Fun Saturday

Our normal Saturdays include Melita reading, Charlton sleeping, children folding clothes, and Elijah blowing leaves and doing yard work. The past Saturdays have had new elements being added to them. This Saturday followed the pattern of the last ones.

We started by babysitting for a friend of mine. I visit teach her and I wanted to do a little service for her for the month of December instead of visiting her at home. She just had her baby a few months ago, and wanted me to babysit her two children while she attended the temple with her husband. It absolutely felt good to help her out even a little bit. Her children did fine, and my children were a great help to me. Gillian kept wanting to hold the baby. She fed her, and then held her some, and while I was on Skype with my mother, she kept talking and singing to her.


When my friend's son pulled one of the blinds off, my boys turned the problem into a fun activity. They started using it as a car track, and raced cars on it. Leave it to Jefferson to use his ingenuity for fun. They played on that thing for almost an hour, making their own race tracks or roller coaster rides.


After lunch, I had my children do some laundry, while Charlton kept me company by playing peek-a-boo inside the laundry basket.

When laundry was over, Gillian went upstairs to read, and my boys started building with cards, a favorite past time in our house. It's fun sometimes hearing Jefferson or James loose their patience when the cards would fall. It isn't fun when they start complaining about how Charlton isn't being a good sport, and is destroying their hard work. As for me, I'm glad those flashcards are being used for something.
The evening was spent partying out. Our ward's Christmas party was tonight, and I have to say this was the best and most organized party I have ever been. The food was excellent, abundant, and elegantly served. The decorations were beautiful and just perfect. The program was very enjoyable and long enough for all of us with kids to enjoy.

We started our party by having our traditional Santa stop. All the children sat on Santa's lap and told him what was on their list. Gillian had only one request: books, Jefferson wanted a robot that could do his chores, and James asked for a light saber with sound. Charlton got scared and screamed as he approached Santa. Oh, well, I tried.


When Gillian saw her best friend, Mary, she wanted to take a picture with her on Santa's lap. They had matched their dresses, since they were going to sing together tonight in the program.

After a delicious dinner, we were entertained by a very talented high school choral group. They sang various traditional Christmas songs. The choral group was followed by our primary children singing Jingle Bells. It was so fun to watch all of them singing, waving and smiling. After that, Emily played the first verse of Oh, Christmas Tree on her violin, and then Gillian and Mary joined her in singing the rest of the verses. The threesome did a great job.


We all enjoyed our evening eating good food, listening to pretty music, and talking to our friends. When clean up time came, Elijah went to help, and I snapped a few pictures of my kids running around. I did get a picture of Charlton tonight, and although without Santa, he looks pretty handsome.