Grateful Friday

Emma is home!  I hugged her like I hadn't hugged her for months.  We both cried.  I love that girl.

She and Adam got home late (for me) Wednesday night.  After awhile I said, "I've got to go to bed.  I'm tired."

Emma said, "Are you, Mom?  Let's talk about that."

She had been awake over 24 hours.  She had to wait up to see Mark though.  He finally got home from work and she met him in the garage.  It was good to see those two together.  (But then I went to bed.)

Here's a picture they took after I went to sleep and Emma was making an I can't believe I'm still awake right now expression.

We celebrated Mark's birthday last night.

After school I made a cake.  We had to borrow an egg from the Porters and we didn't have any milk but we weirdly had cream so I made the frosting out of that.

We have a serious lack of basic staples around here.  When my mom started working full time she'd buy extra of everything because she was too busy to know what she had and we'd tease her about it but now I understand.

Emma sat me down at the piano to sing Silver Bells in harmony with her.  She sang while she got ready for the party.

I have missed her voice!

I'm glad we got to prolong our Mark celebration.  (We had a great time together on his birthday.  Ford vs. Ferrari was a good movie and he loved it.  Partway through the movie, he put his arm around me and kissed the side of my head and whispered, "Thank you for this!")

As you can see, Mark dressed up last night for the occasion--in his pajamas.

We had Christmas crackers at dinner so hence the crown.  Mark and Anna both got wooden tops in their crackers so they were seeing whose top was superior.

My heart was happy to have these kids all together under one roof.  Adam asked me to say our blessing before dinner and of course I cried.

Because Mark's outfit wasn't quite complete, he tied his new Seahawks sweatshirt, which was one of his gifts, around his neck.  He always wants a chocolate cake and he prefers a 9 X 13 to a layered cake which is something I can get behind because it is easier.  I crushed up peppermint candies for the top so you can see the remnants of that on the counter as well as the ever present scale.  We weigh and measure and calculate carbs and do more math than we have done since high school.

 He looked like a sailor.  And I don't know what he was doing while we were singing to him.  I only got one kind of kid...a little weird.

I am looking forward to Christmas break.  Not just because I will be home from work (that is part of it but also I know I'll miss my students) but mostly because I'll be around my people.  And my kitchen.  I'll stock the fridge and try to make sense of the pantry which is a hot mess.  Emma and I have a line up of cheesy movies we love to laugh at.  I want to soak up time time time with these people that I love.