Ready for Christmas!

The kids are getting pretty excited!  The anticipated day is drawing nearer!  This year we gave the girls a list of chores in order to earn Christmas money to buy presents for their siblings.  Instead of assigning a dollar amount, we told them they had to complete all of these chores together before we'd take them shopping.  Worked out pretty well!  They finished last Saturday and we took them each individually to go shopping and get a little lunch.  They loved their date time with mommy/daddy and loved picking out the perfect gift for their brothers and each other.  Instead of doing the angel tree this year, the girls participated in the school's Christmas toy drive for victims of Hurricane Sandy.  They each purchased a toy with their own money and donated it to the school.  They were excited to do it themselves and I was so proud of them.  We attended our ward Christmas party with just Big sister.  Little sister was sick, so husband was going to stay home with the younger 3 since wife was in charge of helping with the dinner, but niece came home and sent husband to be with his wife.  Love her.  That was the most relaxing ward Christmas party we've ever been to, what with only 1 child that is capable of getting her own plate and feeding herself.  Haha!  We also started the elf on the shelf thing.  I've resisted for 2 years, but big sister kept asking if we could get our own elf and I finally caved.  Ours is not super creative.  He just hides in a different place every night.  Sometimes he's "tricky" and hides in the same place as the previous night.  Yup.  Tricky.  The girls are loving the hunt for Buddy every morning.  They have been pretty good, too.  We still need to do Christmas cookies, which I may even get around to this week.  I am soaking in the season this year, but going much slower than I usually do.  I typically have most of the shopping done by December 1, but this year I hadn't really even started.  I think the last of our gifts should arrive in the mail today (LOVE Amazon) and we are all done.  It has been low key and low stress around here, and I have loved that we've kind of slowed down this year instead of speeding up. 

Switching gears a bit, I hate that I had to have a conversation with Big sister about 20 students and 6 of their teachers being gunned down at school.  I hate taking that piece of innocence away from her.  She had a lot of questions, and seemed reassured that those sweet children and those adults that died protecting them are now safe with Heavenly Father and Jesus and they don't have to hurt ever again.  How grateful I am for that knowledge.  I am glad I resisted the urge to go pick her up from school on Friday.  It would have made me feel better but probably would have frightened her.  Beyond that, I really have no words to adequately express the heartache I feel for those families that lost loved ones.  So so so sad.