From Naughty to Nice

Someone please tell me my kids aren't the only ones who turn into naughty lunatics in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Maybe we should have pushed the coal threat a little harder because we had weeks of rip-my-hair-out-stir-crazy-mayhem over here. The most notable day of naughtiness included me waking up to Eli screaming, "Carson's eating sugar for breakfast!"

I ran downstairs to find Carson possessively holding the sugar jar, spoon in hand, evidence of his indulgences all over his lips and the counter. Like a starved animal out for blood. 

Our morning continued with screaming. Because my kids have forgotten how to talk to each other like regular human beings and have turned into their winter alter egos where a lack of outdoors and sunshine has led us all to be snippy and short with each other with every interaction. So keep that in mind as the consistent background to these events. 

It may have been Carson's breakfast choice that led him to, for the first time in his life, repeatedly sneak onto the computer to try to play video games when he knew he wasn't supposed to. He's always been my boy to have self-control with electronics, but he chose this day to test the boundaries and snuck onto the computer every chance he got. 

Meanwhile, I was playing with Lincoln, trying to regroup and have a better attitude about our day. We were reading books and just as I thought, "This is nice." BAM! He chucked a book right at my head. Corner of the book whacked me straight on the forehead. With surprising force and instantly threatening a bruise. 

Whining, complaining, screaming, fighting. We make it to dinner prep. Dinner prep is hard enough, but on days the boys are testing my patience already and constantly whining and fighting with every chop of an onion I attempt to make, I just can't deal. I attempt to brave through dinner prep despite the kids' lack of cooperation in the matter. 

For a moment, I notice peace. However, I am an experienced enough mother to recognize peace on a day such as the one I was having as suspicious. I hunt the boys down and find them with my one and only treasured makeup brush, in the bathroom, using it as their tool to watercolor. But what were they using for the water portion of their coloring? Toilet water. Naturally. And what was their canvas? The entire bathroom. 

Here are my children's accomplices to our crabby December day: 

You can imagine how much I was dreading 2 weeks of an open schedule and nothing to do when the boys were released to my constant care for winter break. Thankfully all it took was a coloring book from Eli's teacher to keep everyone content for the 2 days leading up to Christmas. 

Give them a new coloring book, and they're busy for hours. 

We were brave and put the presents out a whole week before Christmas. The boys were so excited the day they found them under the tree. They started shaking all of them and making their predictions. They soon convinced themselves every present contained underwear, without any misguidance from me. 

We made gingerbread houses and gingerbread men in the week leading up to Christmas. 

On Christmas Eve, the boys helped me make orange rolls. We received a huge box of oranges as a gift, and after smelling them for a few days, I knew just what to do with them. 

Yummy orange rolls for Christmas morning! They were delicious. I declare this a new tradition!

We usually have my Grandma's monthly dinner on Christmas Eve, but it was rescheduled this year, so we were on our own. We decided to make ourselves some grilled shrimp, asparagus and alfredo noodles with mushrooms and bacon. 

After dinner we got all cleaned up in preparation for Christmas. 

And into Christmas jammies to await Santa's arrival. 

Carson insisted on leaving skeleton gingerbread men for Santa. I'm sure he's a respecter of all holidays and still enjoyed the treat. 

He must have approved, because he left a little something for Lincoln...

And for Eli...

And for Carson...

The kids slept in until almost 7:00 Christmas morning. Boo yeah! Lincoln ran downstairs and went straight through his new tunnel to reach his stocking. 

Then Lincoln proceeded to habitually steal his older brothers' candy, all the while leaving his own candy untouched no matter how many times we pointed it out to him. 

Jeff enjoyed Christmas morning with us for a few minutes before diving into the 18" of snow that fell Christmas night/day. He endured three rounds of snow removal between taking care of our driveway and kindly clearing a neighbor's driveway who had a hurt knee. Basically this was his entire day. 

Meanwhile I got all dolled up for church. The choir was set to fill the time for Sacrament Meeting and I, much to my family's surprise, had gone and joined the choir since we moved in. Come to find out right as I was curling my last strand of hair, church had been canceled due to the mass amounts of snow being dumped on the neighborhood. 

We were going to wait until after church to open our wrapped presents. Eli excitedly realized presents no longer had to wait and we all ran downstairs to see what was waiting for us under the tree. 

Eli and Carson both got this and a Lego set as their bigger gifts. 

All the boys' gathered round for a toy we don't see much of...

A new baby doll for Lincoln! This is the beginning of me trying to slowly integrate "girl" toys into our collection. It was gladly accepted by all, so we're off to a good start.

Lincoln has loved his new baby. When he was first holding it, I made a crying noise to see what he would do with it. He swiftly, and with a sense of panic, threw the baby at me. Ha. "Here mom. I don't know what to do with this thing, you take care of it!"

Then it was time to lay all the toys out on the kitchen table and spend the rest of the day rummaging through Legos and losing various parts of our new toys. 

It was a very Merry Christmas!