Monday, December 21, 2015

A weekend of puppy love, Christmas video shenanigans & birthday plans...

Hello all! It's Christmas week, isn't it exciting?! The kids and I enjoyed a lovely (if a bit cramped) 11 am Mass yesterday for the Fourth Sunday of Advent. Our parish combined the 10 am and noon Mass, and so the new 11 o'clock Mass has more people squeezed in. It's totally understandable, but with a 4 year old in tow, when people sit on either side of us in a pew, there are inevitably multiple times during which one set of them has to move for Anne to break through to and from Children's Liturgy of the Word. And a loudly demanded bathroom break.

*long suffering sigh*

At any rate, I had a perfectly fabulous weekend. And I want to hear about yours! Let's settle in with our tea and coffee.

I took the day off on Friday to attend the annual Christmas party of my crafting group. I look forward to this every year, and it always a joyous day. I absolutely LOVE the women in my crafting group. We all work in the same place, and get together on many of our lunch hours to knit and crochet. And solicit advice or comfort, or whatever the case may be. Think of us as a knitting support group. :)

And each year we do a Secret Santa gift exchange. It's always exciting for the big reveal of who had who to craft for, and what they made! This year, my recipient was my dear friend Bridget, who is an avid cook and baker. Thus, I crocheted her this adorable apron:

Don't you just love the cherry pocket?
It turned out so cute I wanted to keep it for myself. ;-) In turn, my Secret Santa, Alix, knitted me these lace socks:

I put them on my feet the instant they came out of the package...
I have never had a pair of socks knitted by anyone other than myself. These are a TREAT for my feet! I adore them! They look red in the photo, but the color is actually a burnished orange. I mean... :0 I love them!

While we were there exchanging our gifts and having an absolutely fantastic lunch, I fell in love with a dog. ;-) We were are Bridget's, and she has two adorable dogs, both of whom I enjoyed petting and playing with throughout the afternoon. But the one little guy, Logan, just absolutely stole my heart. I texted Mike this picture with the message "Look at my adorable Secret Santa gift, Sweetie! Can I bring him home?!"

:0
I mean, did you ever?! I LOVE HIM. I may dognap him in the night. I WANT HIM.

Mike handled my Logan love well this weekend. ;-) He reminded me that Henry is allergic to dogs, so it's really not a good idea for us to get one right now. But Henry is 10, I responded, in eight years he'll be a legal adult, so I'm just thinking ahead to our future. Which so obviously includes a dog.

*sniffs innocently*

After the party, I had some family time before heading to my troupe rehearsal wherein we filmed this now infamous Christmas video. It went pretty much like this:

(1) We warmed up.
(2) We practiced in our regular clothes since none of us could remember the ever evolving and loosey goosey choreography.
(3) We got it to where we were all mostly doing the same thing, stuck a free style segment at the end, and called it done.
(4) We threw on red and green costumes.
(5) One of our troupe members' boyfriend filmed us dancing this thing no less than a half dozen times, including multiple angles of our ridiculously silly choo choo train while tray balancing segment, and a circle tray spinning segment.
(6) We all got very tired.
(7) We changed and went home. :0

It was fun, and the word on the street is that the video turned out very well. I'm very curious to see it when it debuts on our website!

Saturday began our two day Mike birthday extravaganza. He had a milestone birthday this year, and so I wanted to make it really special for him. We had dinner plans Saturday night just the two of us, then a whole Mike day planned for Sunday. Prior to our dinner, the kids were getting restless, so Mike and Henry had a father/son movie watching afternoon, and I took Anne out for a girls afternoon to a Lularoe open house nearby. Here is Anne in the new leggings she procured at the event:

Isn't she adorable? She also has very loud taste :0
We had SUCH a fun time. I got her another pair of polka dot leggings she was eyeing up for her Christmas stocking, and we generally browsed the skirts and dresses with abandon. The boys would have considered it torture to have endured such a thing, so we reveled in our leisurely girl time.

In the evening, Mike and I had our dinner, and then Sunday the kids and I woke up early to make him chocolate chip pancakes. Well, the chocolate chips were mostly for us, I think Mike would have been fine with just plain pancakes. ;-) But we had a delicious breakfast, gave him his gifts, and later we had his parents over to watch football and order pizza (his requested birthday take out). It was a really, really nice day.

And so now here I am back at work. I am so long suffering. But it's only a three day work week, so I can't exactly complain. How was your weekend and Fourth Sunday of Advent, dear reader? Do tell me all about it in the comments!

2 comments:

  1. This weekend was busy but mostly with fun Christmas stuff. Saturday night I ushered for a Christmas play. My favorite part is always the living nativity at the end. Sunday we did a potluck at my aunt's house for my cousin who is visiting from out of town. I didn't quite have the scarves I was making for her kids done but she said she has room in her suitcase to take them back with her. I finished them last night after I got home and will drop them off for her after work today.

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  2. Hi Melanie! A Christmas play, how delightful! That sounds like a great way to inspire a festive spirit. Gift scarves, yes, very familiar with this phenomenon. :) But it sounds like you were very close, and now you're done, yay! My gifts, well...I'll mention the status in my post today. ;-)

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