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Pre-Christmas rush

Today’s schedule started with the children’s holiday program at church. Corwin was a shepherd this year and Charles was a sheep. The program was more traditional, primarily the story of Jesus’ birth with some hymns. The kids got to sit without having to move around. Charles claimed that he sang during the one song that involved the kindergarten set but we didn’t really see. I think Corwin sang, though, even though he ended up sitting by Jack.

After church, we spent a frantic couple of hours trying to get the house in shape for Charles’ party. Grandma and Grandpa came down to help out but even so it was a bit of a challenge. Of course, once the kids showed up the basement was covered with toys once again, but it was clean for a little while.

We had planned to have the older kids play on the computers (and I even moved one of mine to the kids’ office to provide more computation locations) but the older kids got bored with the computers within 15 minutes. For me, the entire event was mostly a blur but the the things that stand out:

• Charles had a roll of tickets that he had a lot of fun with. He handed them out as “birthday tickets”. Jacob’s mom got one, but Erica got two. I got one but I had to pay 11 poker chips for it.
• Chloe, Charles and Jesse enjoyed a big tea party for a while. Later on the tea service got scattered when Jesse and Charles battled with inflated hammers around and on the table.
• The kids polished off cake and ice cream in an astonishingly short time.
• Chloe and one of her brothers hurt themselves with champagne poppers, which I’ve never seen happen before.
• The kids had a lot of fun whacking each other with inflatable hammers and bats.

No permanent injuries resulted and all of the kids had to be dragged away, rather than leaping at the chance to escape, so I consider the event an overall success.