The Waterstraut Waterspout: On The First Day of Christmas...

Every year for the last decade or so, I've made the boys a Christmas punch board, where they have a new activity every day before Christmas, starting December 1. Every year I think they're getting too old for it, and every year they tell me they're not. This year though, I suggested we do the 12 days of Christmas instead of all 24 between December 1 and the 25th. I said it would be much more like 'we GET to do a punch today!' instead of 'we HAVE to do a punch today'. Also worth noting, I can just include some of the heavy hitters and not have to have 'filler'. So much easier for me. Also, instead of making a whole board I just used push pins to get the cups to stay on the bulletin board above the chalk board, wrote down our activities on index cards, popped them in the cups and then used a little rubber cement to secure the tissue paper front. Ta-da! So much easier.

We delayed on the punches a bit, and then did a couple in a row.

First up was the ever popular snowball fight. Usually we use paper and make snow balls. BUT this year I found (or rather my mom found and informed me) stuffed snowballs that we can use year after year!

We also brought back out our blow up antler ring toss.

Asa and I did a play-in game for the bracket, and I lost. So he played Calib.

And Hayden played Peyton.

Ultimately, Calib was the winner.

So, what does the winner of all these games get? Well, they get Christmas Bucks. I started this last year, and then put out a 'menu' of privileges the boys could buy. But, mostly just Hayden bought things. We have a good system around here where if the boys want me to do something for them they ask me what they can do for ME. So, privileges aren't such a commodity anymore, and everyone splits chores pretty well, getting out of them isn't a huge deal. So this year at the end, I've come up with something new. We're going to have a Survivor food auction, except instead of food it'll be random Christmas gifts. I'm pretty excited about it.

Our next Christmas punch was Conjoined Christmas Wrapping.

Where you pick your partner and you get put in the same shirt, and then have to wrap a present.

Hilarity ensues.

It's a timed event, but neatness counts.

Not that anyone seemed to pay attention to the neatness part.

We took a night off while Hayden went to the library for tween gift making and came back with a dream catcher and a llama ornament he made.

And another night our punch was Christmas Bucks Deal or No Deal.

I made three boards of 16 cases.

Hayden was up first. He ended up taking his case, for something like 3 Christmas bucks.

Peyton, meanwhile, picked case #5, and ended up taking a deal for 12 Christmas bucks.

Then there was Calib, who was either going to get 14 Christmas bucks or 5 Christmas bucks. He didn't take the deal, and he regretted it.

One night we had our annual Snowman Race contest, where you have to be the first to build your snowman out of toilet paper.

Calib & Hayden won that one, but their was complaining that Ellie cost Asa precious seconds.

In other news, Asa got a very generous gift card from his boss for all of us to have dinner at Capital Tacos.

Asa also took Peyton and Hayden to the midnight release of Super Smash Brother's Ultimate, so that's been pretty popular around here.

Another night we did the oven mitt present game. Basically you wrap the same present over and over again so you have LOTS of layers paper. Then, someone has to try and open it wearing oven mitts. The trick is the person to your left is rolling a dice, as soon as they get a six, you have to pass the oven mitts and the present to the next person, and it keeps circling around until someone finally gets to the actual present.

It's super fun to watch, everyone gets really into the dice rolls.

Now, you can have the present be the prize for the winner. But, we've done this game a couple years in a row, and I've always had the present be an advent calendar of sorts (last year was lego). This year I nabbed one of those sock advent calendars FOR FREE. I bought it through Top Cash Back and paid $15 for it. About a week later, I was able to cash out $15 for an Amazon gift card. Also, the sock advent calendars are SO FUN. We got a Harry Potter one, but there's lots of themes. Every day a different kid gets a new pair of fun socks. And since I had three kids, and three goes into 12 evenly, it works out perfect. Everyone gets four pairs. The winner of the oven mitt game, which was Peyton this year, got the first pair of socks AND a couple of Christmas bucks.

Another team even on the punch board was the Tic-Tac-Toe relay race. Basically you can either put a piece down, or steal a piece.

This was also SO FUN to watch. Calib and Hayden are the white circles, Asa and Peyton are the gold.

The guess the present game is another fun one we've been doing for years. Usually I wrap 10 household items, and they boys feel them out and write down what they think they are. This year I did 10 things I picked up at the grocery store that I knew they would like. Each kid got a couple new snacks, and they were happy with the new variation.

Calib is all done with school. He got a B in Personal Finance and a B in Astronomy, but he got a C in English Comp I. Still, not bad, he's holding steady at a 3.0 overall. Peyton and Hayden are winding down in their workbooks, and I've asked them to finish before Christmas. Peyton finished up a couple of days ago, and Hayden's taking his sweet time. He'll get there, but he'll have to do some work over the weekend. It also didn't help he ditched school work one day to go over and puppy sit.

We also held another family favorite event- the Christmas Open Bar. I make up a menu, get some fun drinks and serve them through the evening.

I got my drinks all set up, and got the blender out.

I also popped some popcorn and freshly baked some cookies.

Then everyone came and ordered their drinks throughout the night.

Saturday morning Asa was off to take his very last test for his Master's Degree, the SAS exam. The last couple classes have been really tough on him, and I was so happy for him he passed it! He does still have a project to do, but those are pieces of cake for him, and you can re-submit them as many times as you need to, so he should be good to go for graduation in February. We decided to go out to celebrate and try the new Sparkman Wharf in Tampa. It did not disappoint. We got some delicious shrimp,

And for dessert, I got a Whatever pop and Asa got a coffee.

Then we just hung out awhile. Even on a cloudy, sometimes rainy day, it was a nice place to hang out.

And the shipping containers are so cute and bright!

We also stopped by Curtis Hixon Park to check out the Winter Village.

The rain had done a number on the sand sculptures, but for the most part, they were still standing.

We're kind of obsessed with 'The Office' here at my house. For real, it gets played all the time. So the boys were excited to see 'Yankee Swap' on the punch board. Now, some day it'll be fun to all order something for Yankee Swap, but this year I picked out all the gifts. It's not a super easy task. You want to toe the line of having enough stuff people will fight over a coveted gift, but then some ridiculous things too. Mostly I try and get things for free (Asa and I both got $10 FREE Kohl's cash the day they had the mystery cash for any purchase, so we spent next to nothing and got money back!), or at least get them pretty cheap. There was no teapot, Phyllis made oven mitts, or IPod though.

Calib was the first to open a gift and picked out a megaphone. He begged everyone to let him keep it.

And we did, actually. Peyton got sock socks (socks with a sock print!), Hayden got a puzzle, Asa got Lil G the Fingerlings, Calib kept his megaphone and I got the 'Fake News' Button. (It's a magnet and when you press it, it says different phrases like 'You're Fake News' and 'We don't want fake news!' "That was false and fake and never happened'. It is pretty amazing.)

I should have re-thought the megaphone though, because, well, Calib has a megaphone now.

Meanwhile, it took Hayden a few days, but he did the Disney Villains puzzle all on his own.

Besides all of the Christmas punches and stuff, I had a pretty long to-do list including all the cookies I had to bake to send to Ohio so they can be distributed in the Ainsworth cookie boxes. I hate baking, but that mixer our awesome neighbor, Teresa, gave me is a lifesaver. Nothing is as terrible as it once was.

So I made the Chinese cookies, and the oatmeal cookies.

I made some reindeer cookies to have here (they don't ship well).

I made rum balls, date balls, and chocolate covered peanut butter crackers. And then I was exhausted.

I can't say nobody helped. Calib taste tested, and Asa shipped them all, so there's that.

Also, worth noting, on the 16th we celebrated one year since Etta joined our family. This Saturday will be three years since Ellie joined our family, so I made them a joint cake to enjoy. (You can't really tell but it says Happy Etta & Ellie Versary--it's hard to write on whipped cream with peanut butter!)

Now, if you don't know the story by now, you don't know us. We adopted Ellie, she climbed up on our couch and we all lived happily ever after. We adopted Etta and all hell broke loose for three months. But, you'd never know that now. She is part of the pack, and part of the family. And we love her (even if she tries to climb all over the clean laundry)

So anyway, we made the girls their cake, and then tried like crazy to get a good picture.

We settled for what we got.

But you know, last year Etta got to have some of Ellie's anniversary cake with her family, but on opposite sides of the screen, since they couldn't be that close. And now look at them, licking their plates clean together on the kitchen floor.

I am grateful every day that we all live in harmony again. Those three months were tough. Now my quiet morning coffee time is back to just a pile of sleeping, happy, puppies.