The Rest of December Before Tutu and Papa Arrived

Miss Paula took Wren's class to visit Santa at the mall in a parent's old party bus. For the first time in her career, she didn't call ahead to make sure Santa would be there, and alas - Santa was not there. They got a class pic with his sleigh, though, and Wren was front and center on Miss Paula's lap:

Bear is an independent lady, in a good way. She doesn't usually do things that I don't want her to do, but she gets her own dishes down, gets herself water from the bathroom tap, etc. When I'm making lunch for all the girls, Bear-ba-loot will often say, "I'll get the plates!" Then she'll climb up on the counter and ask, "Ever, what color plate do you want, or do you not care?" Ever will answer, "I don't care." And Wren will get the colors she and Tiny want and pick a color for Ever.

She likes to help make her peanut butter and honey sandwiches. It started with squirting the honey, but then she started asking if she could spread the peanut butter, too.

Ever has a crush on a boy named Marcellus in her class. I never thought my kids would have crushes so  young, but there you have it. Classmates and idiotic adult playground attendants have taught her about such things. I first learned about Marcellus when Ever told me she had earned "lunch with teacher" and had chosen Marcellus to join her. Apparently the kids who want to join the lunch with teacher raise their hands, and the kid who earned it gets to pick a friend to join. Ever always picks Marcellus, and they have little supervised lunch dates. It's so weird to me that she doesn't have a good girl friend in class that she'd pick. I hope this isn't a bad omen about her teenage years. Marcellus is the little guy two kids away from Ever:

Ever's last day of school before Christmas break was Friday, December 21. Kristi Rondo took my littles so I could watch Ever's singing performance and then help with gingerbread houses.

I videotaped all of the songs, but I was way in the back and had a lady holding her phone in front of me almost the whole time. Didn't work out. Ever is about fifth from the left in the front:

Gingerbread house:

After gingerbread houses, the kids were free to leave. I thought Ever would want to come with me, but instead she said she wanted to stay. She ran off to join her classmates in a corner (I think possibly because of the school's iPads) and didn't give me another look.

Jim continued his work on the bathroom. Taking out the shower tile:

This was our pile of demo debris:

I was able to get my new BFF, Pierre from Clear Junk Removal, to come haul it all away before Tutu and Papa arrived on Christmas Eve.

On Saturday, December 22, we went for a short walk/ride, and Ever took a spin on the trike.

She and I had an ice cream date later that day.

Proof of Ever's Rocky obsession - listening to the Pandora station as she folded laundry:

Sunday we had an hour-long church service, and then we baked. I don't remember what, but the girls liked the batter.

Wrenzy was playing the guitar and singing an amazing song about baby Jesus and Mary. She kind of froze when I started videotaping, which is a real travesty.

On Monday, I spied a very sweet, spontaneous group hug.

Ever and Wren sat through the weirdest song because it was from the Rocky soundtrack. I'm certain that if it hadn't said Rocky, Ever would have told me she didn't like it and tried to change the song. The Rocky obsession is powerful. The song contained lots of screaming and growling. I didn't capture the best of it.