We Spent the Week Shopping

 Everyone had money from doing yardwork for neighbors, so everyone needed an individual shopping trip.

I love taking my kids shopping . . . one-on-one.

We talked budgets.
We made lists.
We went to the dollar store.
We went to the thrift store.
We imagined what each sibling would like.
We talked.
We laughed.
We planned and plotted.

It. Was. So. Fun.

And . . .

How crazy is it that we have robot security at the shopping area!?!?!?!
It rolls around the parking lot, then it returns to what I assume is a charging station
and surveys the scene.

Seriously, it feels like we're living in a science fiction book.

One of my favorite moments is when a kid looks at something totally random and says, "This is perfect for ________!"

I hide my dubiousness and ask, "Oooh!  Why is that?"

Then the kid gives me a perfectly rational explanation for why a jumbo calculator or a miniature leopard print sketchbook or a pack of batteries is the best gift ever for a particular sibling.

We go together to check out, and I watch as my kid slowly counts out exact change or (oh, my heart!) asks the cashier apologetically if it's okay to give her a $10 bill when the total was only $2.75 and he needs change back.

(And then the cashier is sweet, and all of the people in line are patient, and I love the world.)

Nature Angel can drive herself to the store, so that left me with 7 kids to take on individual shopping expeditions.

It took the whole week.

But we did have time on Monday to have an absolutely sacred time reading together.  

The book drawn from the Christmas basket turned out to be The Forgotten Carols.


I pulled up the songs on YouTube and played them at the appropriate times as I read the book aloud.  

It's a long book, and I asked after nearly an hour of reading if the kids wanted to finish another day or keep reading.  

The vote was unanimous, and we sat together for well over 2 hours reading and listening to the songs.

It was a profoundly reverent experience.

Then we finished reading The Best Christmas Pageant Ever that same night, and we shared another moment of joy in the season.

Seriously, it was the best day of the week.

We also did math each weekday, and we watched several Christmas movies at various times.

On Friday, we did some Christmas baking prep.  

Chopping almond bark for melting

Smashing candy canes

He says holding the mixer is hard work!

More chopping!

Stirring the melting bark

Taking turns with the mixer

Someone (not always Baymax) was constantly at the sink taking a turn to wash dishes!

We'll do the actual baking on Christmas Eve, but we have the cookie doughs all mixed and wrapped up in the fridge.

Little Princess made a couple of batches of homemade bread.

Lola built fires for us at least 4 mornings this week.  She's quite good at cleaning out the ashes and getting a good blaze going.

All of the kids love to take turns stirring up the coals and adding more logs during the day.

My mom came over with gifts and family history journals.  She's kept notebooks of letters and pictures and blog posts by each of her kids.  As she declutters her own home, she's giving us what she's preserved.  I got 3 notebooks full of pictures and stories from my wedding to almost the present day.  They are saved on my blogs and on computer memory cards, but there's something glorious about hard copies.

My kids have spent hours curled up on the couch with these notebooks reading about their older siblings and themselves.

Family history IS history!

The teens and I finished Of Mice and Men with tears streaming down our faces.  We still have 80 or so pages left to finish Huck Finn, but we've shelved it until the new year starts.

I've done zero planning for January, but that must wait until Christmas is accomplished.

🎄Merry Christmas to All!!🎄

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