Daybook- last week of Advent!

For today, December 21st...

Outside my window...dark and cold. John had to scrape ice off the car this morning before he left. Unlike the rest of the country, we have had much of that yet. We are supposed to get hit with some ugliness Christmas Eve though.

I am thinking...about how I am never *quite done* with Christmas shopping. I've ordered everything online that needed to be ordered. I made one last trip to Wally World yesterday (Oh my WORD, that place is so INSANE right now). And I thought I was done. When I got home, I realized that I'd forgotten one of Maria's gifts (sigh). I'm going to grab it today. Then I'm REALLY done.

I am thankful for...relative good health for the kids. Kain had an appointment with the pulmonologist last week and she said he had an ear infection...we had no idea! But no flu or anything still.

From the learning rooms...we are on Christmas break! Woohoo! Learning, of course, continues, all the time. My kids are very involved in Christmas preparations. And Maria will still press on with some math over most of the break. We need to get done what I can...we're having a baby in the spring!

From the kitchen...fudge. We are making homemade fudge for Christmas boxes and to put out on cookie plates on Christmas Eve/Day. Otherwise, I'm doing very little baking this year. Even the cookies are from refrigerator dough. Scandalous, yes? My lower back and hips are already killing me from all the shopping. I'm begging out of baking this year.

I am wearing...my blue fuzzy bathrobe! Yay, it's clean, and still smells vaguely of baby bath.

I am creating...some Montessori-ish activities for Tess over Christmas break. She's *ready* already. I'm finding her doing things like trying to lace up Kain's shoes and rolling balls through the tunnel on the cat perch. She's ready.

I am reading...Matilda, by Roald Dahl. I bought a big stack of books second hand from another homeschooler, and it had a whole mess of Roald Dahl in it. :)

I am hoping...that Jack heals up. He had a nasty scratch from one of the cats and it's infected. It was *beyond gross* on Saturday, ick. I've been scrubbing it, putting hydrogen peroxide and antibiotic ointment on it, and it's looking a lot better, but not quite so much better that I'm done worrying about it. Also, I *love* cleaning up gross wounds. It's oddly satisfying to me to clean up some messy looking thing and watch it heal up. Isn't that weird? Maybe when I'm done raising kids I'll be a wound care nurse.

I am hearing...Martha Speaks on PBS...Tess and Jack woke up while I was typing and I put this on for them. And I just heard Kain get up and head for the bathroom, which is a good thing, it's time for him to get up.

Around the house...we are getting our Christmas tree tomorrow. I have no idea where we are going to put it.

The baby this week...I'm 25 weeks this week. Too early for all these back-aches. I think it's going to be a long last trimester! I started having Braxton-Hicks contractions yesterday. I read that Michelle Duggar went into premature labor and had her baby already, and she was only a couple of weeks further along than me. I can't imagine.

A few plans for the rest of the week: Today- therapy for Kain, and he will be going to day treatment today and tomorrow. Otherwise...Christmas! Christmas Eve we will go to evening mass and the Christmas pageant. Maria will be singing in the choir, Jack will be in the pageant for the first time as a shepherd, and Kain will be in his final pageant performance, a break-out role as Caesar Augustus. :) Christmas Day we will keep that age-old tradition of having the kids open up all their gifts and then forcing them, amongst much wailing and gnashing of teeth, to leave them all to go visit family.

Here is picture for thought I am sharing...
Memories of warmer weather...these are from a nature walk in August. Isn't Tess' rear-end a scream? She had a disposable diaper on and it blew up like a balloon.








H/T to Peggy at Simple Woman's Daybook. Join us!