Thu. & Fri., Dec. 27 & 28

Still trying to catch up posting pictures....

This picture was taken at the church building on the Holiday Game Night -- two weeks ago. N & J were setting up Scrabble Jr. for themselves to play. I wish the shutter had clicked two seconds earlier because it's hard to recognize Justus at the very end of the kiss he blew me!! lol

This is Jeremy feeling happy and giggling at the gift Stephanie got him. :) It's a picture flipper to sit on his desk. She put a couple pictures in there of some of our Napoleon Dynamite 'inside jokes' that had Jeremy CRACKING UP!

Next, pictures from our neighborhood's Christmas Party. It started at 4:30 one afternoon, and Santa was there.

Jeremy started kicking the soccer ball around with our children, and some others joined. They had to do SOMETHING to stay warm! Thankfully they were serving hot chocolate. They had also set up a tall white sheet and had popcorn to show a movie of some sort; we didn't stay for that. We didn't stay much at all, actually. Maybe 15 minutes....

Jeremy took this picture of N playing on the playground equipment.

There is a bit of a situation with the heat down at the church building. The person responsible to get the propane tank refilled forgot to take care of it in a timely manner, so it is empty. Unfortunately it's a big ordeal to get the company out to refill it, I guess.... Jeremy has had to stay late two days in a row, waiting for the person to show up to fill it. That schedule change required us to cancel Bible study with Tommy & Shavon b/c we wouldn't have had time to take care of everything and still get there in any kind of reasonable time. Instead we did something fun we've been wanting to do and have never done. We went to Chuck E. Cheese's. Jeremy remembers going to a Chuck E. Cheese's once as a child, but I've never been, nor have the children. It was worth doing. Lots of fun was had by all, actually! Natasha's favorite thing was a tube somewhat similar to the 'play places' in Burger King or McDonalds. The difference is that it wasn't contained to one area; instead, it was attached to the ceiling over the entire game area, and had lots of places for those inside to stop and look down on the scene. N opted to do that three times instead of playing some of the other games available! Her knees are sore today because of it! lol

The past two days we have been working this house OVER! And I'm not even talking about taking down Christmas decorations. Not just yet. Nope, it's polishing the mirrors and swiping the counters and dusting and vacuuming and washing sheets! We've been doing lots of that these past two days ... and feeling very good to have the opportunity (for the first time in weeks) to have the time and energy (everyone is WELL) to do a really good job of it! Yay!

I colored with Justus this afternoon. :) The children played outside quite a lot (The afternoons are pretty pleasant, though definitely cool.), and worked on picking up and putting away ... a lot.

Tonight we played Chutes & Ladders as a family. I think we will be letting the children play that one with just the two of them as much as they want. This is one of the things about finding games to play that are fun for the young person in the family but also enjoyable for the older ones. When Natasha opened the gift she tried reading the title upside-down and came out with "Cuties & Ladies!" So now it's a big family joke about playing "Cuties & Ladies", or I'll call for N & J: "Cutie & Lady!?" heh

You know, when I first walked into the living room downstairs and saw the fireplace I laughed out loud. However, we are using it every day now; it's the only thing that warms up the downstairs a little bit!! The thermostat is upstairs, where large south-facing windows let in a nice amount of warmth. The thermostat placement is perfect for Arizona summers. However, the downstairs is downright COLD!! I've gone downstairs when the temp upstairs is a balmy 70 (heat set to come on at 66), and it's 59 degrees downstairs!!! BR! So, the fireplace is earning its keep. Who knew??? :) The ambiance is ssssssssso lovely to me. A FIREPLACE!!?? Feels a whole lot like 'home'. Mmm.