A Sigh of Relief

Ahhhh!  This is my sigh of relief.  The first one since my crazy, hectic last week.  Granted, the hectic was all my own doing.  Jason and I throw this annual Christmas party that consumes me the entire week before.  It is an incredible amount of work and I love every moment of it.  I kept telling everyone last night that it is my one domestic endeavor for the year.  Every other night I'm doing good just to get something on the table to feed my family.  But on this night, I make (almost) everything from scratch and fill the table with lots of delicious food.  I cook for two days.  The party is quite a commitment for Jason as well because for two days he has to keep the children out of the house.  It is a lot of work for him to try to stay gone so that the kids aren't either messing up everything I just cleaned or stressing me out  (by just being kids) while I am trying to juggle four different things at a time.  Out of the two of us, I may be the party preparer, but he is the real entertainer.  I work hard before the party.  He works hard during the party.  Once the party starts, I am so distracted by being social, I don't notice another hostess-like thing.  He is on top of everything.  He notices when food needs to be re-filled, coffee re-made, peoples drinks refilled.  He is so good at paying attention to detail that he really makes others feel welcome in our home.  I had a great time last night and am so thankful to have wonderful people to fill our home and kick off the holiday season.

This morning, Amelia had her Christmas program at church.  This year, she didn't have a solo.  Actually, no one was supposed to.  This one child, however, stepped up to the microphone and sang the entire song as if she were the soloist.  It was hysterical.  The whole church was trying not to laugh, knowing that the other kids would feel laughed at if it got out of control.  Preschoolers are hysterical-you never know what's going to happen when you get 30 of them up on a stage.  Amelia smiled beautifully the entire time as if she were constantly posing for a picture.  That, in and of itself, was pretty funny to watch.  

Since Amelia was already dressed in her Christmas dress, I figured, why not get the boys in their outfits too and go see Santa after church.  The kids were really excited to see him.  Amelia told him what she wanted.  Lane refused to sit on his lap but compromised by standing in front of him while Owen sat on his other knee.  He wasn't a very talkative Santa.  He looked real enough I suppose.  But I think he was strictly there for the picture taking purpose.  I don't think he was even going to ask her what she wanted if I hadn't initiated it.  I pretended not to see the sign that asked you not to take your own photographs and click-clicked away.  I'm sorry if that is wrong.  But I had no intentions of spending $25 on one photo.  It wasn't even a good one.  I swear, they would probably make so much more money if they'd just offer a picture for $10.  That I could have been talked into.  The photographer was sure to let me know that my flash canceled out his flash or else several of his photos would have been good.  Sorry, buddy, I wasn't going to buy it anyway.  Is that bad?