The nap dliemma

The dilemma of the 3 year old nap is something we face daily. Jim Gaffigan has a hilarious section about it in his book "Dad is Fat." I highly recommend you get the book from your library, especially if you have kids. A three year old who naps doesn't go to bed till a ridiculously late hour, yet if they don't nap, they are falling apart hard core by 5pm. Sometimes sooner. 4-7pm becomes an absolute nightmare. Lots of temper tantrums and melt downs. BUT then they will go to bed, totally passed out, at 7:30pm. So it's a trade off. Which would you rather have, I ask myself each day, a break in the afternoon, or an earlier evening to yourself with the hubs? 

It ends up being that Hailey takes about two or three naps a week. She can't really go more than two days in a row without a nap. And they have gotten shorter, if she naps it's from like 2-3pm. Which is fine with me, because then she is still tired around 8pm. 

And some days, she just ends up crashing in the couch. This is becoming something of a Sunday ritual...

I kiss that little cheek a dozen times a day, I can't help myself. 

Guadete Sunday

We decorated the tree on Sunday and the kids were so sweet about it. I just sat and nursed, drank in all their sweet innocence and took a 4 minute video for posterity's sake as my grandpa would say. 

Christmas Party Round 2

Friday the 13th we attended the all staff Christmas party the university hosts. It is a highly attended, very popular event and a ton of fun. I started asking around for a babysitter 2 weeks ahead of time because all my usual girls who are students would already be gone, headed home by then. And with everyone wanting to go, I knew the demand for local babysitters would be high! Luckily, my gal was available and I booked her before anyone else :) 

I was the lucky one with two handsome dates :)

It's such a fun time because we get to hang out with all the couples we are friends with. I see my mom friends often during the week, at playgroup and storytime at the library, and Luke will often run into their husbands at work. So for all of us to hang out together is really nice. 

My favorite part of the evening was dancing some salsa with Luke. There is an Argentinian couple who live here and the wife, Cynthia, teaches Spanish and her husband just got a new job teaching at CUA in DC. Anyway, they were complaining how the music was so bad and we agreed it wasn't great, and they just wanted them to play some salsa or merengue. With Luke's help, they looked up a song on Spotify on his phone and asked the DJ to play it. When it came on, they were going to be the only one's on the dance floor. So I grabbed Luke and said, "let's go!" He looked at me like, "we're going to salsa with them?!" I think I surprised him:) It came back to me and I knew what I was doing! He is a natural dancer and caught on in like 1 minute and I'd say we did ok! After it ended, Cynthia thanked me for joining them out there. I would do it again! Maybe we'll practice before next year :)

End of the year Off Site.

At the end of each semester the team goes does an off site meeting. They usually try to go to some type of relaxing retreat type place and take a few days to just rest, decompress, spend time together in fellowship and prayer and have their end of the semester strategic meeting, and one on one evaluations with Luke. If the place is able to accommodate us, the kids and I get to come along too! This past week we spent three days at one of our student's parent's awesome cabin in Virginia. Our family stayed in the finished suite above the garage and the rest of the team staying in the main house. It was really big and super cozy. And had lots of wildlife decor, haha. There was a pool table, full bar, several massive flat screen tv's....I mean it doesn't get much better than watching Thomas the Train on a 60 inch TV when your two years old.

She looked so grown up, eating her cereal with an adult size bowl and spoon on this big ol bar stool.

caught in the act of giggling :)

 I had made cut out sugar cookies with the kids at home the day before to bring with us and frost with the team. I brought everything with me to make the frosting there and I know I'm probably starting to sound like a broken record but I just can't get over what a difference a year makes. Last year they couldn't figure out how to frost really, this year they were all about it, and did a great job.

The last day we were there, before driving back to Maryland, we all stopped at a vineyard to do some wine tasting. It was my first time, (I'm so embarrassed to admit that. How can I be 29 and just went on first wine tasting?? Pathetic.) The wine was delicious and we ending up buying a bottle and ordering a cheese platter and relaxed by this huge fireplace that had a wonderful fire going.

All I can say is, sometimes I'm so thankful for smart phones and Netflix. Otherwise we would have left with the wine bottle and not stuck around! So glad we did :)

Focus Christmas Party

This year we hosted the student leader Christmas party at our house. I LOVE hosting it. We put up some decorations a little early to make it more festive. We hosted it our first year here at our old house and it was fun but everyone felt a little stiff. Last year our place was too small so I think they did it on campus and the turn out was terrible. I was super happy to be having it at our place again. 25 out of our 30 student leaders came. And the atmosphere was so fun. Christmas music was playing, our first snow was falling outside (perfect, big, soft, fluffy snow), and there was hot chocolate, coffee cake, french toast. And everyone was so relaxed and having a good time. It felt like one big family! They have all gotten so close! I noticed a huge difference this year. There was so much unity and camaraderie between all of them. They did a secret santa gift exchange, with a $5 limit and you could tell people put thought into their gifts! Some of them would even say, "I know you really like these" as they were handing it to them. These students do not necessarily mix in the same crowds on campus either. But you can tell they have gotten to know one another, care for each other, and have a single mission to reach out to their peers on this campus. It was so exciting to see.

I love Casey in this picture; sprawled out in the middle of everyone playing with his train.

Everyone was holding Owen, which I didn't mind at all, but I had them all using hand sanitizer first. Yep, I'm "that" mom. I have a huge bottle of it that sits in our entry way. These kids are coming from dorms that I'm sure are just crawling with germs. I was not ashamed to protect my 2 month old!

 Hailey, our observer, was so sweet and pulled up a chair for herself and sat on the outskirts of everyone. She eventually joined in when Casey was playing London Bridges with some students. Casey was such a ham and running under the "bridge" (two students with their arms out in front of them) and then high fiving everyone in sight.

our wonderful student leaders.

Luke's discipleship chain. From L-R: Zac, John Paul, Luke, Brian and Nate. 

 

Later that day, Hailey and Casey went out to play in the snow. It was so neat to see the difference in Hailey this year. Way more confident and excited! Every day since she has asked to go out and play in the snow. I love it. I send them out in the fenced in back yard and they play for about 20 minutes.

First steps out in the snow and she's strutting across our front yard like she's been waiting to do this.

Looking thug-like. His glove had a hole and his poor finger was sticking out, getting cold :(

Can you believe it's only 9 days till Christmas? I can not!!