4 years 3 months 28 days

 Day 1580. The day before Christmas. And we had still not started making our Christmas cookies. Yesterday I realized that I didn't have enough butter, so Randy bought some that we left out over night so it'd be soft to make the cookies. As for yesterday, it was Sammy's last day in kindergarten before the Christmas break. He's now going to be home for two weeks. In the afternoon, it was Randy who took Tammy and Emmy to their dance class, while Sammy and I stayed home and had fun. And for me it was the last time to teach before Christmas, in the morning as well as afternoon.

Today nobody had to go anywhere, which is rare, and we had no reason to get up early. However, that fact had not reached the kids, as Sammy was up at 6:30, and then it was Tammy who was up not long after, which is unusual. Emmy slept a little longer next to me, but was also up earlier than necessary. At some point Randy got up first to make breakfast for them, while the kids came to me to open their advent calendars.

At some point I also got up and started making a pasta casserole for lunch, which was the best decision. Once it was in the oven, I made the cookie dough - 2 kilos of baking mix, 4 eggs, 600 grams of butter and water. There was really nothing the kids could do, while I was kneeding the dough together. It then had to rest in the fridge for an hour. That gave me a little time to do other stuff.

Then I got the casserole out and started roling out the dough. It was time for the kids to spring into action. They moved their chairs to the kitchen to be higher up, and Sammy went into his special chair that had a tray. And then I was pulled into 3/4 different directions, as nobody had any patience. It was rather stressful for me. I rolled out dough for Emmy on one side of the kitchen, dough for Tammy on the other side, and then gave Sammy some. I also moved the cookies to the baking paper and tray to go into the oven. I think we had about 5 trays that went into the oven consecutively. We were so busy that time went by fast. When I could look at the clock for the first time, after having finished, it was already 12:30. I was glad the casserole was sitting there, just waiting for us to eat it. And so I dished it out, and we all sat down to eat.

I took care of the kitchen after lunch, while the kids got on their tablets. Then I finally got to sit down for a short period of time. But there was still lots to do. Eventually I got up to get everything ready for us to decorate the cookies. I had white icing sugar, and the kids were ready to spring into action again. I added the water to the sugar, then it had to be mixed with a hand-mixer for 10 minutes, which is quite longer. First Tammy held it, then Emmy, and they were doing a great job. The sugar turned out great, with a beautiful, shiny, white color.

Next came the colors. Tammy chose to start with pink, and Emmy with blue, both their favorite colors. We put a few drops of color into small bowls of icing sugar, and they stirred them into until it was a beautiful, consistent color. I was then the one to apply the icing to the cookies, while they added the sprinkles. I was barely fast enough to keep up with the demand.  Randy had already left to go pick up second-hand ice-skating shoes for me, so I was alone with the kids. Sammy was on the floor near us and stood up to watch us, but I really had no time to do anything with him. There were a lot of cookies to decorate. Emmy put so many sprinkles on them that I ran out at the end. He then chose yellow as his second color, and Tammy red. By the time they were done with those, they were done altogether, even though there were still cookies to decorate. Randy had returned, so all the kids went downstairs with him. Sammy had been whining and calling for Daddy for a while and was really happy, when he returned.

While they were downstairs, I mixed up a green color and continued decorating cookies, then used up the rest of the icing making the cookies white. And then the icing sugar was gone, but there were still cookies left. I put them all in a box, and Randy and the kids had the chance to try them, and they liked them.

While they were downstairs, they got all the little instruments out and gave a little concert. Tammy was singing Jingle Bells, while Emmy had something in his mouth that made noise and had a rattle in his hand, and Sammy was playing the recorder. Randy filmed it, as they were doing such a great job.

After an hour downstairs, they came back upstairs. I had only had a few minutes to actually sit down after finishing up in the kitchen and cleaning up. The kids got on their tablets, so I had a few more minutes to relax. As they had eaten some cookies, it was later than usual that I went to the kitchen to make their dinner, i.e. at 6:45 pm. They ate some at the table, then continued in the bathtub. After they'd come out, we opened the advent calendars, then sat down for the story. Sammy fell asleep, while I was reading, as usual. Tammy was also extremely tired; she always starts crying about little things, when she's this tired, and that was the case several times tonight. After having prayed for them, I told her I was coming to lie down next to her for a little bit, and Emmy lay down on my other side. We then had a good time cuddling for a while. Tammy fell asleep, and then Emmy and I got up. Emmy to go to the bed on the bottom, as he's still too scared to sleep on top. As for me, I sat down on the computer to work, and Randy sat down by Emmy. After some time I got hungry and got myself something to eat. Then I continued working. And so it's now already 2 am, as I finish writing my report. Time for the last night before Christmas!