Ice skating, a nice Christmas surprise and more.....

Happy Thursday ya'll! I'm sitting here on the couch with a blanket, my warmed up rice bag, my trusty box of tissue and the laptop. I'll start out with our event last night. We "adopted" a family for Christmas. We had some very thoughtful and generous people get together and give what they could to this family. We met at their house and were waiting outside for the last person to arrive. It was almost 7pm and I figured we might as well start putting the boxes on their porch (quietly) so that we would be ready for when the last person arrived. As it turns out, she was ALREADY inside the house with the mom. Lol. There we were, waiting out in the cold for about 15 minutes.....and she was super early and inside the whole time! Anyhow, we took in the items and sang Feliz Navidad. We were able to meet a few of the kids and it was just an amazing feeling being able to bring people together for such a great cause. Just like our Christmas caroling, I definitely want to keep this tradition going each year.

Earlier in the day, Calvin told me how he volunteered me to make a fruitcake for his class party. We settled on cupcakes and mini apples. By the time we got home from the store, I started the cupcakes around 9ish or so. I helped the boys put together their gifts for their teachers and finally got them into bed. 60+ cupcakes later, I knocked out, too.

TODAY-
Today was the last day of school for the kids, including myself. Yay! 2 weeks of vacation. Hopefully I'll get to sleep in on one of these days! It sounds like most classrooms have fun days planned for the last day before any vacation. In our classroom, we had the kids decorate gingerbread men cookies. They also played games, played on the computer, watched a movie, helped us deliver things and colored. It was a fun day for sure. Once I got home, we got ready to go ice skating in Walnut Creek. It's been really cold lately so I packed enough warm clothes for the entire winter! We had so much fun! The boys usually go ice skating once a year, which isn't much at all. They have been getting better each year. Tonight, they did so well! They were skating fast, doing turns, etc. Calvin looked like he was trying out for the olympics! Lol. Ok, maybe he wasn't that good, but he was definitely better than last year. While I was skating, I fell pretty hard right onto my butt and felt like I got whiplash!!! Good thing I was wearing my backpack so that kept my back and head from hitting the ice. Ice skating sure is dangerous!
Here are some pics.

One of the boys said that this was THE BEST NIGHT EVER!!!!

Me and my 3 little bears

This is where Mori was posted for the majority of the night.....holding onto the wall!!

Tio James and the boys

Waiting to get back onto the ice while it's being cleaned

After we were done, we headed to Chik-fil-a. Those chicken sandwiches with the pickles inside were SOOOOO good! The boys played in the play place for a bit while James and I got to catch up. It was relaxing for me to sit down and chat with my brother. The boys had a blast in there with their new friends. Carson even met a 4 yr old girl who they nicknamed "Vicious!!!" Lol. Picture in your mind Carson, but skinnier, smaller, younger, darker.....aaaannnddd a GIRL! So the same, but different!
This little girl has older brothers so she was playing with the boys and other kids as if she were a boy. It was funny to watch her play hit Carson harder and harder until she was really hitting him. He was CRACKING UP! I pictured him putting his arm out and pushing her head back with one hand while her arms flailed around. It didn't happen, but that would have been funny.

So, we leave good ol' Chik-fil-a and headed home. Everyone is exhausted. We arrived home to find that someone had delivered a bunch of Christmas presents to our house for US! We have no idea who it was, there were 3 garbage bags full of gifts with the kids name's on them. What a beautiful surprise! It looks like while we were planning a Christmas surprise for one family, someone else out there was planning one for US! Needless to say, I am grateful for whoever put their time, money and love into doing that for us.

Tomorrow will be my official Christmas shopping day. Hopefully it won't be too bad out there with all of the other last minute shoppers. Tomorrow (make that TODAY since it's now 12:02 am) is also my 36th birthday. I've always loved the Christmas season with the beautiful music, feelings of love and service, family time and my birthday of course! Maybe we'll get together tonight with the family for cake and ice cream. All I know is, I'm so grateful to be one year older. I'm grateful for my life, my family, my health, my children and especially my mom. I think that this is the first year that she hasn't been with us for Christmas (she's still in Mexico!)

I'm off to bed now. I definitely need my beauty sleep. Good night friends!