la la la lahhhhhhh. . .well it's been exciting and crazy first couple of weeks of December. Let's see if I can catch up.
Monday, December 3rd we invited family friends to go walk the Layton lights with us. It was a fun night, we even found the hidden elf. Then we came back and had hot cocoa and cookies.
Marcus thought the kissy reindeer lights was gross so I offered to kiss him in front of it which lead to me chasing him down making kissing noises and Steve managed to snap a picture.
The boys had dress/tech rehearsals at school for the musical Elf which are really long nights. Lila had to be at Farmington High school all day Thursday, December 4th for Dance Company (like 7am to 8:30pm) so Steve and I found ourselves in a quiet house that night and decided to have an impromptu date night and went out for dinner then delivered a few neighborhood gifts. It was fun.
Friday, December 5th Lila had a Chinese field trip to the UofU campus and learned about some scholarship opportunities due to her language. To be honest she was really stressed about missing two days of school back to back. I was praying for her and she managed to get a lot of homework done Wednesday night so she was feeling pretty good about things and enjoyed both opportunities. She was hoping to meet up with Ellie on campus but Ellie was only available early and Lila did know exactly how the day was going to play out so they didn't connect.
That afternoon Andrew was concert master for his orchestra performance. Marcus and I took him for his call time at 2pm when I realized we were right next to the high school as it was about to be letting out so I texted Lila and asked if her and Macey would like a ride home. They gladly accepted and walked to the library while Marcus picked out a few books. Then we all went back for the performance. It was a lot of fun. I keep telling him the fun thing about orchestra is you can have what seems like a weird obscure part but when it gets put together it sounds amazing which is exactly what happened.
Then we came home had a quick dinner and got them ready for their call time. Steve, myself, Lila, and Miles all went to the performance Friday night and it was also a lot of fun. The audience was laughing and the kids did great. Marcus was the head elf Charlie and kicked off the show by checking in with Buddy about his toy making quota for the day. Andrew was the Macey's Manager and had some great comedic lines that he delivered well. He told me as I was dropping him off, "Mom, please do not make eye contact with me during the show. I do not want to break character and if I make eye contact with you I know I will." 😍😂
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| Fake Santa stole the show during intermission by dancing with a broom to Christmas music. It was hilarious! |
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| Andrew and Marcus taking bows together. |
Their cute director was the same one they did Jungle Book with over the summer. I saw her back by the sound board and casually said, "great job director! it was really cute!" She jumped out of her chair and came over and said, "I love your boys! They are so cute and Andrew on stage. . .you cannot teach what he does." I told her about his not making eye contact comment and she giggled. We love her and maybe we'll be able to do a show with her over the summer.
They both did so well but the thing that stole my heart the most was there was a special needs kid in their cast. Like all of the kids he wanted to be the lead, Buddy and occasionally he would drift into Buddy's scenes or linger on stage. Andrew would always kindly redirect him or take his hand and walk slowly off stage with him. Then they told me that when they play games as a cast everyone agrees when it's Parker's turn they don't run as fast so he can get them. Melt my heart. They can be crazy stinky boys but there is a tender heart inside of them. 💓
Saturday, December 7th Steve took the boys to Home Depot to get the kid craft for the day and a few supplies so we could poor the office countertops. They turned out beautiful. We are so excited to have that completed and to start getting the work stations setup. It is going to be a really nice space for Steve.
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| don't mind Marcus's ear in the pic, he was admiring the countertops |
Right after pouring we got the boys ready for their call time at which point Marcus realized he was going to miss his basketball game (it was rather unfortunate that we had the afternoon game this week but oh well). I told him his cast was depending on him and he would have fun. Only Steve and I went to the show Saturday as you are only allowed to get 2 tickets in the first two rows. We are glad we could support the boys but Friday's show was better. Although Marcus did keep us entertained. Andrew didn't have any costume changes but Marcus had 8 costume changes and at one point he came on stage and his white button up business shirt was buttoned up wrong so he spent the whole scene fixing it while pacing around. 😂 We also noticed half way through the play that he didn't have his shoes one. The costume requirement was black shoes and I told both the boys to put them on before they left but didn't check so I wondered if he had put on the wrong shoes but after the play he came out with his black shoes on and told us it was a lot easier to do his costume changes without having to take his shoes on and off so he just left them off since he had black socks on, he's a thinker and I thought it was a wise idea. Steve managed to run home during intermission to scrape the countertop drips. After the show we hustled to Andrew's basketball game. We told the coach we would be gone but they were unable to get subs so they were playing with 4 boys. We made it in time for the second half. Andrew had fun and they did manage to have their first win this season.
We came home to find Lila in a much better mood after completing all of her coursework she could to make up for her missed days. She was not feeling great and got frustrated that morning about some work not being posted which sent her in a spiral, I was just really glad she managed to pull out and be productive. Sunday we had a chill morning. After church as a different story, I had choir, Steve had a meeting for his committee, then Andrew had Temple and Priesthood Preparation, and finally we let the boys do gingerbread houses during the First Presidency Christmas Devotional.
Oh and the boys managed to get a rubber chicken stuck to the ceiling. They managed to shoot it down only to get it stuck again. We had a similar incident last Christmas with a brown dog. Raising boys is very different than girls. 😂
Monday, December 9th my brother was having surgery so I offered to watch Anson. They called Friday and asked if we could really do it and I jumped at the chance. I told the boys they could skip school and they were so excited to have a day with Anson. We setup chairs for gaming and I even let them open a new game, NBA 2K24. At one point they went outside to play soccer, I was glad I had decided to do my hair with the bathroom window open so I could hear them because they managed to kick the soccer ball over the fence and across the street.
Then we stopped for lunch and played some card games. We played left right center with coins and I told them I would take them to the Dollar Store to spend their winnings. Anson said, "Are you teaching us how to gamble?" Uh, no! So I sent Marcee a text explaining what we were doing so she wouldn't wonder what happened if Anson mentioned gambling. 😂 At which point Marcee texted and said Jake's surgery had been delayed by 3 hours. I felt so bad for them just waiting around but told them not to worry about us we were doing great. I loaded the boys to go to the store and realized once again it we would be close to Lila as school was letting out and she was happy to get a ride since she had a quick turn around for her call time for the Winter Concert. I let them each pick out a certain amount of toys based on their winnings. Then we found these cool skateboards so I let them each get one of those and then they found croc pins next to the register so we bought those too. They had a blast.
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| and they found this dollhouse toilet and kept saying skibbity toilet and laughing. slang these days is so crazy: sigma, bruh, sus, ohio, rizz, cap/no cap just to name a few. believe me it takes a whole other kind of dictionary to keep up with kids these days. although I will say Steve was really impressed with my knowledge of the words and what the meant. 😂 I actually bought the toilet, it may show up in some Christmas games. |
After we came home with Lila I let them play video games again so I could help her get ready for dance. We all went to her concert that evening which was so much fun! We saw her perform 5 dances in a 30 minute show (we usually only see 3 dances over 3 hours of dancing). The dances were fun and cute. Two of them they finished choreographing that morning so I was super proud of her for not getting too nervous and just having fun. She had a couple of young women leaders and their daughters come and then a couple of neighbor friends had kids in the other dance classes that performed so it was fun to hangout with all of them. I was taking tickets and saved seats for my family so as all of our friends were coming in I told them where to sit. And while I was out there her friend Lydia came by and said Hi. Then I saw Brooklyn from her DDA Comp team last year, whom she hasn't seen in forever. She recognized me and we talked and I told her Lila was on the Dance Company and performing at the show she was so excited to connect with her. The show was at her school Davis High since Layton's Auditorium is under construction. I'm used to screaming moms at dance competitions where I'm usually the quiet one and at this performance I was one of the louder spectators but definitely not obnoxiously loud. 😉
We all patiently waited for her to come out. It took her forever to gather her stuff, they did have quick changes so I get it but we wanted to hug her and her friends wanted to say Hi.
Tuesday, December 10th everyone had a rough morning. The boys were tired from their long weekend and day with Anson. Lila was sore from all the dancing and her cold seemed to come back with vengeance that day. I sent everyone to school because I thought they were just tired and I had a doctor's appointment with a new doc I've been waiting for for three months. Andrew had his 2nd term presentation on Einstein so we tried to make him look like the scientist.
Then I managed to get a few errands done and make some cookies to start our Christmas Cookie countdown until Christmas break (I started this a couple of years ago when we were all having a rough time continuing with school so I made small batch Christmas cookies each day for an after school treat to keep us going, it was so fun I've kept it going since then). However when I picked up the boys Marcus was running a 102 fever. He said he told the PE teacher he wanted to call home and she said no. Then they had early recess and the ground duty wouldn't let him to the office and then the assembly his teacher told him to wear his headphones since his head hurt. Really I'm so frustrated with the elementary school right now. UGH! I cancelled his piano lessons and let him rest and relax upstairs. Then I got Andrew ready for his Christmas performances at two assisted living facilities. They did a great job and it was festive.
Steve stayed behind helping Lila prep for her math test. Then when I got home I helped her look at schedule changes for next semester.
Wednesday, December 11th Lila went in early to school with some friends to make the necessary changes. I'm proud of her for handling it on her own and making the necessary decisions she needed to get it done. Then I took Marcus to get strep tested because he says his throat hurts along with the fever and no other symptoms. Our pediatrician doesn't work Wednesdays so I thought we would go to the new urgent care near us and I could finish up some lab work that I needed to be fasting for but when we got to the urgent care it was slammed. So I texted Steve and he called in to try and get us an appointment at the Kaysville Tanner Clinic while I did my lab work. When we came out I called a local pharmacy who said they do strep testing for $40 and will dispense an antibiotic so I had Steve hangup and we went over there. Unfortunately she had to swab him twice because the first test didn't work right and she apologized and said she's never had that happen but Marcus was a trooper. We were the only ones at the pharmacy so that was nice. She said it would take 4-5 minutes so we waited around and after 2 minutes she said, "It's already showing positive so I'll start dispensing an antibiotic." Marcus asked if he could buy a special drink which I agreed to, anything to keep him drinking lots of fluids. As we were walking the store we ran into a cute neighbor kid who was there on work release and said, Hi. Then we came back picked up the antibiotic and headed home. In and out in 20 minutes and $50 with the antibiotic. I'm telling you that's what I'm going to do any time I think it's strep from now on.
This evening we took Andrew to see Yo Yo Ma in concert with the Utah Symphony for an early Christmas present. It was a lovely evening. The music was amazing. Yo Yo Ma is so dynamic and so talented. At the end everyone was standing and clapping a lot of course and he came out and blew kisses at us and jumped up and down. He came back out for an encore with is cello and signaled a small number with his fingers. It was fabulous.
There you have our fun. 'Tis the season to be jolly, Fa la la la, la la la la la la.