Before I go into today's events, I have to tell a funny story about Anthony last night. Patrick and I went to the gym to exercise from about 6-8pm. Patrick texted Anthony to tell Eric to take a shower and go to bed by about 8pm. Eric has been staying up until around 9pm or later every night, but yesterday he got up at 6am and Patrick said he had dark circles under his eyes, so Eric had to go to bed earlier. Since we had such a late lunch yesterday, we all ate dinner when we got hungry, so that was at different times. Anthony had put Eric to bed shortly before we got home. Anthony had not realized until then that we were not home and had not fed Eric any dinner. Anthony put Eric to bed without dinner! He forgot that Eric is not a big eater and will not necessarily complain when he is hungry. Since Eric was still awake when we got home, Patrick got him up to eat a sandwich, something small that would at least keep him full during the night.
Christmas Eve morning started out like any other day during the kids' vacation. I had scheduled hair cuts for Natalie and Anthony. Originally, Alex was also scheduled, but he wasn't sure of his plans, so he wanted his hair cut last week. Natalie doesn't get her hair cut very often because her mama is too cheap to take her when all she gets is a simple cut, but which costs me a lot just because she has so much hair. This time, at least, she brushed her hair before going to the hair salon, and this time, she asked for a little more to be cut--like about five inches. She was pleased that this time, Ryan said that she was tall enough (she liked hearing that) that she could sit down while he cut her hair. In the past, she has to stand up because her hair would hit the chair in an odd place and make it difficult to cut straight. I also bought her some additional hair products to hopefully keep her hair from frizzing as much.
The rest of the day was pretty relaxed until it came time to get ready for church at 4pm. Since the kids all dressed up (more or less), I wanted to finally get a good picture of the four of them for our Christmas Card photo. I decided early on that our Christmas cards would be late this year because I wanted our traditional card with a photo of all four kids together. This will probably have to change in future years, but for now, I insisted on getting a picture of the four of them. Interestingly, Anthony is the one that was complaining, although in the first picture I took, Natalie looked very annoyed. I don't actually expect them to smile for the camera. For example, I actually think Alex looks more handsome when he doesn't smile. I think Natalie, however, looks prettier when she smiles. What I don't want is for them to looked annoyed or angry in the photo, which Natalie looks like when she doesn't smile.
We wanted to go to the overflow mass in the St. Francis church hall instead of the church itself because Natalie's and Eric's piano teacher was playing at that mass. We got there earlier than we usually do, but later than we should have for a Christmas Eve mass (about 3:45pm for a 4pm mass). Patrick dropped us off first so he could park way out on the soccer/baseball field and we could find seats (if available). There were no seats except for one or two here and there. We wanted to stay together, so we refused some offers for the one or two seats here and there, until they put out some more chairs right in front of us, and I convinced Natalie to sit down since it would be better for her back. She took Eric with her so she wouldn't have to sit alone. The rest of us were right behind them anyway.
Eric and I went to say "hello" to his piano teacher before the mass started. We lucked out and our main priest was officiating at this mass AND he had a shorter homily. He even mentioned that we probably would not mind a shorter homily, and we were out of there in about an hour.
As we were leaving mass, Alex asked if we were going to have any outside lights up for Christmas. Patrick has been busy and didn't make time for putting up the outdoor lights, but the boys offered, so I told him to let them do the lights themselves. We think they did an excellent job! I took this picture as proof, and we encouraged them to do the outdoor lights in the future.
I took this photo tonight of our new tree with the stockings by the fireplace, all ready for Santa's visit. Tomorrow will be quite hectic and exciting.
No comments:
Post a Comment