Long Days, Long Nights

Even though the days are super short this time of year, I feel like my days are soooo long. Justin has end-of-year deadlines at work so he's been putting in longer hours every day which means I am too.  It seems after 5 o'clock, my energy crashes while my kids energy just picks up and enters spaz mode and won't listen to a word I say.  It's quite the combination. Oh, and if we go outside, we'll meet our death so that makes keeping sane even more challenging.

We've listened/danced to a lot of Christmas music.  Henry's favorite is "Days of Tissmas" (12 Days of Christmas) Sarah loves "Must Be Santa". They both love running around the living room.

And they love to rearrange the ornaments on the tree. In years past I've tried to even things out every day or so but I've given up. Christmas is for kids, right?

I don't know if it's nesting or the impending construction in my basement but I am hating stuff right now. I've been going through storage totes and throwing tons of stuff away. I think I had 50 pounds of college notebooks tucked away neatly in a box. Why? I don't know. Haven't touched them in 8 years, not going to go through them in the future. Gone. I have to roll my eyes at some of the things from my childhood and elementary school days that I've held on to for this long.  

Cleaning out boxes has worked out great for Sarah. She loves stuff and there's a few stuff from my childhood she is so excited about. (I'm saving a few things to give to her for Christmas.) Every now again she says, "Santa's not real" but when I ask her what makes her think that, she just shrugs and then says something completely opposite  and inaccurate like, "Henry, Santa is coming tonight!" I'm not sure if she has real doubts or is just testing my reaction.

Little Mermaid paint set and Little Mermaid paper dolls circa 1992. Of course I've wrangled Justin into going through his boxes too. He loves that.

This was another sweet find. My little Christmas tree tucked in the depths under the stairs. Sarah has taken it over. Henry calls it the baby tree. And those little houses are from my childhood. My mom let us borrow this village because I love them so. I didn't have an extra strand of lights for them and told Sarah we could use the lights on her tree until I got to the store. I guess this is what she thought I meant.

Speaking of Henry, he loves brownie batter. "This is nummy, Mommy!"

 Yes it is, son, yes it is.

 Sarah wanted her picture taken too.

 Sarah is all about making them beds to lay on while they watch Christmas movies before bed. It's annoying sometimes but it makes them happy.

I made this felt nativity I found on Pinterest. The tutorial came with patterns so I didn't have to use too much of my brain. But I really didn't like the angel. It was too small and didn't match the rest.

So I made my own from the other pattern pieces. Much better, right? Sarah said it needs wings but I refused on grounds of religious accuracy.

Tonight I'm fulfilling one of my dreams of going to the Tabernacle Christmas concert! I'm so excited, it's almost nerdy.