December 12, 2020

Today was the best day! I didn’t take any pictures, not a single one, but I wanted to document these little moments so I can revisit it years from now.

This morning I woke up and made pancakes with Kylan. I taught him how to make oatmeal last week (legit oatmeal on the stove), but he wanted to switch things up this morning and asked if we could make pancakes together. I turned on my Christmas playlist and we stood in the kitchen together before everyone else woke up.

If you’ve followed my journey for awhile now, you might remember me sharing that he went to Shriners hospital when he was little. You can read more about that here. Every year our local Jericho Shrine Temple hosts a Christmas party for all of the children who have been seen at their hospitals. Due to COVID, the party this year was just a drive through event. They took Kylan’s picture for their Shriners paper and then we drove up and they loaded up our trunk with a fruit basket, a food box, and four gifts for Kylan. They even gave Klara and Koby a goody bag with small toys and candy canes. Klara said, “This is a great day! I can’t wait to tell my friends about this!” A few simple candy canes brought her pure joy.

We came home and I made us all some lunch. It was Jordan’s Saturday to work where him and another supervisor rotate Saturdays during their busy season, but we had a date night planned for this evening. We paid for Kylan to take some babysitting courses last summer because we were unsure of what would happen with my job and the kids school schedule, so I wanted to be sure that if we couldn’t get childcare from a family member that Kylan could help out if he felt comfortable doing so. We asked if he would be interested in “babysitting” for a couple of hours while Jordan and I finished up some Christmas shopping. We ordered them pizza and garlic bread and got them a 2 liter of Sierra Mist because it was a special occasion. Kylan asked if he could talk to me in the other room before we left and asked if he could surprise Koby and Klara with a movie night while we were gone. He put a lot of thought into the evening. He’s growing up too fast.

Jordan got home around 3:30 and we left the house around 4 o’clock. We stayed within 5-10 minutes of the house because we didn’t feel comfortable being too far away from the kids incase they needed us. We went to Wal-Mart and then grabbed dinner. We always talk about going out to dinner to a sit down restaurant that brings bread to your table and has unlimited refills, but rarely do. Tonight we had Chick-fil-a. My go-to meal is their grilled chicken club sandwich with a fruit cup and a large lemonade. We ate in the car in the Home Depot parking lot with such a pretty view. We watched the sun set, saw all of the buildings across town lit up, and we watched back to back cars on busy streets.

Once we finished dinner we went to Target. One of my favorite things from the entire night was stopping at a new local coffee spot called Trailblazer Coffee. We got coffee and picked up some of their donut holes for the kids. There’s nothing like driving down the road holding onto Jordan’s hand, listening to Christmas music, sipping on a white chocolate mocha with almond and caramel drizzle with our car loaded with Christmas gifts for those we love the most.

What are some of your favorite memories you’ve made this holiday season?