Christmas break, feeling better about the pile of life admin, Hanukkah thoughts and it's time for bed.

First, thank you everyone for your lovely comments on my disjointed chaos complaining post.

Today was my last day of work until January 5th.  I finished a really big project today which I'm about 75% happy with... I promised to circulate it "this week" prior to presenting at a meeting today.. and I circulated it 15 minutes before the meeting started.  But it's sort of the first big project of my new role and I feel like I'll have lots to come back to in 2026.

Yesterday evening I stayed up super late but finally packed my box for the USA, and booked shipping.  I have to drop it off tomorrow at a local corner shop (weirdly, FedEx is only received at a weird shop about 5 minutes away that sells mostly booze and cigarettes).  I feel relieved to have this in progress, and will feel even better when it is in the post.

Tomorrow I will also go to the post office to buy stamps and mail some UK presents. 

It's my last Friday morning with the twins, because in January they start a morning nursery (drop off!) for 2.5 hours on Fridays.  Well, they will start it if I get the paperwork done at some point.  Add it to the growing list of things to do.

We are halfway through Hanukkah now and I've managed to do presents every night so far.  Without buying much I had collected presents enough for 8 nights, although Aubrey & Clara are currently sharing presents and that's not going to work next year.  

Tonight Lily got a Unicorn Sticker Dolly Dressing book, and Ezra got a secondhand lego set.  Aubrey and Clara got a horrible talking light up Owl (£4 charity shop) which apparently costs £50 new!

I also had a major Hanukah fail this year because I didn't realize I had no Hanukkah candles. Oops! Luckily we have some birthday candle menorahs, so we are using that, but I also don't have 44 birthday candles because Hanukkah is a math problem:

So we are just blowing the candles out and relighting them the next day.  I have forever to figure out Hanukkah.

About a week ago I told the local Synagogue I didn't feel like it was safe to go to any events right now and then two days later the Hanukkah shooting happened in Australia.  I know that's Australia and not the UK, but I'm not particularly inclined to put the Menorah in the window right now, or go to the one public lighting in Wales (it apparently went fine?).  Which is... sad.  I find it disheartening to feel like the safest places to be openly Jewish are probably Israel or the USA. 

In other news, today I did my annual Christmas blood donation

Is blood donation selfie a thing?  I had two tasty chocolate bars after.  Now I am tired (probably from staying up late packing, and donating blood, and the stress of the work stuff this week) and I think a 9pm bedtime is in order.  I am currently reading Jill Mansell's A Walk In The Park which I bought on kindle because none of my books came in when I finished All Fours and I read a sample and liked it enough to pay £0.99 to read the rest.  It's nice.

I keep remembering and forgetting to-dos... but I don't feel as chaos as I did on Tuesday.  I think I might even have a nice twin day tomorrow, and a nice weekend... and potentially a nice Christmas?

Disjointed Christmas Thoughts, To Do Lists, Busy Season.

Christmas Fun.

Last year I took off an extra week of work before christmas and it was glorious.  This year I have 0.2 hours of annual leave left and I finish for Christmas on Friday.  I know other people work to Christmas Eve, and don't always get 2 weeks off work, but I am really looking forward to not being in work for a bit.

At the same time, I am really not looking forward to the 16 days of feeding my family.  Breakfast, Lunch, Snacks, Dinner day after day... wiping down the tables and the floors... asking if we've had too much bread and cheese... ugh.  

I am also tired of every kid thing that we eat and I'm tired of eating like a toddler.   Last night we had potatoes and beans for dinner, on thursday we have spaghetti and meatballs... I don't like either of these things.  I don't like any of our food but I just add a bunch of chili flakes and eat it because I also don't like cooking things the kids think are "disgusting" (like anything with flavour or texture)

Anyways, I digress.  

I also feel I am living all the days every day.   So while it is technically Tuesday right now, I'm also aware I am super behind on getting my gifts and cards to the USA.  Last night we spent an hour organizing our Christmas grocery orders (both before and after Christmas).  Today is swimming, Friday is a kid party, Saturday is tennis, yesterday was a dance recital, last week was school Nativity Play (there is no separation of church and state here y'all!)

In my understanding of time it feels that all of these things are happening at once.  Obviously they aren't, but I just feel so "aware" of what there is to do.

One of the apparently insurmountable tasks on my plate is to mail cards and presents to the USA.  We made calendars, which we printed for family.  I have had to do a proper project plan for this as follows:

1. Order Holiday Cards (done)
2. Order Calendar (done)
3. Order Gifts (done)
4. Address US holiday cards (done)
5. Buy Envelopes the right size for Calendar
6. Buy/Find Envelopes the right size for small gifts
7. Buy/Find box big enough for envelopes and gifts
8. Figure out how to mail box to the USA.

I was so ahead of schedule on this project plan... until I wasn't.  The dumb barrier is that I'm working forward in box size from the components, which also need boxes, to the big box, which needs to store it all, and the fact that I have to go to the store and buy packing materials, which is IMPOSSIBLE because it's Christmas and everyone is in the store buying packing materials.

Also, yesterday it rained all day and I didn't want to walk to the store in the pouring rain. 

All of this is also because I am being a bit cheap and not sending things directly from the UK because they put the price of mailing a single card up to £3.10 which is $4.  Shipping would be nearly $100 so I am hoping that by combining everything and having my helpful parent elves in the USA mail from the USA it will work out a bit cheaper.  

On the other side of the spectrum, we ordered New Years cards (not Christmas) so I feel like it's too early to send those in the UK.  But I'm fairly sure we will quickly go from "OMG it's too early" to "Oh how is it the 25th and we haven't' sent those cards??!" in about 5 minutes.  

Oh, and we need to buy stamps.  Why didn't I buy stamps literally any of the 100 times I had been to the post office not in the christmas rush?   Also, I can order stamps online, but I have to pay £3 shipping.  I'll see if I can magically get some stamps today while purchasing above mentioned envelopes and if not it's £3.

Speaking of delivery fees, last week I got ahead of the game and bought more school uniform AND some picture frames for some posters I would like on the wall and not just in a pile near my desk.  I even paid the £4 shipping to avoid going to the store with my gaggle of children.  Shipping was very quick, but the frames were clearly shattered and the box had the distinctive sound of broken glass when it arrived, battered and marked FRAGILE.  I ended up taking 3 of the kids to ASDA on Sunday to return the box, and as they ran through the isles asking for presents I wanted to tell every parent here "I ORDERED ONLINE TO AVOID BEING HERE! I paid £4 to avoid being here!" but I couldn't, and I also couldn't get my £4 back.  I got my £18 for the broken frames back... and the posters will stay on a pile for a while.

Anyways... here are some recent photos of things to end this whiny 6:15am post!  

Lily at her Ballet recital (after 4 classes)

Clara reading her age 1-2 photo album

Aubrey putting baby Jesus to bed at play group

Saturday Update: Charity shop wins, getting caught up on photo albums, things are sometimes nice.

We are having the kind of Saturday where things just *work*

I know it's only 2pm, so anything can happen, but I cannot believe how nice the hours between 6am and 2pm have been so far.

I think signing Ezra up for Saturday morning tennis was definitely the right call.  It feels so anchoring to have something to plan the weekend around.  Last week I took Lily with me, this week I took Aubrey.  While Ezra was in his lesson Aubrey and I walked to some charity shops on the hunt for Christmas decorations.   I had a mega win of a bunch of christmas stuff for only £15!  We have at least 4 new light sets and also a giant bag of tinsel.

I also refilled our spices at the zero waste shop. £1.50 for a new jar of Cinnamon and Coriander and also a bag of banana chips to snack on.  Yay.

Lest you think I'm a frugal dream, Ezra and Aubrey and I then went to the grocery store to buy nappies and spent £50 on random stuff (well only £35 on random, £15 was needed nappies)

I've started letting Ezra ride in the front seat sometimes.  

It's fun having him next to me in the car and he loves picking the radio.  He was astonished to learn that you cannot chose songs when listening to radio, you can just choose stations.  Also, you can't pause the stations.  The music plays when you are not listening.  His little mind was blown.

Aubrey and Clara both have pretty sad winter colds right now, so they are a bit sad and tired.  They went down for a nap and then I got some time to work on photo albums project.

But first I enjoyed my last pumpkin biscotti from Trader Joes

Part of the reason I've felt so behind and chaotic on my photo albums recently is that I do one album per kid, per year (from their birthday to their birthday) and then one album for the whole family.  All the kids had birthdays in September and October.  Because I didn't fully finish the kids albums I hadn't started new albums, but also some kids needed new albums sooner and some twins are born right at the end of the month.  I didn't want to start their next albums until finishing the last ones, but I wasn't really sure where I was on all of them.  Of course, this was easily solved with a google sheet:

I managed to complete and print all 4 kids albums (some were basically done already) and now I just need to work on setting up all of their new albums and updating for October and November.  And finish the family album for October and November.

The place we order books from had a 50% discount on books, so I ordered all 4 plus a copy of last year's family album for a family member that requested it

Spending almost £200 on photo albums certainly isn't cheap but it's way cheaper than £386!

Hopefully this evening we can finish (and order) our family calendar.  

Aubrey and Clara will wake up soon and we'll have to think of afternoon entertainment.  We might go look at a bunch of christmas lights.  The weather is atrocious but we are unlikely to last in the house until bedtime.  

I spend a lot of time complaining about kid stuff here so hopefully this post balances some of that whine-ness from me...

What's your latest charity/thrift shop win?  Do you shop at zero waste stores?  

Friday things, tidy house, kids disco, weekend plans

This evening I took all 4 kids to a school disco by myself.  The disco was at 4:30pm (great time for a party!) and we were home by 5:45.  Andy had his work Christmas party, so he wasn't home when I got back, and I managed to do a 4 kids dinner and bedtime by myself.  Kids ate yogurt and shreddies for dinner (the disco had pizza and hot dogs)... and everyone was asleep by 7:45.  

Andy does 4 kids dinner and bedtime twice a month when I'm in the office, but I can't remember the last time I tried.  It went fine! Tiring, but fine.

After they went to bed I wasn't sure what to do with my sudden free time.  I thought that I could go to bed early and get up early and workout... or I could do housework...

I could order myself a pizza and watch the Barbie Movie (it was a goal of mine to watch it this year).  This sounded great, except that ordering a pizza for myself seemed kind of weird.  We don't ever order takeout, and I know the one thing I can't do when at home with 4 asleep kids is leave the house, but it just seemed like not the best use of £20 right now. 

I decided to putter around the house and tidy it up.  I've been very intentionally trying not to spend all my free time cleaning and tidying lately.  I've stopped hoovering multiple times a week.  Friday twin nap time is Rachel time, I've been doing Peloton or other Rachel-adjacent things.  But this evening I started listening to some recent Organize 365 podcasts and enjoyed properly cleaning and tidying the downstairs. 

It took about 1.5 hours but it looks so much better, I've hoovered everything, taken toys upstairs, taken down the fall decorations.  I do feel nice when spaces are clean, and even though it's still somewhat cluttered (the rising tide of "stuff" that happens with a reachy & grabby 2 year old is legit!) at least things feel a bit more orderly.

I've also been intentionally not defaulting to putting away laundry all the time, which means that our bedroom has a giant clean laundry basket which gets fuller and fuller until Andy and I find a time to put it away together.  I used to operate a very "just in time" clothing system, where the kids had enough clothes to last exactly the time between washes.  I've slowly accumulated more clothes so that technically we could go 3-4 days between washes if we needed to. While putting away 3 loads of laundry recently Andy said "I think the issue is the kids have too many clothes".  I told Andy that was the point of the new laundry system - it was no longer dependant on me.

[BTW I feel this post is turning towards "look how much I don't do" but Andy and I both spend so so much of our life tidying up after kids that it's definitely not a "more or less" comparison.  It's a "there is endless work to keep things running but also we both need to carve our own time too" situation.]

Also,while I am on the division of labour topic, one great thing is that my favourite end of day routine is sortng the kitchen - loading the dishwasher (I am thankful for dishwasher daily), wiping the counter, putting away food, washing other dishes, sweeping the kitchen... if given an evening tidy choice I will always chose kitchen.  Andy always starts with dining room.  I hate dining room (sweeping under tables is awful).  It works really well.

****

I am not sure how this weekend will go.  Ezra has tennis lessons on Saturday morning and we need to go refill our spices at the zero waste shop in the village. Sometimes my life is just too middle class.  There is a local Santa tour around our village on Sunday which we will try and see.  We are hoping to get to the charity shop to buy some christmas decorations. I am making Turkey chili tomorrow with some freezer turkey from thanksgiving.  And otherwise, it's just a december weekend!

I'm feeling less Grinchy than I was last week now that our house is tidy.  Which maybe means I should tidy more? But then I feel grumpy about my time spent tidying.  There is no win.

Maybe next year we can find a cleaner again (I will someday blog about my multiple failed attempts at hiring a cleaner recently)

Tuesday Randoms - Christmas meh, Planning meh, Photo successes

OMG it's December.

I told Andy yesterday that I just need a half day to catch up on life admin, like photo Albums (still undone from December) and budget and house stuff and all the stuff which I need to do on a monthly basis (or ideally more, our house is kind of a mess)

Then decided that instead I could just not catch up on anything and wait like 9 more months and take a week off to catch up instead.  

My planning is not great at the moment.  Check out this weekly plan!

Oops.

On the plus side, I was very excited to get a family Advent calendar this year.  It's a Jam advent calendar from Bonne Maman.  The kids are delighted.  Many conversations were had about who opens doors and in what order.  Clara got to open first and Lily helped, because we are (apparently) going smallest to biggest in size.

We had honey apricot jam this morning on toast.  It was delicious. 

I have lots of fun stuff planned in December and I am kind of dreading a lot of it.  We went to our local village Christmas fayre on Saturday and I had thoughtfully bought the kids some light up wands because every year there is a light up wand seller who sells extortionately priced wands and I found discount wands at the local pound store.  The kids immediately said they didn't like my poundland wands and wanted other wands, or balloons, or food, or cake... basically they wanted STUFF!  and not the stuff I had.  OTHER STUFF.  It was very stressful and we went home.

Is Christmas just a pile of things and events that should be nice but are actually made kind of awful by the Christmas buildup?  Inquiring minds do not want to know.

This evening we ordered our Christmas cards! It might be world record early for us, and also they are New Years cards because I don't trust myself to actually post on time.  We have a spreadsheet of year on year Christmas cards and addresses and this year we had 24 for the UK and 19 for the USA.  Cards come in sets of 20.  So we ordered 60.  I might be reaching out for more addresses from my blog-o-friends.

Not our Christmas Card photo.  However... it is very hard to get 4 kids to look at a tripod camera.  We may end up paying a photo person next year.  I never regret having nice family photos.

Thing I am excited about this week:

• Going to the office on Wednesday
• Doing more stretching and mobility on Peloton
• Gym with my gym buddy on Thursday
• Omelettes with Jalapenos and Mozzarella cheese (new 10am second breakfast fav)
• Maybe getting some photo albums updated?
• Sleep
• Kids school Christmas Disco on Friday

What are you excited about this week? Are you a Christmas lover, a Christmas buildup lover, or a total Grinch?

Recap of a tiring week, christmas trees, imagination play, and some good Peloton rides

Aubrey and Clara love Christmas Trees

Monday I had the day off with the twins as our nanny was off, we went to a local storytime at a library.  After school I took Lily to her first Ballet and Tap class and then had one of Ezra's classmates over and it was super exhausting but I think everyone enjoyed.  

Tuesday was a work day, Andy was watching twins.  It was nice to have lunch with him! I did some stretching during the day as I've felt super inflexible lately.  In the evening I went to the gym with my gym buddy.  I was very tired but a gym session and catch up was much needed.

Aubrey at imagination play

Wednesday I was unexpectedly off work on childcare (unfortunately our nanny was ill) so I took the twins to a local imagination play that has AMAZING coffee and enjoyed a gingerbread latte.  During Nap I did a 30 minute Taylor Swift Life Of A Showgirl ride, and then the day was  made extra joyful when I saw San was on Peloton! We haven't crossed Pelo-paths in a while and it's so cool to know she's working out at the same time. I joined the yoga class she was doing (I was looking for yoga/stretching anyways) before realizing the class was intermediate level and I am beginner level but it was still fun and stretchy and brightened my day (both the stretch and the San sighting).  In the evening Andy and I did our logistics meeting.  There are a lot of logistics right now.

Thursday I was in the London office.  The day started at 4:45 so I could leave at 5:45 (I've recently decided 1 hour from wake up to out the door is the right amount of time for me and less than an hour feels rushed).  I drove to the station, arrived at perfect time for my 6:25 train, and then was told the car park was closed.  Instead I drove back to a station near our house, parked, and arrived in the office an hour later than planned.  Despite the hickup the rest of the day was good and it was good to interact with other people in person rather than all screen all the time.  I also ended up sitting next to a friend I hadn't seen for ages who happened to be going to london on the same day and on the same train!  Which was super random and cool.  I didn't get home until 9pm and was again very tired.

Friday is my day off with the twins.  I took them to a different soft play (because I totally lack imagination).  Actually, I wanted to take them to a local park for a walk, but with twins I don't feel I have them under control enough to protect them from dogs or from running off into other dangers.  There's a nice park with ducks but it has an unfenced lake so I don't go there.  It was slightly rainy so I didn't want to go to a play park.  It made me realize once again how off limits some of the world is with twins - I either have to strap them both into a pram or go to an enclosed space where I know they won't run off.   I wish I could free rein them more.  During nap I did a 45 minute turkey burn ride on Peloton which I really enjoyed.

Now it is the weekend.  I am pretty exhausted from the week. At the end of the weekend I will be petty exhausted from the weekend.  I think these are just tiring times.  

But in the midst of chaos kid times I occasionally get a cute photo like this:

Yes we did get our christmas tree on the Friday after Thanksgiving.  And decorated it on Saturday.  And the kids all have matching jumpers this year (thanks Vinted!).  And for a few seconds they were not fighting.

High energy weekends, all weekends, low margins, kids sports, turkey dinners

I'm never sure where the balance between doing "too much" and "not enough" is.  For instance - this weekend we did thanksgiving! We did a make-ahead turkey, which was super awesome.  We cooked the following:

• Turkey
• kale salad
• homemade brioche stuffing
• cornbread
• roast sweet potato
• mashed potato
• gravy
• green beans
• Pumpkin Pie (with homemade short crust pastry)
• Apple Pie (with homemade rough puff pastry)

It was kind of insane to fit that much cooking into a weekend that also still had 4 kids worth of chaos.  On Saturday the 5 and 7 year old stayed home in pyjamas in the morning while Andy cooked.  I took the twins to some shops to buy some random things.  In the afternoon Andy took Ezra and Clara to a friend's house while Lily had a play date and Aubrey and I watched a NYT video on how to carve a turkey while carving a turkey (me) and eating yogurt (her)

In the evening Andy and I went for drinks with a friend at a local very loud bar. I was very tired in the morning when Aubrey decided to wake up at 5:30.

Ezra went to grandma's house for a play date, but before he left we had 5 minutes of not rain and decided to try for a family photo.  We got one that was OK but man it is hard to get 4 kids looking good in a photo.  Also I wore lipstick and I thought I looked great and now I think I look clown.  Oops.

Here's an outtake:

Lily was given that dress recently in a hand-me-down box.  Ezra's jumper came from a charity shop a few years ago. Clara is wearing a matching jumper to Aubrey, which we were given from another twin mum recently.  We have been lucky with the hand-me-downs!

Then Andy and I took Lily and the twins to the pool, where we met up with other friends because apparently the indoor pool is the November hangout space.

In the afternoon we did a thanksgiving dinner, which was nice, but It always feels a bit odd to cook and eat a thanksgiving meal without friends around. We don't have a table big enough to have people over for meals at the moment (unless it's a one-pot situation) but someday I would love to make a thankgiving meal more of a friends and family thing and less of an excuse to eat a giant meal in a country that doesn't celebrate the holiday.  

On the other hand, I am so happy with my thanksgiving leftovers lunch today:

How many devilled eggs are in a serving? All of them.

Anyways, it was an exhausting weekend, but I feel like it was no more exhausting than any other weekend.  I don't think weekends with margins or chill out time exist right now, with twin two year olds.  I know they will exist soon. SO we may as well do a lot with our weekends, if they're going to be exhausting and chaotic either way.

And speaking of scheduling and lack of down time, I'm starting to feel my kids could use more sports/hobbies/things.  I never wanted to put them in classes before because I wanted to just have them happy playing at home, but what happens often is just fighting at home.  And also, their friends are doing classes... and some of my kids could use more friends from different places as well.  

Yesterday I signed Ezra up for tennis lessons on Saturday mornings and Lily is trialing Ballet/Tap on Mondays, starting today.  

The other problem with classes/things is getting kids there.  They currently swim on Tuesdays, which means I need to finish work 20 minutes early to drive them to lessons, and our Nanny watches the twins at that time.  I'm hoping one of Lily's classmates can take her to Ballet (it's across the street) and in exchange I'll drop her friend home after class... but I'll again have to finish work 10 minutes early on a Tuesday.  And again... we're paying a nanny for this time.

I guess really the question is "what am I optimizing for" and I do think it's good for kids to try different sports and activities... And the barrier to entry on sports is probably higher as they get older.  I am aware that I'm cutting back on rachel time / work time each time I commit to something like this.  

On a personal level, I haven't done much sport in over a week and I don't feel particularly caught up on anything.  At the same time, I'm unlikely to feel less caught up by adding a bunch more stuff in... right?

Oh, and speaking of chaos and low margin...  for whatever reason I've offered to join the PTA next year. Which is probably insane.  My list of 100 dreams included "be a treasurer somewhere" and I figured I was good with math/money and bad with other people's kids so maybe this was my way of giving back?  Or maybe also meeting other driven/career minded parents?  At the same time, I've spent the first 3 years of education making no effort and avoiding all social things, so perhaps I have made a terrible mistake offering to be involved.  

I guess I'll go to the AGM tonight and find out what sort of chaos I have volunteered myself for.

Have you been on a PTA?  Do you have kids in sports or classes? Did you do kids sports? Is ballet terrible and going to give Lily an eating disorder?  Is Tennis in December in Wales a terrible idea?