Pause for a breath

Well, the past week was a total whirlwind.
Ben had his work party at our house Monday night. Fun night, but the kids were up until 11:00. Not good.
My big goal for the week was to get my Christmas cards made, ordered, and mailed by Saturday. I really loved the cards I made last year and I've been stressing about not measuring up to the standard I set for myself. But I'm ok with how it turned out. It's totally different from last year's. Of course, the day after I submitted it, I read a post on Segullah about Christmas newsletters, and in the comments, the idea of writing a poem for your newsletter was thoroughly mocked. Yes, I wrote a poem in lieu of a newsletter this year. Oh well. So if you HATE poems in your Christmas cards, just don't tell me about it because I spent a ridiculously LONG time composing the darned thing. I managed to get the thing submitted in time to be delivered by Friday, giving me about 18 hours between delivery and the time they needed to be at the post office.
My other big task was to get 2 presents mailed off, also by Saturday. These presents took a fair amount of work and preparation which involved other people doing certain things, so I also didn't get everything I needed until Friday night.
Long story short, I was up until 5:30 AM Saturday morning getting those presents ready and addressing and stuffing Christmas card envelopes. I didn't write ANY personal notes on my cards, which I normally make a big effort to do. No time or energy this year.
But I got it done, and it's a huge relief. I feel like I can really enjoy Christmas now.
I've also been baking up a storm, making at least one kind of cookie each day this week (so far, lemon bars, chocolate-chocolate-chip, peanut butter, oatmeal raisin, snickerdoodles, and hersheys kiss cookies). We've been doing ding-dong-ditching with cookies every night this week. The boys call it their "secret agent missions," and they're unbelievably excited and cute about it. Lots of work for mom, but totally worth it.
Rewind a bit. Last Saturday was a fun, busy day. We went to the ward Christmas breakfast. Mosey was Joseph in the primary nativity pageant. So cute.
Then it was the big boys' first piano recital. Brigham played "Silent Night" and Joseph played "Joy to the World." They did a good job. I was a little nervous on Brigham's behalf, not because he wasn't ready, because he definitely was, but because I knew he really wanted to play perfectly. He told me on our way to the recital, "I really hope I don't make a mistake because I won't get to do the performance over again." He's such a perfectionist. But he played perfectly and was very happy. Joseph wasn't nervous at all, I don't think. But he's not the perfectionist Brigham is (I'm still trying to convince him that accurate rhythm is just as important as accurate notes), and therefore not as inclined toward nerves. He did a nice job, too. Later, they reported their favorite part of the recital to be the refreshments afterward. Of course.
After THAT, Ben and the boys went to their post-soccer-season party at Chuck-E-Cheese, and I went to a baptism at the church where I spoke on the Holy Ghost. There is an awesome family that found the church, and the mom and one of the daughters got baptized. I believe the dad and the other over-eight child are also going to be baptized. They have five kids and everyone always asked them if they were Mormon, and now, the mom jokes, she can say that they are!
I met back up with everyone at Chuck-E-Cheese and then we went to get our Christmas tree.
This was my first year not going out onto the lot myself to inspect trees. I just wasn't up for the walking on uneven ground. But somehow Ben and the boys managed to get a beautiful, nicely-shaped tree even without my input. Shocking, I know. :-)
The rest of the evening was spent decorating the tree until it was time for me to leave to go to a Christmas choral performance at the local high school. It was a very nice production (it included dinner), but it was THREE HOURS LONG.
I was exhausted at the end of that day!
Well, sorry for that boring, boring, boring laundry list of the week's events. That's what happens when I don't keep up with my blogging.
Here are some pictures for posterity.

I know I'm biased, but I think he's pretty much the cutest little Joseph there ever was.



Brigham announcing his piece at the recital.



And Joseph. I only noticed as they both went up to announce their songs that their pants are now at flood-level. Oops. They're getting SO big!



This is what Mosey did during the recital. Hung out on Dad's back.