Well, that went fast.

How did an entire week get away from me?

Here's the recap since last Friday:

SATURDAY
My baby brother graduated from college!

We made a day trip to Huntsville (3 hours from Austin) to watch the ceremony. Chet stayed home with the kids (and my parent's dog!) so that we could all go (Chet, we all thank you from the bottom of our hearts!).

SUNDAY

We went to Sunday School and church, then while the kids napped at home I ran to Target, thinking that I would actually find a toy from the kids' Christmas wish list (hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!). After Target we all loaded up and headed to Chet's classmate's house, whose wife made chili and cooked gingerbread for all of us to decorate our own houses. The kids LOVE building/decorating gingerbread houses/eating tons of candy, and I'm always thankful when someone more ambitious than I actually does the work in order to make my kids' dreams come true.

MONDAY
Chet finished his finals the previous Friday, so I was looking forward to having him around on Monday (and the rest of the week). However, he had a meeting at school that ran A LOT longer than either of us expected, so I ended up actually having to get out of my pajamas on Monday in order to pick up Lorelei at school by 1 p.m. Believe it or not, there are seldom days when I am in my pajamas for so long, but Monday was also the day we started potty training Ford, and, I don't know about you, but I feel like I can't focus on ANYTHING those first couple of days of potty training other than making sure my couch doesn't get peed on.

(Ford has actually done remarkably well with his new big boy skill, and I'm going to pretend like I forgot that last night he said to me, "I don't want to wear underwear any more; I like diapers.")

Monday night I went to dinner with three church friends, which was a well-deserved prize for surviving such an emotionally exhausting day spent in potty training in my pajamas.

TUESDAY
Lorelei has gymnastics on Tuesday mornings, so we all went (minus Sydney) since Chet has never been to watch her. The kids played on the gymnastics playground for a while after the class was over, and then we all went to the shopping center across the street and scored some great finds at Goodwill and Big Lots.

Tuesday night Chet and I decided to wrap a few Christmas presents, but we got carried away and ended up wrapping ALL OF THEM. I don't even know what we're going to do on Christmas Eve. (In case you're curious, each of our children get three gifts from us -- because that's how many Jesus received from the wisemen. It's an easy way to control quantity and to keep the focus on our Savior's birth. They also receive one gift from Santa, and things in their stockings.)

WEDNESDAY
Bright and early Wednesday morning I took Ruthie and Lorelei to the pediatrician. Lorelei had a quick follow up appointment, and Ruthie had her 9-month well baby visit. Both went well; Ruthie weighed 17 lbs, 6 oz, which is fantastic for her, because around 6-months old the doctor thought she was getting a little too dainty. She's still dainty, but she's got an impressive spare tire around her middle due to the copious amounts of big people food she consumes each day. For example, last night she inhaled three-quarters of a banana and an entire avocado in the span of about 8 minutes. It was impressive.

Chet, Ford, Ruthie, and I spent the rest of Wednesday morning at home, doing various home things that we'd been putting off for way too long (fixing random toys, making pediatric dental appointments, etc.).

She's the fourth, so she's allowed to do previously-forbidden things, like play with Christmas tree ornaments (don't worry, she didn't get a hold of that hook on the floor, ha!).

The girls have piano lessons Wednesday afternoons, so I took them to their lesson while Chet stayed home with Ford and Ruthie. We decided to keep our kitchen clean by going out to dinner at our favorite Mexican food restaurant.

THURSDAY
Yesterday morning my friend Cassie (a great friend since middle school!) and her daughter came over to visit while Chet ran errands in town. That afternoon we all loaded up and went to Walmart, despite the Great Walmart Debacle of 2016 from a couple of weeks ago (Lorelei handled herself beautifully this time, thank heavens).

Today's going to be a busy one, and it deserves it's own post, so stay tuned!