Happy Monday to everyone but the iPhone update, which erased my Christmas list and has forced me to exert brain power to remember everything we’ve already bought, everything we still need to buy and everything that didn’t make the cut this year but I was keeping for future occasions 🤪 Anyway, we had a really nice weekend that included our company holiday party, Lydia’s swim lesson and some downtime at home, seeing Frozen with the grandmothers and the kids and then, some one-on-one time with Dempsey while Lydia had her first sleepover at my parents’ 🥺❤️ Oh and Joey and I finished The Summer I Turned Pretty! Finally and never again!

Friday, I forced Dempsey to stop using his new little snow shovel (this kid loves to shovel 😂) and got him to school, then worked until Lori brought both kiddos home that afternoon. The three of us went to pick up dinner from King of Wings then got back home right before my sister and Wayne showed up to babysit. Then I headed out to our company holiday party. We’re a small group and the space was bigger than we needed — we all could’ve sat at our own table! — but it was a really nice time. I ditched out shortly after 8 PM because I promised Dempsey I would be home to put them to bed. They seemed to have had a nice night with Aunt Bean and Uncle Wayne ❤️

Saturday ended up being a really chill day. Joey made us gingerbread pancakes for breakfast and mid-morning we all headed out to Lydia’s swim lesson. It is CRAZY how different of an experience it is with her than with Dempsey. No fear, no anxiety, just excitement and walking straight over to her coach all on her own 🥺 It was nice being there with Dempsey and him just being able to play and watch and say stuff like “oh, I remember I loved that thing!” about his lessons last year. She did so good! Back at home, they wrote their letters to Santa and then Lydia took a nap and I took a walk. Made orange chicken with broccoli for dinner and it was really good. Dempsey ate his so fast! After kid bedtime, Joey and I watched the penultimate episode of TSITP and I think he really loved my negative running commentary and hearing “in the book…” a million times 😂

Sunday, I got up and worked out and then we all had breakfast and played for a bit. We ate early lunch and then the kids and I headed to pick my mom up and meet Lori at the Arvada Center for a performance of Frozen. We bought the tickets so long ago and, at the time, I was thinking Lydia would be almost 3 and so grown up but she’s actually still so little 😂 That being said, she acted to grown up during the show. I was nervous because it said “good for 4 and up” and it had a run time of two hour and twenty minutes but she was SO well-behaved! Even Dempsey was a bit antsy but not my girl 🥰 We all had a great time!

Afterward, we took my mom and Lydia back to my parents’ and then Dempsey and I said our goodbyes. I was worried (again) that she might freak out when I went to leave but she seemed totally fine with it and the report was that she was a perfect angel for the sleepover. Can’t quite say the same for Dempsey. The three of us had dinner then did milkshakes and Home Alone 2 before taking him up for bed and he was NOT okay sleeping in his room without his sister. I was so worried about Lydia that I was caught off guard by Dempsey’s reaction. I ended up having to lay with him until he fell asleep and despite being so tired, it took him an hour to finally close his little eyes. Poor Buddy! He’ll be so happy to have his sister home today ❤️ TSITP finale was as exasperating as the rest of the show and I’ll leave it at that 😋 Wishing you all a good week!

Happy December 1st! How was your Thanksgiving? Five days at home with my kids somehow felt so magical and also like the longest week of my life! I got to spend the Wednesday before Thanksgiving with both of them since Dempsey was off of school and then we hosted the big feast and had a really nice time with our family. The rest of the weekend, we stayed pretty hunkered down because we were attempting to start potty training Lydia (more on this later) but we did get pretty stir-crazy by Sunday and made a spontaneous trip to the movie theater to see Zootopia 2. Now it’s time to officially kick off the Christmas season and I’m really excited for it!

I so rarely get a Wednesday with both kids, so it always feels intimidating but also like a treat. Dempsey had a friend over in the morning, then we all ate lunch and my girl actually took a nap for me! Afterward, Dempsey and I did a little Thanksgiving craft and he did so good with it. Cut his own handprint out like a pro! Once Joey was home, we did what we always do and had ramen for dinner. It very much hit the spot and then we ended the night with A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, which is cute but I do wish the kids said “stupid” less 😋

The Thanksgiving Marathon begins! I woke up and worked out then got started on baked pancake batter. Got the kiddos up and ate breakfast as soon as it was out of the oven. I had been looking for a turkey outline the day before and Dempsey told me he wanted it to look like the one we had in the fridge, so I couldn’t not 😂 He also wanted to help me make the powdered sugar outline and that’s why it looks so imperfectly perfect. We turned the parade on afterward, thinking it started at 9 but it had started at 8:30?? What starts at 8:30?? Anyway, the kids were not as into it as last year. They did run over for the K-Pop Demon Hunters performance though! Lydia let me put her down for a nap in her crib for the first time in… two months?? Happy Thanksgiving to me! And it meant I got to make rolls one-on-one with my boy. Truly one of the best moments of my day ❤️❤️

Everyone (but my sister and Wayne who were coming from another Thanksgiving gathering) was over by 3, so Lydia woke up to quite the crowd and was a little slow to warm up to everything but we had apps and talked while Joey and I finished up cooking and then we all sat down to eat at 4:30ish. We tried a new turkey recipe and it wasn’t our favorite but what can you do? The kids table seemed to go well and it melted my heart seeing them all sitting there! At one point, Dempsey asked to sit down next to me and color together, which we never do and I was IN HEAVEN 🥰 Got our dessert and our big family photo and then Lydia proceeded to mount her fake toy phone onto our tripod and have everyone pose for photos 😂 Why’s she so funny? That tripod remained my kids’ favorite thing the rest of the night, including using it as a microphone instead of getting ready for bed so you can just imagine the ABSOLUTE MELTDOWN Dempsey had when we told him he couldn’t bring it up to bed the next night because it was too distracting 😬 Anyway, we got them to bed and I found Bunny nice and tucked in in my room afterward ❤️

Friday! Dempsey woke up crying at 5 but everyone went back to sleep, just in different beds 😂 We spent the rest of the day taking down our fall decorations and swapping them out for Christmas. Dempsey was so into it! And, like I said, we also attempted to start potty training Lydia. She put her underwear on and did okay the first half of the day when we had her try sitting on the potty but as the day went on, she was less agreeable about trying, kept telling us she didn’t need to go and had several accidents (sometimes RIGHT AFTER we had her sit on the potty). Not how I thought it would go because she’d been showing interest for months and months and had even gone in the potty lots of times this year. I also snuck away for a walk and then, we ended the day by decorating the tree. They both needed a turn putting the star on top 🥺 I made turkey noodle soup for dinner and then, after the kids went to bed, we finally started Stranger Things. I keep thinking things like “what’s the Mind Flayer??” “how do we get in and out of the Upside Down??” “literally what happened last season??” but instead of looking any of that up, we have just forged on 😂

Saturday we woke up to snow! Like a light little dusting, but still 😂 Dempsey had been begging me to paint Christmas ornaments on Friday night, so we made a deal that he could do it first thing on Saturday and he did not forget overnight! They turned out really cute though and they’re up on the mini Christmas tree in his room now. We also pulled out the Christmas mugs and they make me feel so happy. Lydia’s first swim lesson was that morning and I was real nervous that she’d put up a fight leaving with Joey and getting in the water but she did neither and had such a good lesson! Her coach was impressed and hey, so was I! Afterward, we met some of Joey’s family for brunch at Cozy Cottage. My kids were acting slightly insane and Lydia had me take her to the bathroom like four times but she did actually go, making that the ONE time she successfully made it this whole weekend. Dempsey and Joey spent the rest of the day putting up the Christmas Village and I thought it was so sweet how into it Dempsey was. I showed the kids our dinner options and Dempsey told me “I’ll try that, just not with the green stuff” to the Tofu Tikka Masala and I loved that response. We all ate it, then puts the kids to bed and watched two more episodes of Stranger Things.

We finally made it to Sunday! Decided Saturday night that we should go see Zootopia 2 with the kids, so we had breakfast then hit up the 9:30 AM showing. Was kind of worried the kids would be nuts and/or Lydia would pee her pants sitting on my lap but they were really good! We all liked the movie too. I laughed out loud at the Ratatouille reference and Dempsey was singing “Zoo” by Shakira at bedtime 😂 I’m glad we got out of the house for a bit because the rest of the day was chores, accidents and sibling fights. We made it to dinnertime though and had the rest of our soup with fresh from the oven sourdough bread! Got the kids to bed and watched episode four of Stranger Things and even though Joey and I had been semi-dreading watching this final season and I think the invention of Vecna as the big bad is less interesting than where it began in Season 1, I gotta admit to enjoying this show while I watch it. What does everyone else think? I hope you all have a good and fun and holiday season!