Happy 13th birthday, Rebecca!
Yes, the party was yesterday, and you were officially
thirteen by the time I wrote my journal entry for yesterday; but you’ll never
read this anyway, so I guess it isn’t that big of a deal one way or the other.
What was a big deal was Rebecca’s birthday breakfast! I love our big family breakfasts at home too,
but Jacob and Jake went all out with some really amazing treats this morning
that are more suited for five-star hotels than small-town kids – though not
that many of us were adventurous enough to try some of everything. That’s never a problem for me, and I
certainly didn’t meet a dish that I didn’t love this morning – including Jake.
Oh, did I write that out loud? Oops.
At least this time I managed to keep my thoughts from spurting out
verbally.
No, Aunt Leanne, I’m not in imminent danger of crossing
over; and you can’t fault me for crushing at least a little on Jake Stone. You probably still have at least a bit of a
little-girl crush on his father.
That didn’t take long for this recap to get
side-tracked. I was the first girl up
this morning, and it was nice enough outside that I decided to dress warm and
practice my Tai Chi by the river.
Miranda had bonus hugs for me when I got back inside, and a cup of hot
chocolate to warm up with before going back upstairs to grab a quick shower and
get dressed for church. I woke Rowen up
next, and then went back down to the kitchen to help out with setting the
dining room table. Stephanie was there
by then too, so I was her happy little helper; and we both got to do a little
taste-testing for Jacob and Jake as they kept busy in the kitchen.
The good part of being ready for church early was getting to
spend extra time with Miranda, Jacob, Jake, and Stephanie; with the slight
downside of having a big cleanup to help with after everyone had finished
eating. I did like getting to leave for
church with the first group out, since that also let Rowen and I spend some
time with our families before the service started while the last group to leave
with Miranda and Jacob were about one and a half songs late by the time they
found places to sit.
Today is the first Sunday of Advent, and the service was a
bit longer than usual; though that just meant that our Sunday school class had
some play time after we’d finished our lesson for the day. I’d still mostly been in birthday party mode
until then, but with an afternoon trip to the Christmas tree farm ahead of us;
I was getting fired up about that when Rowen and I met up with Mom, Dad, and
the twins after church. By the time we
got home again, I’d gotten approval to have Rebecca and Jenny come with us, and
the corresponding parental approval from their end. That worked out great for them, since they
had get out of work at the Inn cards for the day and no real plans; it added
two more trees to our shopping list; and we ended up with more friends and
neighbors, including Jenny’s Mom and brother, going out to the farm too.
Since we were already taking the van and truck with us, the
only change in plans we needed to make to add Rebecca and Jenny was to add a
car; so Uncle Nick and Aunt Deborah volunteered to drive too, and have Rebecca
and Jenny go in the truck with Uncle Adam and Aunt Leanne. Ethan and Ehlana loved that because it also
made room for Naomi to be another last-minute addition. Lunch was soup and sandwiches; quick and easy
to clean up; and then we loaded up and headed out on our afternoon adventure.
With the temperature heading toward seventy this afternoon,
it wasn’t exactly feeling Christmassy, but there are some advantages to warm
weather while going on hay rides and picking out trees; and the atmosphere
around the farm and store more than made up for the absence of anything
weather-related that even remotely resembling a winter wonderland. Jenny’s Mom and brother were already at the
farm by the time we got there, but had waited to go with us on the hay
ride. We saw some other friends and
neighbors out in the fields or at the store, but there weren’t any other Witch Falls
people on our hay ride.
While Jenny had help from her Mom and brother to pick out a
tree, this was apparently Rebecca’s first time being in charge of choosing the
tree for her family; and she took some extra time doing that with a little help
from her friends. Ethan, Ehlana, and
Naomi each got to help pick out trees too, and by the time we were ready for
the return hay ride; we had six trees picked out that Dad, Uncle Adam, Uncle
Nick, and Doug barely managed to fit into our truck and the Warren’s.
Shopping in the store was fun too, and though we probably
have enough decorations at home for three trees, there were still a couple of
new ones that wouldn’t let us go home without them. Ditto that for boxes of Christmas cookies;
jugs of apple cider; and a can of specialty hot chocolate. Some of the kids in our class would likely
think that spending a few hours on a Sunday afternoon with our teacher was
weird, but I love Jenny’s Mom; and the only weird for me while we were at the
Christmas tree farm was when Jenny had an ornament made to give to Shane.
Make that two or three weird moments, including the teasing
directed my way from Aunt Leanne, Rebecca, and Jenny about whom I could give
special Christmas ornaments to this year.
Aunt Leanne had way too much fun this afternoon after hearing about my
little verbal blurt from dinnertime last night.
Most of that was still fun for all of us; though I really wish that I
hadn’t given Aunt Leanne such an easy opening to point out that Jake does have
a ‘very cute younger brother of suitable age’ – her words, not mine.
Again, moving on, we were on the road for home by four; had
the trees delivered in houses by five-thirty; and Dad, Rowen, and I started
hauling decoration boxes into the living room while Mom worked on making dinner
and Ethan and Ehlana supervised all of us.
Rowen needed to be home for dinner, so she left in time to meet her
parents there after they closed the computer store for the day. This year, we had dinner first, and decorated
the tree after we’d eaten and cleaned up.
Mom and Dad multi-tasked that with a Magi lesson that was mostly for
Ethan and Ehlana; and we all had a blast decorating the tree and living room
telekinetically.
We all needed to get cleaned up after a long, busy day; and
Ethan and Ehlana were up first for baths that Mom and I helped them with while
Dad got some work done in the office. I
hopped into my Jacuzzi after we had the twins tucked in for the night; and Mom
joined Dad in the office so that she could do one final check for the Moms’
shopping trip in the morning. I’ve been
working on my computer since getting in the tub too; taking care of the usual
nightly computing first; moving on to an hour of language studies; and saving
the archive research until I was snuggled in bed with Mandy. I should have done more of that, but I’m
running out of steam; it’s heading toward one o’clock fast; and I’m ready to
just finish this up and get some down time.
If this weekend is any indication, I’d say we’re going to
have another amazing Christmas season – a nice, happy thought to drift off to
sleep with.
Say ‘goodnight, Cassie’.
“Goodnight, Cassie.”
