Friday, December 28, 2018

7 Quick Takes about Holiday Musings, Adopting the VonTrapp Method of Parenting, and Expecting the Unexpected About Your Face Cream

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

This post is a little late due to the fact that I've spent this week alternately having a great time with my family and searching Pinterest and Wayfair.com for "storage solutions" and "home organization furniture," because that family is home 24/7 and sure knows how to make a mess.

But you're all doing the same thing right now so I don't need to explain.

1


Usually Phillip and I are up really late on Christmas Eve doing all the wrapping, but this year I decided to try something different and wrap as packages arrived daily at the house.

I wasn't sure it was going to be worth it, because it was kind of annoying all month having to drag out the scissors and have toddlers losing a new roll of tape every day.

But I changed my mind when we were done at 10:15 on Christmas Eve. It was clearly worth it.

2


Our Christmas was loud, messy, and wonderful. One child wasn't happy with how we always unwrap presents in age order from youngest to oldest, so we had fun coming up with new orders every time we started on a new round of presents. A few I particularly liked were:
  • Ascending order of birthdate (the numerical day, not the year)
  • Alphabetically by the spelled-out number of your age
  • Reverse alphabetical order of middle names
  • Order of hair color, from lightest to darkest
Someone may or may not have suggested "most to least annoying," but I felt it would have been impossible to decide.

Just as my love for each child is unique and yet still the same, so are the ways in which they annoy me.

Holiday recaps, using a whistle to parent, and more in this week's edition of 7 Quick Takes Friday. If it's not relatable, it will at least make you laugh and be glad you have your act together more than we do. #7quicktakes #7qt #friday #weekly #unremarkablefiles #bigfamily
The 7-year-old was obviously happy with her new squiggle pen.

Holiday recaps, using a whistle to parent, and more in this week's edition of 7 Quick Takes Friday. If it's not relatable, it will at least make you laugh and be glad you have your act together more than we do. #7quicktakes #7qt #friday #weekly #unremarkablefiles #bigfamily
The 4-year-old never ate these, but enjoyed unwrapping them all. I don't understand.

For dinner, we had Phillip's signature Christmas ham with Coca-Cola and jalapeƱo glaze which was delicious.

Holiday recaps, using a whistle to parent, and more in this week's edition of 7 Quick Takes Friday. If it's not relatable, it will at least make you laugh and be glad you have your act together more than we do. #7quicktakes #7qt #friday #weekly #unremarkablefiles #bigfamily

We knew it was good because even the 2-year-old, who often says he's full after just looking at food, kept asking for "more chicken."

3


Probably the thing I'll remember most about this Christmas is that Phillip and I got each other identical Instant Pots.

It would have been pretty funny if we'd opened them on Christmas day and realized what had happened, but as it was I walked in on him wrapping mine a few days earlier when it was much more annoying than amusing.

In time, I'm sure we'll laugh about the Gift of the Magi-like coincidence, except instead of selling my hair we ended up owing $14.30 in return shipping and I guess now we can make our own yogurt.

4


Phillip and my 12-year-old were invited to participate in a candlelight service on Christmas Eve at another church (him in the choir, her in the string quartet.)

Holiday recaps, using a whistle to parent, and more in this week's edition of 7 Quick Takes Friday. If it's not relatable, it will at least make you laugh and be glad you have your act together more than we do. #7quicktakes #7qt #friday #weekly #unremarkablefiles #bigfamily

It was not nearly as serene as the pictures would lead you to believe.

When Phillip was initially asked to do the Christmas Eve service, I said "sure, that sounds like a great idea!" obviously not thinking through the following:

  1. He would be sitting with the choir so I'd be all by myself trying to keep the little kids quiet during an hour of church for the second day in a row
  2. It was a half-hour drive, and 60-minute round trips with bored children are FUN
  3. We would arrive late and have to squeeze into a pew in the very back that was too small for all of us and, in my son's words, "felt like it was filled with crushed Cheetos."

So really I didn't hear a word of anything (apologies to the couple in front of us whose pew my 2-year-old kept kicking) and threatened my kids with revoking their Christmas cookie privileges if they didn't behave so many times I no longer even believed myself.

I'm sure if you were sitting far enough away from us, though, the service was lovely.

5


Phillip coaches our 10-year-old's basketball team, and because it's hard on the voice to yell loud enough to be heard over bouncing balls in a gymnasium for an hour of practice every week, he bought a whistle.

Over Christmas break he's actually started bringing it out at home to call the kids for dinner. Partially as a joke, but also because it works.

As you can see, they're committed to doing things right by not only showing up when they hear the whistle but also lining up in height order and saluting.

Holiday recaps, using a whistle to parent, and more in this week's edition of 7 Quick Takes Friday. If it's not relatable, it will at least make you laugh and be glad you have your act together more than we do. #7quicktakes #7qt #friday #weekly #unremarkablefiles #bigfamily
Their idea, not ours.

6



To help us know when our high schooler is on her way home from away meets and we need to go pick her up, Phillip installed a GPS tracking app called Life360 on our phones and connected them to each other.

Now I get notifications whenever someone leaves the house and although I can think of some situations in which it would be useful, I mostly think it's creepy and should be called Stalker360.

7


A while ago I went to the dermatologist for some weird blemishes on my face that weren't going away, and thought they appeared to be fading over the summer they're back again so I made a follow-up visit.

She gave me some cream to put on it for 10 days and as an afterthought, said "Oh, this is tinted. Is that okay?"

Of course that was fine, I didn't care, so I nodded and didn't find out until I got home that she meant it was GREEN.

Holiday recaps, using a whistle to parent, and more in this week's edition of 7 Quick Takes Friday. If it's not relatable, it will at least make you laugh and be glad you have your act together more than we do. #7quicktakes #7qt #friday #weekly #unremarkablefiles #bigfamily
Looks like an excellent thing to put on my face.

I mean, when you rub it in you can't tell, but it's still a little shocking every time I open the tube.

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4 comments:

Unknown said...

Does your husband share recipes? What glaze sounds amazing!!

Jenny Evans said...

He does but unfortunately I can't repost here because it's in a physical cookbook which I'm too lazy to copy and also it's copyrighted (but mostly the lazy thing.) It's in the New Best Recipe cookbook from Cooks Illustrated, though. The book is awesome, if you like cooking and more importantly, the science behind cooking, you should own it. (P.S: The book obviously belongs to Phillip and I've never used it. I cook to keep everyone alive but I don't care about the science behind cooking. If you're a foodie, though, it's totally worth it.)

Golden Triangle Tour 3 Days said...

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Jenny Evans said...

And I am thankful for your thoughtful comment, SpamBot.