Tag: Ugly Christmas Sweater

It’s the week before Christmas break and I am feeling absolutely tuckered out! It’s been a wonderful couple of days though, so at least the exhaustion is absolutely worth it.

Every year from the school, we get a nice little Christmas hamper. This year, the kids were at two different schools and we got two of them. So one day, we had to go pick one up and the next day, one got dropped off. Needless to say, my cupboards and freezer are totally stocked and the gifting burden will be a little less. It’s always great to get the extra help even if it does mean we end up with two or three turkeys… 😉

The older kids will be going to their Dad’s again this year. I say almost every year that I’m not going to send them, because I want the holiday with them, but then I realize how much I could use the break. And we still celebrate our own Christmas together, so we’re not missing out on anything. I wouldn’t say that we have any “traditions” save for opening presents, but we always do something special.

This time around, we started letting kids open presents tonight and we plan to do one each night until they leave. They are beyond excited about this idea and tore into those first gifts with so much excitement.

Kaeidyn had gone to the store at her school and got everyone presents and she desperately wanted everyone to open one of her gifts. She got Kenzie and Keirnan a board/card game that kept them busy half the night and Carter got a giant drawing/cutting book that he was at first really unimpressed with (because he thought it was homework…), but then proceeded to spend the next two hours drawing in. The Boyfriend got two work shirts and my beautiful daughter got me a wicked ugly Christmas sweater and a CD filled with jazzy holiday songs.

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I have the best 11-year-old daughter ever! Got me an #UglyChristmasSweater 😉

A post shared by Valerie Rayne (@valerierayne) on Dec 16, 2015 at 4:42pm PST

But probably the biggest present that she gave us parents was a report card with all A’s and B’s. We were a little concerned that the transition from elementary school to middle school might’ve been rough on her grades, but it turns out that she’s doing awesome! Kaeidyn always gives me so many reasons to be proud of her but today just topped the cake! I’m so lucky to have that kid 😉

Tomorrow night, we go to the boys’ Christmas concert. After listening to them all practice, I’m pretty excited about it and it’ll be the first year that Kaeidyn is sitting in the audience with us and not standing up on stage performing. As far as we know, she doesn’t even have a concert this year… I’m hoping it won’t be too crazy hectic because it usually is and that always makes me anxious. I can basically guarantee that I’m going to cry!

Friday is a short day of school. Saturday, the older kids have a birthday party to go to and Sunday, we’re driving them out to their Dad’s. And then, the plan is to get my house spotless while it’s just Carter at home.