Rainy-Day Reading, Symphony, Nutcracker, and Christmas Cookies

We've had way more rain this winter than normal. Thursday, December 6 was a rainy day. My whole house needed cleaning, but the littles and I spent a long time reading. They always switch off on my lap; whoever picks the story gets the lap. When Tiny sat next to me, she reached up and gently rubbed my neck or touched my hair. It was the sweetest thing. I thought she had to be most uncomfortable, as she did it for a long time, but it was amazing.

Just for fun, Jim got us tickets to the San Diego Symphony on Friday, December 7. The special guest was a world-renowned mandolin player from Israel. Jim decided that he hates the mandolin, but the parts when the famous mandolin player was not playing were enjoyable.

The weekend of culture continued when I took Ever to the Nutcracker on Saturday. Jim had wanted the three of us to go together, so I bought three tickets. When that weekend rolled around, though, Jim yearned to work on the house. We let Ever invite a friend to take the third ticket, and she invited Ella. We left Jim to cut holes in walls, move pipes, and do other neat things.

Ever and I twinned for the occasion.

We got there in time for the girls to pose with the dancers. (Ella braided Ever's hair in the car.)

Ever insisted on going to the full-length production instead of the abbreviated kid-friendly show. When I extended the invitation to Ella via Kristi (her mom), Kristi said Ella would love it. I had concerns about the running time and issued warnings about the length of the show, but Ever and Ella were sure it would be no problem. Not long after it started, I sensed the antsy-ness from both girls but more from Ella. When it finished, I asked Ella what she thought, and she said, "It was long." So that was a lot of money that could have been better spent. Ever may not remember this come next December, but she finally agreed that we'd go with Wrenzy to the hour-long, kid-friendly performance next year.

Sunday we made cookies to deliver to people in the neighborhood. In order to make them Christmas-y, Jim and Ever picked through our bag of mini M&Ms to sort out the green and red ones.

Even though we started as soon as we could after church, the whole process took forever. We had to rush to deliver the cookies before leaving for dinner at Maggie and Al Long's house (and we were late to dinner). The cookies were thrown in plain containers and hurriedly delivered by Jim and Ever to unsuspecting people in the neighborhood with whom Jim and Ever didn't have time to chat. The cookies, themselves, were not our finest work (imagine my dismay when I later learned our neighbor to the south is a chef!), so all in all - better luck next time. We tried.

We had a nice dinner with the Longs. Al is really fun with the kids and entertained them after we ate by giving them rides on his giant reclining chair and fanning them with a blanket.

The Longs are great, and the kids have fun together. Afton and Wren are in gymnastics together now. It's a bummer they're moving in May for Al's job.