Post Christmas Activities to New Year's Eve...

Thursday, December 26th, we would stay home during the daylight hours. Then have an outing when the sun started to go down. Here are a few pictures of our day.

Claude was helping Emelia dance on the breakfast table. She was loving that movement I tell you. 

Andie brought over the makings for a 'veggie lodge'. The big word for it is 'charcuterie'. We pretty much stuck with calling it the veggie lodge. You simply take carrots to make the log cabin-like structure and use other vegetables to decorate it. The 'glue', when needed, is cream cheese. There are no specific instructions. You just create as you go. Here are the efforts and results of those efforts. With all the sugar floating around over Christmas, this was a welcome reprieve. 

Katelyn got this picture of our cute great grandmonsters. If you look carefully at Raelyn, you can tell how her left eye was pulling to the center. This is the reason for the glasses.  

The adults sat around the dining table playing some games. Raelyn is not quite old enough to play these games. We set her up at a little table with the step stool as her chair and gave her a deck of cards to play. She loved it. We kept the table up and moved it to other rooms throughout the rest of their visit.  

I love this picture of Raelyn and Bailey watching a movie on Bailey's telephone. Be still my heart! 

Emelia loved this Christmas gift. 

In the evening we ventured from our home as a family. It took two cars but we got her done. We went to Burger King in Georgetown for dinner. After that we drove through Southern Lights at the Kentucky Horse Park. We all knew that Raelyn would be fun to watch as she experienced all the lights. The Ropers were in their car because of the car seat needs and Bailey road in the back seat between Raelyn and Emelia. Claude drove my car with Michael, Andie, Hayden and me. To enjoy the excitement of Raelyn, we called the Roper car and put my phone on speaker. Then we all talked back and forth as we drove through the lights. It was a nice family activity and got us out of the house for a bit.

Friday, December 27th, the Marx family would head back to LaGrange. They spent most of the morning with us. One of the things they forgot was their stockings for Christmas day. When they got home, Andie sent us this picture of them with their stockings.

I spent the afternoon with Papa. Time for a confession. I did bring Papa out on Christmas afternoon. We opened presents in the morning. My intention was to have Papa open his gifts while he was in our home that afternoon. I completely forgot to give them to him!! My bad. I thought I would take them in on Thursday when I visited him. I completely forgot to take them in with me!! Finally, on Friday, I got the job done. We gave Papa two big canvas pictures of photos I took when we visit Juneau, Alaska and Kolob Canyon, Utah. I also gave him a blanket with pictures of our family all over it. He enjoyed opening his gifts.

It was at this point that the cold caught up with us. I usually have one really good cold every winter. This was my turn for the cold bug. Because of that, Claude and I did not attend the wedding reception we planned to attend that evening. I have no pictures for that day. Claude tried to off load me so I could sit and rest as much as possible. Saturday was just a resting kind of day. I believe this is the day the Ropers made a drive into Georgetown for a little family time out and about.

Sunday, December 29th, I had to go in to play the organ for church. I left my family at home. After church, I went to visit Papa. While I was visiting him, I get two text messages about a possible fraudulent charge on our credit card. Ugh!! This has happened twice before. I can only sing the praises of Chase every time this has happened. While I was at the nursing home I forwarded the text information to Claude and asked him if he made any of those charges. He said he did not. I told him I would communicate with Chase and let them know those were not our charges. I talked with Chase. They asked about other charges that had not cleared. I verified the ones that were legitimate and the two that were definitely not us. They fixed the charges. I was told to not use my credit card until they sent me new ones. All is well now. A major inconvenience but so much less than it could have been.

I was supposed to facilitate a Self-Reliance Group but got a text message and others were also dealing with a cold. We just cancelled the group for that night. This allowed me to go home after visiting Papa. Grateful for that. 

When I got home I went to the basement with Raelyn while she played with the toys. I did not take my phone with me. When I got back upstairs I picked up my phone and realized I missed a call from the nursing home. It seems Mr. Tuttle, Papa's roommate in Room 107, had developed something that required him to be in isolation. They had quickly moved Papa back to Room 105. Ugh! This was good to keep Papa away from whatever Mr. Tuttle had but it is very confusing to my poor father. He went through this when he was residing in Room 105 and Matt needed to be in isolation. That is how he got to Room 107. I can explain why he is where he is and that he will get his pictures back once Mr. Tuttle is well. But after a while he forgets the reason and has to have it explained again. We were told it would be a week or so before he could go back into the room.

Monday, December 30th, had us gathering up the Mini's to come back to Sadieville. I was still full of cold and Claude was concerned about me driving to get the Mini's. We had some time in the morning with the Ropers. Then Claude would drop me at the nursing home and go to Shelbyville where Andie would meet him with the Mini's. They would then come back to the nursing home and get me. We would make a quick stop at Walmart to pick up the few items we needed to replenish and add for New Year's Eve. 

Here are some morning pictures. 

When we got to the house, the kids started their playing again. Somehow Hayden became a knight in shining plastic armor. Raelyn must have very strong powers. 

We worked with Emelia on standing alone. She was trying to do this often with her toy. She would let go and then sit down. So Katelyn and Drew stood her up and she tried to stand alone. The first picture is Emelia with no shoes standing and the second is Emelia with shoes standing.  In the first picture she almost has a surf board stance.

Monday night's dinner was Hot German Potato Salad with Kielbasa. We love this dish. However, Hayden has some sensitivity issues to certain food. He really doesn't eat bacon. Hot German Potato Salad had bacon bits mixed in it. We were pleasantly surprised when Hayden wolfed down his Hot German Potato Salad. I sent a text to Andie and share with her that he ate this dish with bacon. We did not tell him it had bacon in it. She share the enjoyment of this feat and told me it was actually the day to celebrate bacon! 

Time for Tuesday, January 31st. The last day of 2019. Claude and I have a tradition of watching all three Lord of the Rings movies for New Year's Eve. We start the watching at 3pm and end a little after midnight. Katelyn and Hayden both wanted to watch with us so that is why the Mini's were brought back to the house. Bailey wasn't interested in watching the movies but she felt she could help with playing with Emelia and Raelyn while we watched. Drew wasn't interested in watching and he would shepherd the three girls while we watched the movies. 

Once we got everyone to the house, it was time to put together that Oreo Cookie house. They did an amazing job of this while I visited Papa. We would send it home with the Mini's. Oreo's are definitely a thing we do with the Marx family. 

Raelyn found the book I bought when Hayden was really into Diego. It is the camera and has a button that you click to take a picture. We all posed for pictures that Raelyn was pretend taking. So cute. 

Finally it was 3pm. The food was spread out in abundance. We were ready to enjoy the movies. We set up our bedroom for the girls to watch kids movies. Our bed works like a hospital bed. Bailey set it up so they could sit in it to watch television. Toys were brought up from the basement that the little ones might want to play with. Drew was set up with the television in the living room to watch whatever he wanted to view. Everyone had food they would enjoy. Game on!!

After each movie we pause for a refresh your beverage break. We take the things back to the kitchen from the basement. Claude went up after the second movie to get something out of our bedroom. He came down and said, "You don't even want to see our bedroom!" Well, cell phone in hand, I hurried upstairs to get this picture before the final movie started. Our Bailey is hidden behind the pillow on the bed. It really looks worse than it was. And...they picked it up when the little ones went to bed.  

I was texting pictures and happenings to Jake. He started the exchange of Lord of the Rings quotes by sending, "Two great grandkids to rule them all!"  I shared his quote with Claude who countered with this quote, "What's good for the goose is good for the Gondor!" On my!! We ended the movie with this quote from Claude after Frodo's finger was bitten off by Gollum,'"Now he can only count to 9 1/2!"  Yes, our family is a bubble off center!

It was nice to share this tradition with grandmonsters. We had a great New Year's Eve.