Our Week - The One with a Sleepover, a Girls Day, and Two More Christmases

Last week was the kids’ final week of Christmas break, and it was a good mix of fun stuff, downtime, and family time.  We also celebrated our final two Christmases! 

Monday, January 1

Monday morning, Brian and I slept until 9:30 since we’d been up until 2:30 AM on New Year’s Eve.  I probably could have slept longer, but I dragged myself out of bed anyway.  The kids weren’t up yet, so I made some scrambled eggs for myself as I always do, and I spent the next 45 minutes cleaning up from our New Year’s Eve party. 

Jacob woke up at 10 and got his breakfast, and then B and I settled in to watch ESPN College GameDay for a bit.  By 11:15, Olivia still wasn’t up – LOL – so I went upstairs to wake her.  I expected her to stir when I opened the door, but she was knocked. out.  She and Jacob had both stayed up until nearly 1 AM the night before, so they were both exhausted. 

Once she was up, I got dressed in my workout clothes and I headed outside into the cold, sunny late morning to run.  I got in 2.44 miles, and it felt great to move after skipping a few workouts the previous week.

We had a light lunch when I got home, and then I got showered and ready for the day.  The rest of the afternoon was spent working in my office – I had an entire blog post to do for Tuesday – and the kids played outside and played video games. 

We headed to my parents’ house at 5:30 to eat our good luck New Year’s Day meal – pork chops, rice, black eyed peas, turnip greens (sometimes we do collard greens), and corn bread.  If you’re not from the south, then you may have no clue what I’m talking about, but southerners eat this meal (or something similar) on New Year’s Day for prosperity and luck.  :o)

While we were there, we watched the Alabama vs. Michigan playoff game, and although it started pretty boring (both teams were struggling), it ended in a nail-biting overtime finish.  I was cheering for the SEC, but sadly, Bama didn’t pull us (the SEC) through, so that was a bummer.  But I have to say, I wasn’t super sad to see them lose either since they ruined our chances at making it into the playoff.  Hahahaha.  Bama friends, I love you and I really was pulling for y’all, though!  <3

The game ended way later than expected because of the overtime which meant that we got home way later than expected, so we got the kids in bed right away since they’d had such a late night before, and then Brian and I stayed up and watched Texas lose in a very close game, too.  We were pulling for Texas since they will be joining the SEC next year, but sadly, they couldn’t pull through either and they choked in the final seconds.  Sigh. 

College football… ya gotta love it!!

Also, hats off to Washington because I truly thought they were going to get STOMPED.

 

Tuesday, January 2

Tuesday morning, B had to be at work for the first time in over a week (womp, womp), so I got up as he was leaving.  The kids were up shortly after I was, and we all had breakfast.  The rest of the day was spent blogging, catching up on various other things, and washing, drying, and putting away four loads of laundry for me.  And the kids spent the day building a solar powered robot (Jacob) and making a birthday wish list (Olivia).  Because apparently, she didn’t get enough for Christmas.  Hahahaha.  And spoiler alert, literally every single thing on her birthday wish list is Taylor Swift related.  My kind of girl.  <3

Mid-afternoon, the ice cream truck came around, so I let the kids grab ice creams, and then they came back inside to play video games/how to draw YouTube videos for a bit.  We were all still in our PJs at this point, so hopefully the ice cream lady didn’t judge us too hard.  ;o)

The kids went outside around 4 and rode their scooters for a couple of hours, and I got in a 60-minute mixed cardio workout while catching up on the YouTube video recaps for The Bible Recap that I’m doing this year.  The Bible Recap program sets you up to read (and study/understand) the entire Bible in 365 days, and one of my goals is to complete it this year.  However, I knew it wouldn’t be practical for me to do the whole thing in just one year, so I got a jump start on it at the end of last year, and I’m currently on Day 52 as I type this. 

Previously, I was just reading the Bible chapters for the day and then reading the recap in my The Bible Recap book, but I recently decided that I want to also listen to the YouTube video recaps each day as well, so now I have 52 days to catch up on, while also continuing my daily studies.  So, Tuesday I listened to 12 of them and made a big dent in my catching-up.  It was also good to get another recap of what I’ve done so far!  This program has been eye-opening and informative, and it has already answered several questions that I’ve had my entire life about Bible history.  I have a feeling this process is going to be life changing and I’m loving every single second of my daily studies. 

After my workout, I finished putting away all of the laundry, and then it was time to head downstairs to get started on dinner.  We had breakfast for dinner – eggs, grits, bacon, sausage, and toast – and then I finally headed up to shower for the day.  

I got back in my PJs after that, and then I spent some time in my office finishing up taking some final notes from the book I finished last week (Winning the War in Your Mind by Craig Groeschel – seriously one of the best books I’ve ever read in my entire life!) while the kids got showered and ready for bed.

After that, we all sat down and played Apples to Apples for an hour, and then the kiddos went to bed.  B and I ended our night mapping out our upcoming Disney trip and watching the Christmas episode of Saturday Night Live that we’d missed.

 

Wednesday, January 3

Wednesday morning, I was up when B left for work, and I got showered and ready immediately.  As tempted as I was to stay in PJs again, Olivia had a friend coming over at 1, so I had to get dressed.  Womp womp.  Haha.

After breakfast, the kids watched some cartoons, and I headed upstairs to do my quiet time.  I’m adding a few things to it this year (more to come on that when I post about my weekly goals) so I’m going to try to start doing it in the morning when I can.

After that, I spent the whole morning working on an Instagram Reel, working on a blog post, organizing my computer desktop, and getting my income spreadsheet updated for the blog. 

The kids and I had lunch together at noon, and then Olivia’s friend, Maren, came over to spend the rest of the day/night with us.  They immediately headed upstairs to Olivia’s room to do Taylor Swift things (haha) and Jacob got on his laptop to play Teardown (one of his new Christmas presents that he was thrilled about).  It was FREEZING and rainy all day (apparently, we got some sleet at one point), so there was zero outdoor time, so I just let Jacob play on the computer for the rest of the afternoon. 

I spent the afternoon cleaning out my two email inboxes (one personal and one work) and, good gracious, did I let it get out of control.  I had nearly 200 emails in my work inbox that needed tending, so it took quite some time to get it under control. 

After that, I finally took some time to get the kids’ Echos customized.  There were some permissions that I wanted to grant them to use (Amazon Music and local radio stations) and I also added Brian’s and my contact info so they can call us from their Echos if there’s ever an emergency.  They currently don’t ever stay home alone, but occasionally, I will go for a run around the neighborhood while they’re home, so it’s nice to know they can call me if there’s ever an emergency since they don’t have phones yet.

Once that was done, I also spent some time working on a couple of other blog posts, and then when B got home, we took Jacob and the girls to see Migration at the movie theater.  The weather was awful Wednesday – freezing and rainy – so we wanted to get them out of the house somehow, and that was the only way.

The movie was cute, but not fantastic, but the kids loved it. 

After the movie, we took them all to IHOP for dinner, and they were thrilled.  We had promised our kids to take them there during Christmas break at some point, and we were running out of time, so we figured that night was as good as any. 

The service was pretty terrible, but the food was good, and the kids were happy, so that’s all that matters.

When we got home, B put a fire in the fireplace, and for only the second or third time ever, we had one of those weird downdraft situations where the smoke came pouring into the house instead of going out of the chimney like it’s supposed to.  We realized it almost immediately, so B was able to blow the fire out and get the log outside, but smoke had already poured into the house a little bit, and we ended up having to open the windows to air things out.  It was about 32 degrees outside, so that was not fun.  Haha.  But thankfully, the smoke in the house was mild… no smoke alarms even went off.

After that debacle, the girls headed upstairs to play, and Brian and Jacob watched about half of Spiderman 2.  I sat with them, but I played on my phone because I’d already seen it and I wasn’t a huge fan.

We all headed to bed a little after 11, and the girls ended up staying up until nearly 1 AM, I believe.

 

Thursday, January 4

Thursday morning, I got up as B was leaving for work, and the girls were already up, despite the fact that they’d stayed up super late.  I made cinnamon rolls for breakfast per our guest’s request, and then the girls set up a little beauty shop at the kitchen table, doing pedicures, painting nails, and giving each other temporary tattoos.  Lol.  After that, they played with slime, so as you can probably imagine, the kitchen was a hot mess by the time they were done.  Jacob watched some TV while they played, and I got in a 60-minute stair stepper and arms workout.  Then I got showered and ready for the day.

We took Maren home just before noon, and then the kids and I headed straight back home.  We had lunch, Olivia cleaned up, and then the kids played video games for a bit while I spent the afternoon doing some work and catching up on things around the house. 

The weather was finally nice-ish Thursday, so the kids played outside on their scooters forever, and we had to drag them inside to get ready to leave for my father-in-law’s house at 5:15.  We celebrated Christmas with him and my MIL and step-FIL late this year due to my niece’s nursing schedule, so Thursday night was the first of two late Christmas celebrations.

The whole evening was spent at my FIL’s, eating dinner, opening presents, chatting, and having dessert, and then we headed home for an earlier bedtime for the kids and some TV-watching for B and me.  On the agenda Friday night was more of the Christmas episode of Saturday Night Live.

 

Friday, January 5

Friday morning, we all slept in, and Brian worked from home.  I finally took some time to start catching up on blog reading (I was, like, three weeks behind), and the kids watched cartoons for a bit.  Friday was cold and dreary yet again, so there was no outdoor time.  Mid-morning, I got showered and ready, and then the kids and I were out the door.

We dropped Jacob off at his friend, WJ’s, house to hang out for the day, and then Olivia and I had a girls day.  She was in desperate need of a haircut, so I took her to the salon, and they gave her the full treatment – cut, wash, blowout, and curl – and she was SO excited.  Look at the difference in her hair!  They cut SO much.

After that was done, we went to lunch together, and I let Olivia pick the place.  She wanted Jason’s Deli (we hadn’t been there in years), and I suspect that she wanted it because of the free ice cream.  ;o)  While we were there, we talked a lot – mostly about friends and school and Taylor Swift <3 and then we grabbed a takeout order for B and headed home.

When we got home, she and I worked on getting her room in order.  She is my non-tidy child, so between Christmas and sleepovers, her room was a disaster area.  We spent a couple of hours getting things tidy, and we hardly put a dent in it, so midway through the afternoon, I called it a day and we revisited it later in the week.

She wanted to do “how to draw videos” after that, so I left her to it, and I spent some time in my office working on the blog.  Jacob got home at 4:30, and then at 5:15, we left to go to my MIL and step-FIL’s for one last Christmas celebration.

They’d just decided to do pizza for dinner rather than making a big spread, and then we had some Christmas cookies for dessert.  The rest of the evening was spent in the family room, opening presents and chatting, and then we headed home around 9.

Olivia had gotten a really cool fort that’s super easy to put together, so we got that up for her when we got home, and then after that we sent them to bed. 

B and I watched the end of an episode of Saturday Night Live, and then we started Dan Levy’s new movie, Good Grief on Netflix.  

 

Saturday, January 6

Saturday morning, we got up, had homemade waffles, and then I went to my office to work on Monday’s blog post.  Those goals recap posts take forever… especially the yearly ones, and I was way behind, in need of catching up.  While I worked, the kids played with their new stuff they’d gotten at our recent Christmases with Brian’s family, and that kept them busy all morning.

I worked on that for about an hour, and then I headed out for a run.  I ended up having one of my best paces in recent years, and that felt great.

Shortly after I got home, we had lunch, and then the kids did their laundry while I got showered and ready for the day.  I spent a couple more hours in my office in the afternoon getting my blog post finished up, and then it was time to finish getting ready and head to church.

After Mass, we went to a local pub down the street with my parents, Mama Cass, and two sets of aunts and uncles, and it was a great evening hanging out with them.

When we got home, we showed the kids the Taylor Swift goat video for her song I Knew You Were Trouble that came out like a decade ago.  It had randomly come up in conversation and we realized that they’d never seen it before.  Once we watched that one, we went down the rabbit hole of lots of other songs that were remixed to the same screaming goat, and the kids thought it was hilarious.  Jacob laughed so hard the whole time.

After we got them in the bed, B and I watched the end of the movie Good Grief, and we really enjoyed it.  I LOVVVVE Dan Levy so I had been looking forward to it.  It was a bit different than I had expected, but it was good.

 

Sunday, January 7

Sunday morning, Brian headed out to grab donuts for breakfast – one last treat to end Christmas break – and then the kids watched cartoons for a bit while I did yoga and watched my Sunday morning sermon. 

 

After that was done, the kids and I spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon cleaning out Olivia’s room and working on the playroom a bit.  We had a light lunch, and then I got showered and ready for the day.

I spent a couple of hours in my office working on blog posts and restarting Friends for the hundredth time, and then we all headed to my parents’ house for dinner.

Momma made beef stew, homemade beer bread, and a caramel spice cake for dinner and dessert, and oh my word, was it all delicious!  It hit the spot.  It’s been coooold lately, so a stew was the perfect dinner.

After that, we headed home.  The kids were off again on Monday for Christmas break, so they didn’t have to be in the bed early, so Brian and Jacob finished watching Spiderman 2, and while they did that, Olivia and I colored together for a bit and then snuggled in her bed and watched Taylor Swift music videos… because what else would we be doing?  Haha.

Happy Tuesday, y’all!