Happy Tuesday! Today Nora is sharing her day with us. Nora writes over at Walking with Nora and hosts Wine & Love on Thursdays. Enjoy!
Hi everyone! It's Nora, from Walking with Nora and today I'm going to take you through an atypical day of my life as a bonus mom: this past Saturday, aka our Christmas with Belle & Jolie.
7:30am- Wake up to the sound of Jolie, the oldests, door opening and closing. Feet scampering down the hall. Toilet flushes. Feet scamper back. Door slams this time. This prompts Belle, the littlest, to wake up and open and close her door a few time, just for fun. I roll over and attempt to sleep for another 30 minutes... stayed up late wrapping presents with Knight and playing Santa. The extra sleep will do me wonders.
8am- It's clear the kids are officially up now, but Knight and I take our time getting up. I look out the window to find a dusting of snow, lazily change out of my pjs into yoga pants and a sweatshirt, even though there isn't much difference between pjs and this outfit, it makes me feel better. Knight and I take turns in our en suite bathroom prepping for the Christmas unwrapping with the girls.
8:30am- Venture out of our room, Jack (my dog) in town and within 20 seconds, both girls have their doors open and are chattering on about how they saw SNOW FALLING THIS MORNING! We choose this moment to tell them we had a special visitor last night- SANTA! In two seconds flat both girls are hovering around the tree, poking and prodding the presents, trying to find out which ones are theirs.
9:15am- All presents are open. There is a mess of paper on the floor. In fact, we have been done with presents for about 15 minutes at this point. Belle and Jolie run back and forth in between their rooms and the tree to put their presents away, and leave others that they want to play with more immediately under the tree and lying around. Belle is already in one of her princess dresses that she received for the day. Jolie has donned her Minnie Mouse PJs. And then they realize they are hungry for breakfast. But they want baths first! You know, so they can put on "stylish" clothes for the day.
10:30am- Morning baths have been given and after a bit of a fuss, the girls are finally dressed. (Jolie is in that stage where she wants to pick out her own clothes yet she struggles with the concept of outfits, so she requires assistance, even though she doesn't like or want it. Which resulted in mini breakdown). It's amazing to us they have gone this long without food despite numerous offers to eat earlier; I suppose we have Santa to thank for this!
10:45- A brunch of sorts for the girls: yogurt, meat, cheese & crackers (their favorite since they aren't big sandwich eaters), fruit and juice. And finally we are ready to head to Target to pick up goods to donate to the Food Pantry, a new tradition we are starting this year.
11:45- Food pantry items purchased at Target, with the girls asking for some new toys (ah, to be a kid and think that every toy should belong to you!) and then off to the food pantry only to discover they are CLOSED today, so no donating. Knight drops me off on our main street so I can run into my new favorite boutique and pick up a few presents for Christmas, including one he can't see!
12:30- Pit stop back at the house to drop off the presents, food pantry items, and let the girls have some quiet time to play with their toys while Knight catches up on ESPN, we grab a quick lunch and then watch some Man Vs. Food Nation, a show that I'm endlessly fascinated by. Before this, though, the girls snuck into the snow to get their boots and coats all wet and snowy. Then they make pretend snow angels in the house, on our wood floors.
2pm- Quiet time is over, the girls have been snacked, biobreaked, cleaned up their rooms and now it's time to attempt to finsih my Christmas shopping for my family, with the entire family in tow. We weaved in and out of lines at various stores (North Face, JCPenney which is much nicer than I remember it being, Charming Charlies) with the girls being surprisingly awesome at helping pick out clothes for my Gram, and Jolie who spotted some great finds for my mom too (not clothes though).
4pm- We had discussed going out to eat but it's a tad early for dinner and we aren't really in the position to hang out in this area until dinner so we fill up at the inexpensive ($3.03, a steal for this area!) and head to another part of town that we like for dinner. First stop, though? Driving through a local ski resort that has over one million Christmas lights across their grounds. We oohed and ahhed over every.single.light, listened to Christmas music and discussed how Santa delivered packages to us: Through the back patio door, clearly, since we (sadly) don't have a fireplace. The girls watch "Flight Before Christmas" in the truck as we drive around. proclaiming it's their new favorite movie.
5:30- Arrive at Chili's, Belle and Jolie's vote, for dinner. The inevitable "what should we have" discussion ensues. Several trips to the bathroom, lost crayons, several colored pictures (good thing I remembered the diaper bag), and nearly all of their drinks, dinner is served, and an hour plus later, it's time to leave. We survived with minimal spills, no tears, and kids who ate all their food. I deem this a success.
6:30pm- Pass a sign that says "Live Nativity, Tonight!" and go in search of it. Discover an adorable church we didn't know existed, sit on hay bales, and enjoy the live nativity complete with sheep, goats, and a cow. (Love that the little boys who are there to watch over the sheep threaten to scare each other's sheep if they don't treat them properly. And when that doesn't work? They threaten to let them loose. It was hilarious.) Pet the animals when we are done, enjoy hot chocolate and cookies inside the church and decide to return on Sunday for the Children's Christmas Service.
7:30pm- Home, after a veerrryyy long day. PJs. Teeth. Bed (for the girls). Outside and dinner (for Jack). No protests means the girls are pleasantly and thoroughly exhausted. Knight and I settle in to open Christmas cards and a package we received, put on sweats, watch Bad Teacher, write thank you notes and last minute Christmas cards and decide on bed at the early hour of 10:30pm. I got sucked into SNL and stayed up much later than anticipated.
We had a blast this past Saturday on our first official Christmas together as a family and I think the girls did too. Hope you enjoyed a glimpse into one of my days as a Bonus Mom! It was fun to recap it.
Holy crap! What a busy day! Sounds like a great family day. Thanks for sharing!
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