We are a week into 2024 and the Christmas tree is still up even though I was ready to take it down on December 26th. Naturally if my tree is still up it probably means I’m behind in every other area of my life, including the blog. The month of December was INSANE for the first two weeks. Worse than usual. Mostly because of dental marketing, visits to women in my ward, and the kids busy schedules. Then the kids got out of school and life came to a grinding halt. No school, no friends, and no plans. I debated driving to Utah but none of the boys wanted to go since their cousins were still in school. The screen use hit a high that I haven’t seen since the pandemic so I dug deep and tried to find a few things for us to do. I even posted it on Instagram so I can remember for next year. Funny how people probably saw those posts and thought we were having an amazing break when really I was just desperate to do something that broke up the boredom. Oh well! Here are a few things that required my kids actually getting dressed and leaving the house….
We raced to the Alderwood Mall—about 35 minutes away—on a Sunday evening ti catch the giving machine before it closed and moved to Portland. Randy’s parents gifted us money and we put it to good use and then some. We purchased chickens, a goat, shoes, sports equipment, and food. Super fun! We left without going to Shake Shack which was a huge sacrifice for Landon but it was the Sabbath after all.
A fun first-time thing this year was helping with Toys for Tots. We delivered bags of toys to cars as they pulled up to pick up their gifts. I don’t know how families registered for this but each family had a list of toys/baby supplies/gift cards that they requested. The supplies were all bagged and tagged with a number so the people just pulled up, gave us their number, and we found the bags assigned to them. Luckily it was a beautiful sunny day or this wouldn’t have been nearly as fun.
Landon got to use his muscles and load up a bike. The woman cried as delivered it.
After recovering toys, we went to a fun park nearby and then got lunch at Dicks.
Landon is still obsessed with cheese burgers and somehow manages to eat one a few times a week. It’s just crazy that he’s so skinny because he eats a ton!
We stuck to tradition and delivered cookies in our car decked out in Christmas lights. Everyone whines at first but eventually they all love it. Especially Henry. The Santa hats made it even more fun.
We also went to a movie during this week of nothing to do. I haven’t been to a movie theater in ages because they’re just so darn expensive and not worth the money. I did some research and discovered that movies are $6 on Tuesdays for Regal Club members so I told my friend and we took all the kids to see Wonka. Apparently she and I are the last two people on the planet to know this trick. I’m so excited to see movies on Tuesdays now. And we loved Wonka!
I bought a couple of chickens too. :)
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