Advent... Day 12

Oh good grief, I am too bushed to feel witty or inspiring... and I know you're all just hanging on my every word. All three of you. ;-)

This is The Peak. Of activity. Sort of.

Because the Open House last weekend just wasn't enough, I offered to host our homeschool Christmas Party today. 8 moms, 23 kids, and 3 hours of mayhem. I mean fun!

There are times, well most of the time, that I am gratefully aware that we have a pretty big house. Today it felt more like a bee-hive. A very, very busy bee-hive. After a "carpet picnic" lunch (who has tables and chairs for 31 people?), we moved into activities, because there was No Way I was going to turn all those kids loose inside my house. (I haven't lost all my sanity. Yet.)

Two moms came prepared with games, and another mom and I had crafts for the kids. I got a fun idea from Deborah, at "A Different Drum", and we made cards shaped like mugs, with an instant cocoa packet and a candy cane inside. A craft that even boys could love :0)

By then the natives were definitely getting restless. God took pity on us, and the rain stopped long enough for me to send all the kids out to run. Maybe this is another confession of weirdness (or maybe other people do this too?) but I made all the kids go outside and run laps around the house. However old you are, I want that many laps. Then, when you're sweaty, you can come back in and have dessert and sing Christmas carols, because this is not a public school and we can do that. (Force the kids to run, give them home-made sugary treats, AND sing songs that actually acknowledge why we celebrate this holiday. It's amazing, but true.)

Then I vacuumed and cleaned up the kitchen, the boys cleaned up the play room and their bedroom, and we sent Kerry out to get Happy Meals for dinner. Because that's the kind of family we are.

Tomorrow... four soccer games, one Ladies Christmas Brunch, and a forecast of actual snow. Now that would send my boys into hyperdrive.

Sunday, blissfully, should - I mean WILL - be a day of rest, which is good, because on Monday we're watching three (fun, lovely, well-behaved) girls for a few hours, having a MIT prayer meeting here, I think I have choir practice (NOT here, but a half-hour drive away), and the "Afictionadas" Book Club, of which I am a fairly new member, is meeting. Here.

And Tuesday we are having an all-day field trip. The boys don't know. I may not tell them until I wake them up that morning. Our homeschool group occasionally gets cheap Amtrak tickets, so we are having a Seattle day. And, thanks to volunteering when the Science Center van visited our local school last spring, we have free day-passes to the Pacific Science Center - a wonderland for my boys. It's an early start, and several hours on the train, but that is part of the fun. For once the journey is as important as the destination... that doesn't happen very often for boys!

So that's what I meant by "this (today and the next few days) is the peak of activity". Whew!

But we're still taking time for books and devotions :0) Kerry read "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" while I put flannel sheets on all the boys' beds. (Bunk beds have their benefits, but heaving a flannel-wrapped comforter onto the top bunk and making everything smooth and snug is a chore.) And then from Who-ville to the hills of Judea, and Mary's visit to Elizabeth. The devotion pointed out something very familiar to kids - when you're going to do something fun and special, you hurry to get ready, right? Well, the text says that Mary "got ready and hurried" to Elizabeth's town. Yes - she was excited about the visit. The boys could relate to that :0)