Jeff, Tiffany, and Their 3 Little Baers: Thanksgiving and Christmas

For Thanksgiving we went to the Baer’s home. We had a wonderful meal and at first Jeff thought he’d have to be on call for work but the night before he got a text from someone offering to cover the weekend. This was a huge blessing as Jeff has been feeling a bit burned out and overwhelmed so this was a welcome break. The night before Jeff and I stayed up making two sweet potatoes dishes and apple and cherry pie. The next morning we went to Westminster and made the rolls at Sarah’s house while the children played at Mama and Papa Baer’s house. Jeff did all the bread food (pie crust and rolls) and it tasted delicious! Plus it was so much fun to work with him in the kitchen and have a cooking friend. We had a wonderful day with family and the kids were so happy to play all day. They always love going to Mama Baer's.

The only picture I took was of the delicious apple pie.

The day after Thanksgiving was spent putting up Christmas decorations. Lily and Ryan had a great time and after the ornaments were put on the tree Lily kept rearranging them as she loved pulling them off and putting them on. Ryan just likes to pull them off, but for some reason Lily has no problem with that and even encourages it so everyone’s happy. At night when Lily was supposed to be in bed I found her sitting on her little rocking chair next to the tree. I asked what she was doing and why wasn’t she in bed and she said with a sigh, “I’m just looking at the tree.” She said several times how beautiful it was and how happy it made her. Jeff also put lights in Lily and Ryan’s rooms and Lily’s never get turned off. She wants them on all the time.

We have never put up house lights before, but every time we pass a house with lights Lily asks, “can we do that at my house?” She asked that a lot when we passed homes with Halloween decorations and we didn’t do any of those so we decided it’s time to get festive. Jeff purchased some multi-colored hanging lights and went to work. We don’t have a ladder so he jumped on the roof from the van. He worked hard for a bit but then had to make a trip to the store to get more lights. He wasn’t sure how he would get down from the roof, but he thought if I helped him down by the side fence he could make it. I thought he wanted to step on my back to get down but he really just wanted me to guide his feet. In any case he made it down safely and my back is only mildly sore. But since he had to finish we prayed some more and he made it safely on the roof again and back off. The kids were so happy to have our house lit up and now we feel less guilty when Lily points out homes lit up with Christmas lights. Plus, it is nice to be festive.

We started an advent calendar and are putting a little treat in each number (M&M’s) and I thought I’d put an act of service Lily could perform for the day as a gift to the Savior. So far that hasn’t really taken so we may just be doing the treats this year. We also started “Elf on the Shelf” and named our elf Buddy the Elf. Lily loves him but doesn’t get the whole concept of not touching him. So he hides in the morning but then he spends the rest of the day on Lily’s bed (where she sleeps with him) or in her back pack so she can take him to school. After she used the bathroom I told her to wash her hands and she didn’t so I said I was going to tell Buddy the Elf. A few minutes later she conceded to use a wet wipe and told me to be sure and tell Buddy the Elf that she was being nice now and wiped her hands. Unfortunately the reminders of his mission and his reporting of her behavior only works a small fraction of the time, but it still is a fun Christmas activity, even if we can’t always fear her into being compliant.

Last year we made a gingerbread house and Lily had a lot of fun so it's now a tradition. Lily and Jeff love eating the candy together, I'm glad they have each other.

Lily was a very careful decorator.

Other noteworthy things this month: Lily loves to feed Ryan and he eats for her, it's really cute.

Ryan got a haircut and it only took 4 of us to do it (thank you Lisa for being a great helper in this challenging task. Ryan sat on Lisa's lap, I tried to entertain, and two women worked on his hair). There were lots of tears.....from Ryan.

Every child has a picture like this, don't they?

Ryan's a big fan of Lily's princess boots. I think because they are so much easier to get on than his own, or maybe he likes pink, who knows.

Ryan loves praying and we often have to say several prayers until he's satisfied.

We finally got mats for our cement floors! Hooray! My knees and bum are so happy.

Ryan loves carefully building towers.

Lily surprisingly wanted to build with Ryan, that's an improvement from the past.

Christmas morning, she loves her Princess tent. Jeff set it up the night before and put her presents inside.

Once all Lily's friends were inside Ryan had to join the fun too.

Let the unwrapping begin!

Jeff also set up this elaborate tent system the night before.

Ryan was a fan.

A blendtec, yeah!

A photo Lily took of Papa.

Ryan's favorite place to hang out while unwrapping gifts and it kept him contained for a bit so that was nice.

One of Lily's favorite gifts was her favorite cereal, Lucky Charms. She never gets it because she only eats the marshmallows and that does weird things to the bowels, but it's Christmas and Nana gave us some cereal to go with the wonderful bowls and silverware she thoughtfully gave us. She noticed that whenever we had people over for dinner I was always washing dishes because we never had enough. She's so observant and I was very impressed with her gift.

Train tracks are always fun.

This was Nana's monkey, but as you can tell Lily thinks it's hers. There was a lot of sadness when reality set in that it was not going to be coming home with us.

We tried to take some family photos at Sarah's house, but the kids weren't really happy to cooperate. They did however love the dancing Santa, and Lily liked to shake her hips in sync with him.