Christmas Magic at the Kroekers!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Another Christmas has come at gone at the Kroeker house, and it's been a lovely relaxing week. Always so good to have Lynsey home and all three kids together, we've spent a lot of time together. On Christmas Eve we got our rib roast ready (well Brian did) and we went to Bellevue for the 4pm Christmas Eve service at church. Even got a fun celeb sighting as Justin Bieber and his wife were there:-D. Went home and ate our delicious roast dinner and did stockings and siblings/parents gifts. Adam loves all the rituals associated with Christmas but he never gets super excited for the actual gifts, he did like some of the sensory things Lynsey and Nathan got him which was fun. 

Christmas morning was a lot of fun, lots of wins this year as the kids seemed to really like their gifts:-). Adam didn't want to sit in his new rocking chair for the garage room but we are hoping that one day he will sit in it and decide he likes it:-/. On Boxing Day we went to the mall, which was busier than expected - not like Boxing Day in Canada but definitely happening! Brian got some new jeans, Lynsey and Nathan got some clothes, got a pretzel. It was a fun family outing. Other than that we have been very lazy hanging out at home. 

Wednesday morning we are off to Calgary! Looking forward to some extended family time!

 

Christmas Break is here!

It's December 21st and Christmas is just a few days away, can't believe we are here! I have taken practically no pictures the last three weeks, I guess I'll make up for it over Christmas! December has been busy as always, volleyball for me and basketball for Brian and Nathan. I finished up the Christmas shopping without too much stress, everything is wrapped and ready to go. We went to a holiday party and the Mancino's last Saturday which was fun! It was nice to catch up with some people I haven't talked to for a while, people I knew more when I was still volunteering at Horace Mann. I'm glad we went and were social for once haha. Adam did great, he found a quiet room with his tablet and listened to music. 

We picked Lynsey up from the airport on Friday night, so nice to have her home again! Some drama with the Civic again when she tried to start it and go to work this morning, we thought it was a worn fan belt at first but it seems to have sorted itself out after pulling into the garage?? I think we just need to drive it a bit more often so it's not sitting there seizing up from not being driven for weeks on end. We watched the first part of season 5 of Stranger Things together which was fun, Lynsey had of course already watched it but she was more than happy to rewatch it with us :-D. It's nice to have the whole family together again! Looking forward to lots of family time coming up in the next few weeks!

 

Landscaping finished, Thanksgiving weekend

The last few weeks have been somewhat uneventful, the landscapers did finish up their Fall portion of the job (the lawns are getting fixed in the Spring as I previously mentioned). It looks nice! We are happy with how it all turned out, now we just have to hope that we can keep up with it. Likely we will have the landscapers come out at least twice a year to do a proper cleanup of weeds etc. but I think we can manage the day to day maintenance of it. The sprinkler system is all set up for the new plants so we should be able to keep everything properly watered. We'll see how it goes!

What else is new . . . we are in the middle of a very long holiday weekend, we are just hanging around at home for this one. We made a nice roast for Thanksgiving yesterday instead of a turkey, since I made a turkey when Lynsey was home - it was delicious! Today we are just having a lazy day, kind of nice to not have any plans. Tomorrow we have tickets to the Oilers/Kraken game, not sure I'm super excited for that one. I feel about as excited as I did a few years ago when the Oilers were 2-9-1 going into the game we were going to watch, and that game ended up being a bit of a season turnaround so I guess I can only hope there will be a repeat of that! I remember the days when there were no expectations of the Oilers so when they lost it wasn't a big deal, times are different now as people are expecting so much of them - I've always said it's a dangerous place to be when you start to expect them to win all the time! Anyway, we will try and enjoy the game no matter what happens, what else can you do!

Christmas shopping has begun, I can't believe we are here already! We are putting up the tree later today, first year doing it without Lynsey. I know Adam likes the tree so maybe it will bring a smile to his face:-).

 

A visit from Lynsey, piano recital, volleyball starting!

Phew lots has been happening these last three weeks! Halloween was pretty uneventful, Nathan was unsure if he wanted to participate so we didn't get him a costume, but at the last minute he decided he DID want to go trick or treating with his friend Luke. Thankfully Luke's family is a Halloween family so they had an extra costume for Nathan to borrow. It was a rainy night so we got hardly any trick or treaters, like three or four groups only. It's definitely becoming less of a thing here at our house! 

There's been lots happening with my volleyball team, we had makeup tryouts on Sunday the 2nd to fill some extra spots on both 14s teams. Then that following Tuesday we had all the players come to one practice to try and split the teams as evenly as we could while also accommodating requests for practice location (Claire, the other coach, would be practicing up in Bothell while my team is practicing in Redmond). It was definitely a tricky process, not everyone was totally happy with the team splits. We did our best but it's hard to make everyone happy! We had our first practice as a team the next day and it was good to see what the team make up is. Definitely a change working with U14 from U16, but I'm excited for the season! We have a good group of girls and a good mix of strengths, we'll see how it goes:-).

Brian and I went to see Nate Bargatze at Climate Pledge on Thursday the 6th, it was a fun evening! He was hilarious, and his opening acts were also really good. On Friday we got to pick up Lynsey from the airport! We all went to get her and it was a bit of a long time in the van for Adam so he was a bit grumpy, but we all went to Tropea for supper after and that helped. We picked up a birthday cake for Lynsey and went home to celebrate Lynsey's 18th birthday as a family since we weren't together on her actual birthday. Lynsey and I went to watch Redmond High's volleyball team on Saturday, they were playing a playoff game and sadly lost in 4 sets - it was an exciting game though! She was able to say hello to a bunch of her old teammates which was nice. On Sunday I made a turkey dinner for our early Thanksgiving celebration (thought it was better to do it while Lynsey was home than on the actual Thanksgiving day!). There was some drama with the Civic on Saturday, we had to get it towed to the repair shop because it wouldn't start (not the battery). We did end up fixing it even though it wasn't super cheap, the repair guy thought it was perfectly good to go other than the distributor which is just something that goes periodically, so we decided to invest to keep it limping along. Over the week Lynsey worked a few shifts and hung out with friends as well as spending time with us, it was nice to have her home!

We are getting some landscaping done that started a few weeks ago, it's not done yet but they are making good progress. A patio in the back and new sprinkler system to accommodate some new plants, I'm excited to see how it will all look! It was definitely time! They are going to fix the lawns in the Spring as well.

Adam has been so stressed lately, I think I've mentioned this in prior posts. He has enjoyed having Lynsey home but it seems to have also stressed him out a bit. I think he just doesn't understand the new normal, Lynsey comes home but only to visit. He has brought back some verbal repeating that we haven't heard in years which is pretty discouraging. I can only hope that he will drop it when he gets more comfortable with the changes going on, he's dropped it before so no reason to think he can't do it again. It's just rough in the meantime, that repeating is something we were QUITE happy to see disappear and were not wanting to see again:-(.

Nathan had a piano recital yesterday, and as usual, he killed it! This was a recital he wasn't actually looking forward the way he usually does, he didn't lock in and practice as much as he probably should have to really perfect it (he was playing an extended version of the Entertainer, a very difficult piece). He knew that he could have played it perfectly if he practiced the way he should, but for whatever reason he just didn't put the work in this time. So, he was dreading it and waiting for it to be over. Well, as it happens, he locked in and played it SO WELL! It was not perfect, he made a few small mistakes, but I have been hearing him practice this piece a lot and I've never heard him play it as well as he did for the recital. Not sure he learned the right lesson as far as putting more work in to get the best results, but I am glad he did well! I think he knows it could have been even better, hopefully that knowledge is enough to motivate him for next time:-).

This morning we went for breakfast at Farine in Redmond before driving Lynsey to the airport. She's on the plane almost back in Edmonton. Glad she had this time at home! Just over a month until she is back again for Christmas:-).