Bella, Gabe and Josiah

Somehow this sweet little boy of mine turned 9. I have no idea his he went from a tiny little baby that fit in Pat’s hand, to a super amazing 9-year-old boy.

Since we’re headed to Arizona for Christmas, but Bella is staying here to work, we decided to have Fake Christmas with her. We had Swedish pancakes and presents. I even pulled it all off the wrapping paper rolls…and then promptly forgot them upstairs. Oops…

I’ve definitely gotten behind on posting. Life has been a little crazy around here… Josy wanted to make Christmas cookies on the snow day, so he worked very hard on that. But then Gabe decided they needed to be decorated. So he took an entire afternoon and very meticulously decorated all of them. Then he pulled out a bunch to take to his friends at school for his birthday treat. We’re doing our regular December tea and Bible reading tradition. This year it’s been a bit more complicated because of Pat’s work schedule, the kid’s activity schedule and the fact that this tea needs brewed for 15 minutes, so it’s harder to fit in. But we’re doing our best! Both boys got to go to the Nutcracker with their schools. Josy’s teacher told them all to get dressed up and Gabe can’t resist an opportunity to get dressed up, so they may have been the best dressed boys at the ballet! I got to hang up the Christmas lights! It’s not Christmas if we don’t watch White Christmas and roll bonbons. Dad’s been ...

We had a crazy snow/ice situation, which meant that school was canceled. Gabe and Bella had complete snow days (I mean, Bella got the day off work…), but Josy was officially on remote learning. His teacher sent a list of activities for him to pick from, which included things like go sledding, build a fort, play outside, and cook something with a grown up. I mean, work on sight words and work on math was on the list, but Josy wasn’t interested in doing those… There was also a zoom meeting with his teacher where he got to show off the cats and his house and some stuffed animals. It was a pretty fun snow day, even if I still had to work…

Happy Thanksgiving!! We had a lovely day. I took very few pictures, but that’s the mark of a good day, right? Also, I had a bit of a cold, which made life a little rough, and Bella had given her wisdom teeth out the day before. So she was a little out of it. But we had good food and good friends and good conversations and games. Does it get better than that?

Well, we’ve managed to get back into the swing of life. Jetlag was rough this round, but we survived! The boys started another round of swim lessons. I couldn’t not stop for this sunset. Gabe had discovered that he can play Clue. Lucy was happy that we were home. We got to decorate the church for Christmas. We were put in charge of one of the trees. Josy put four ornaments and a pumpkin on one branch and declared it done. Gramps decided to decorate the tree by throwing cotton balls at it. Clue is much more difficult with that many people. The mall is all decorated! We got some snow so Gabe made a fort. Super Josy! I went a little crazy decorating my office… We decorated the house. Naturally the boys had to torture Freddy. We found a Santa hat and now one of the boys is wearing it at all times. Dad and his favorite kitty.

Flying home always makes for a long day, but crossing the international date line makes it even more fun because the day actually repeats itself. We literally landed in LA before we’d left Sydney. Not weird at all… The boys did not want to wake up. Certain little boys were having to much fun watching movies on the flight to want to sleep…and they crashed as soon as we hit LA. But we got to have breakfast with Uncle Matt! I mean, the grown ups did. The boys slept through it. Then slept through the next flight too. But by the time we got to the last flight they were entire too wired to sleep. Crazy kids. But we made it home after 37 hours of traveling, all in one day.