Twas the week before Christmas…

I thought it was time for a Random Christmastime sampling of what’s been going on around here. I found that our events can be divided roughly into a few categories:

Lights

After dinner last night, we put all the kids in their pajamas, and headed for the Watkins Park Festival of Lights. I was impressed by the number of light displays they had up. It was a nice leisurely drive, through the park, and the kids were more than excited to point out everything they saw. See here, how they demonstrate this, just on the way out of our little neighborhood.

So you can imagine how excited they were with endless colorful lights to gaze upon. When Bennett saw the candy canes, he just exclaimed “J! J!”. Ruby Broke out into a rousing singing of “Fwosty the SnowMAN!” every time we passed a snowman, and Alex love the gingerbread men, which he pronounces “Giberbed”.  They will be sad when all the Christmas decorations are taken down.

The Washington DC temple lights are always on our list of outings. Thanks for poking your head in the picture, Ruby.It was getting late, and when this starts to happen, you know you’ve hit your limit. 

We kept the kids up especially late one night (two hours, which never, ever happens) to let them see our neighborhood tree lighting. I wouldn’t say it was worth it. Ruby was not happy, they took forever to turn the lights on, and we were nowhere near it when all it finally lit up. Oh well, I might have regretted it if we hadn’t even tried. And they did like the lights when they got up close.

One Saturday we took the kids to the mall. They couldn’t get enough of the great decorations, of course, but it was also a fun surprise that they had snow coming from the sky (a bubble machine) as we passed the food court.

Parties

We were happy to attend another NICU Christmas party. Ruby insisted on climbing on the tables to collect all the decorative foam snowflakes. It was great to catch up with some of the nurses there. We went at the very beginning though, so were didn’t stay long enough to see any of our friends. Maybe next year. They gave each child a small gift that included a little snowman. Ruby has adopted all three of them as her own. She seems to be most enthusiastic about all things Christmas.

Our ward had a Christmas breakfast. The kids and youth got to wear pajamas. Since we never actually get to eat at gatherings where food is involved because we’re always chasing children, and keeping them away from the food table, we decided to just bring their boosters. It worked! We all ate at the table together! It was still a bit chaotic, but an improvement! Before long though, the kids wanted to get down and play. We spent some time in the nursery, but eventually made it back to the party for music, a nativity film, stories, and having fun playing on the table storage racks. We were sad to miss the Primary nativity while walking the halls, but we made sure to not miss Santa! I have been dying to see how the kids would react to meeting him. They are more than happy to point him out on every movie, sticker, or even ornaments at the store, but in person, they were terrified of him. The official picture hasn’t been sent to us yet, but my sweet friend got one on her phone and sent it to me. You get the idea. I got a shot of Ruby, who wouldn’t even look up, she was so uneasy. It’s all part of the fun, right?

Dates

We have been able to squeeze in a few date nights here and there. I had heard that the Nation Harbor was a great place to be during the holidays, so we got a babysitter, and Elise, Jeff, KC and I made a night of it. We got there just in time to see the fireworks.

The Peeps store was incredibly crowded, but I am told you get a free piece of candy if you brave the crowds (which I did not).

The real attraction there was the Gaylord Hotel. The lights and decorations were really amazing. We were going to go ice skating, but decided it would be more fun on the National Mall, where we usually go.

Instead we went to Nando’s Peri-Peri and got a sampling of appetizers, desserts, and hot chocolate.

And we were nerds posing in front of the heart statue.

KC and I had Groupons for the International Spy museum, and the hours were annoying, like they closed at 6 pm. So we had to go on a Saturday, and Elise was more than kind to babysit for us. The kids were napping most of the time, so that’s good. The museum was fascinating, and so interactive. A great stop for anyone in the area. Across the street there was a holiday market, so I took a stroll to see what the haps were. There was nothing I was interested in buying, but festive all the same.

We were going to go to KC’s work party last weekend, but didn’t RSVP in time. But since we had a babysitter lined up, we were decided to have a night on the town anyway. We had planned to go ice skating, and scored a great parking stop on the street just a couple blocks away. But the line was insanely long, and we missed the first session. We weren’t about to wait another two hours, so we enjoyed the walk back to the car, passing the National Archives, quickly perused H&M, and then ended up at Target to buy our secret stocking stuffers for each other. I was disappointed our plans didn’t work out at first, but was happy to be out with KC anyway.

Baby Cuteness, Etc.

First of all, I finally got my ever-loving Jury Duty taken care of. After dropping Elise and fam off at the airport at 6 AM last Wednesday, I headed to fulfill my civic duty. The drive there was annoying. My GPS was acting up (resulting in some cosmetic damage due to my frustration—oops) , but I got there with time to spare. And except me thinking my color card was blue, instead of purple, and them having to call my number a million times before I realized it, all went well. I was in a group that was being chosen for a criminal trial, and when they asked all the questions to determine who would be on the jury, they asked if there was anyone who wouldn’t be able to continue if the case lasted more than a day.  I stood right up and told them it was hard to find trained childcare for my two-year-old triplets. Thus, I didn’t end up on the jury and was home by noon! It was a neat experience though, and the people in charge were very kind, and happy. They tried to lighten the mood by telling jokes, and we waited in quite a nice lounge, making it not so bad for the hundreds of us that obviously had other places to be. There was even free wifi that I didn’t even have time to use. I'm glad I’m off the hook for at least another three years!

So onto other randomness. Ruby loves putting stockings on her feet.

They were so excited about these silly mittens I got them.

Alex and Ruby insist on wearing shoes all the time.

Alex usually looks like this, since he can’t seem to keep his clothes on (so now we have two kids in backwards pjs, and soon to be three, since Bennett has shown signs of taking his off as well.)

And we also have two kids with diapers taped on since Alex can’t seem to keep that on either. Ugh.

Ruby’s footwear isn’t limited to stockings, or shoes over her jammies though. Puppets are also commonly found on her feet.

I found Bennett “reading” a Christmas piano book the other day. He just read aloud the numbers on every page.

One of the many places I’ve found the Little People nativity pieces.

 

They kids take their nap around noon, and have a quiet time in the late afternoon when they listen to music and read books in their cribs. It used to be pretty quiet, and I’d just here them singing along quietly to the songs, but now this is what happens during “quiet time”. (And sometimes during the first hour of nap time, and very rarely around 3:30 AM--ahem, this morning). Oh, these kids are a bundle of fun these days.

So that’s the latest. I wanted to get all that down before the real fun begins. Less than a week! I’m not ready to say goodbye to the season yet. And we haven’t even watched our best Christmas movies yet (probably because I keep watching those silly Lifetime, or ABC Family movies. Don’t judge, you know you love them too). It’s time to cram! We’ll see how much of White Christmas the kids let me get through before they start begging to watch Santa Claus is Coming to Town. . . again.