I must say that the joyfulness that I felt over the weekend quickly vanished and I have been quite crabby for the last 2 days. This is when it matters most to practice virtue, especially with my family. Well, I am not sure how they would describe their experience with me during this time, but I struggled pretty hard with being patient and friendly.
I got sick and was put on medicine that absolutely keeps me up at night. I am so tired and cranky. It was getting harder and harder to pull of the nice face, as the days went on, following the sleepless nights! I have been on this medicine for over a week now and the no sleep has really caught up to me. Tonight, after apologizing to my children NUMEROUS times during school today for being crabby, we baked cookies, toffee brittle, and pumpkin pies for our Thanksgiving celebration tomorrow at my parent's house. It was such a wonderful night with the kids and with my Love, Jeremy (who would not let me take his pic because he was already in his pajamas) We laughed a lot and listened to Christmas music.......I am so in the Christmas spirit (even though Advent hasn't even started yet), and besides, there is no such thing as Thanksgiving music anyway!!
Here are Savannah and Nick mixing up the Pumpkin pie ingredients. Jeremy insists on me making my homemade pumpkin pie each year. I am not sure if he REALLY loves it that much or if he is just being so sweet and building me up!
I was trying to "enjoy" them "enjoying" mixing it all up without mentioning a possible mess if they were not careful....I might have slipped and said it once or twice (I am really cranky today!)
Then we cut out gingerbread cookie shapes. They just loved it. We had Christmas music BLASTING in the kitchen.....I love to sing Christmas songs REALLY loud, and then have to stop while I cry (because they touch my heart so much!)
Flour (and dough) was everywhere!!
I don't look crabby......but I kind of was on the inside!! I am so ashamed when I am so blessed but acting like such a baby
My three little Angels!! They just love to help me bake!
Savannah and Nicholas sat on the counter in order to reach the cookie dough and ended up getting flour and dough on their pajama bottoms. I made them take them off before getting down (to try and spare the newly mopped floor). This is them checking on the cookies in the oven without their pajama bottoms on.....this makes me just laugh!
They just noticed that I was taking their picture and started to scream....yet they kept running back in front of me and laughing! They thought that they were pretty funny......and they were!
We took the cookies out of the oven pan by pan and let them cool while we made more batches. We were a little factory. Then we got to decorate them! That was so much fun!! They are little artists
Madison fake eating one of her creations. She would really take her time to add a lot of detail onto hers. She is really creative!!
Little Nicholas making his gingerbread man. He even put shoes on him!
Here are some of our finished creations! They look really yummy, don't they......lots of icing and red hot candies! This is a dry run for our Christmas cookies!!
Here were some of the family favorite designs this year.....Savannah's "Christmas Tree Frog"
Madison's embellished Christmas stocking (Wow, that is a lot of candy) We call it the insulin maker!!
Here is Nicholas' famous "Ginger Man wearing a Green Boot" He said it was a tie die boot!
Jeremy sweetly agreed to put our little bakers to bed while I finished making the toffee brittle and cleaning up. I saw it fitting to take a couple minutes out for a hot cocoa (while the candy was boiling) in my favorite BIG mug! It just seemed like the right thing to do. Now that the house is quiet, I thank our Lord for promises we make to our children.....I was so not in the mood for baking tonight, but since I promised them that we would today after finishing our school (I made this promise when I was in a really good mood the other night) , I was kind of stuck. I am SO GLAD that I was stuck! What joy I would have missed out on tonight with my family! I am such a crab sometimes. I hope that they don't remember that part!!
I really wish that I could re-do today and just be that sweet, tender mother that I was called to be and the mother that they really deserve. I guess that I can start fresh tomorrow morning. Jesus, please give me strength.....and sleep! God Bless you all
