Saturday

I'm wasting some time before I have to paint. RJ just left to work and Henry is in bed.

Last night we loaded up our little family and went to McDonald's to grab some supper and then went to Jolly Holiday lights. Henry got to sit on my lap and eat his chicken nuggets. It was a lot of fun! Then we went to church to our Christmas "box party" where we package up lots of boxes for Hope Ministries full of essentials. Great time. This morning, Henry treated us to sleeping in until 9:15!! So naturally, I was up at 4:30 and couldn't get back to sleep. Don't you hate it when that happens? By the time the boys had gotten up, I had baked a whole batch of cookies and worked on 2 paintings. We ventured out to Keller's Kountry Store by Dallas Center and then to Pickett Fence Creamery. I highly recommend both, especially Keller's! (thanks for the tip, Londa!) It's a tiny shop full of both healthy and regular foods. I got a ton of supplies to make a great batch of granola and some very fun sprinkles for Christmas cookies that were seriously way cheap! Then we ran a few errands and got home to nap. I love days of making little trips as a family. Those are my favorite.

Tomorrow is the children's program at church and RJ's work has a kid's Christmas party in the afternoon. Can't wait! It will be Henry's first experience meeting Santa. Could be interesting....

Now I've got 2 more paintings to work on and then we're heading on to our vacation! I'm so excited. We're surprising RJ's brother and wife and their little Sophia at the airport on Tuesday. We haven't seen them since early summer so we're pretty pumped. We've got a great week planned with them and RJ's family, including A Christmas Carol in Lanesboro, baking, presents, a night in a hotel, and hopefully a Vikings game. Excellent! This really is, and already has been, my favorite Christmas season yet. Gonna turn on the lights, light some candles, play some music and get painting.

Happy Saturday, everyone.