperating from being sick. I also know that even though their were a lot of snags, the effort was worth it and down the road I will be glad to have these memories, as well as having provided them to the kids. No one will remember all the clinging, whining, yelling and squabbling. What we will remember is having spent time together as a family celebrating this wonderful time of year.

Addendum - Wow! What a difference a day can make. I wrote this blog post Saturday night. Now it it Sunday night and as I am reviewing and uploading the accompanying pictures, I already feel totally different about Saturday's events. Maybe I was the one who needed an attitude adjustment. Even with the rough spots, overall it really was a fun day.Sometimes, the pictures can tell the story better. What do you know?