December Daily - Day 17

Andrew got the kids started on chores right away this morning.  I loved it!  Bedrooms got cleaned, garbage taken out, dishwasher emptied and loaded, carpet vacuumed, kids bathroom cleaned.  The best part??  No crying, fighting, nagging, or bribing....by me :)  Oh happy day.

While the kids played outside with friends and Andrew watched the UNLV game, I spent the better part of the afternoon cooking chicken and dumplings for the ward Christmas party tonight.  Even had to miss Zach's game today because the soup was taking much longer than I had anticipated.  It was an easy recipe, but very time consuming since they wanted us to make it in one of those big electric roasters.  Took forever just to get it to boil.  But it made my kitchen smell amazing and it tasted very good.

The ward party was so cute.  It was a Polar Express party.  Chairs were set up down the middle of the gym to look like a train.  Everyone came dressed in their pajamas (well I was one of the few not wearing pajamas.  Trust me, my jammies are way too ratty for public display.  I wasn't about to embarrass myself by wearing them in front of the ward.)  After dinner was served, each child was given a ticket and boarded the Polar Express.  Then they served the kids cookies and hot chocolate.  This is when the Polar Express became the Up-chuck Express.  Towards the back of the "train" was some commotion.  Zachary called me over there and we quickly discovered a 4 year old boy had thrown up.....all over the little boy in front of him.  Unfortunately that started a chain reaction of vomit.  The boy that was vomited on then threw up, followed by two other kids with weak stomachs.  Luckily some Priesthood jumped in and cleaned it all up in a jiffy while the rest of the train was watching the slide show of the Polar Express book.  So gross.  I don't know how those guys did that without gagging.

Santa made an appearance after the slideshow and passed out little bells to every child.  He walked down the aisle of the train and gave children hugs and patted them on the head.  It was so cute to see the reaction on some of the little kids' faces.  Tanner just stared at him and kept waving.

And the best part?  Nobody ate my food.  I think they had 9 or 10 roasters full of chicken and dumplings.  In the end only 4 or 5 got used.  Mine didn't even make it out of the kitchen.  So we hauled our completely full roaster back home.  I stood for hours in my kitchen making it, an hour cleaning it all up, and nobody even got to eat it.  UGH!  I filled 3 huge containers with soup for my fridge and threw the rest out.  What a waste.  My kids aren't big fans of soup, so we won't get much use out of it.

This is the 3rd time this year that the food I volunteered to bring to a church function went untouched because there was too much other food:

JULY - I made 40 pounds of ground beef for our Stake Pioneer Celebration in July.  Although they served from my pot first, it barely made a dent and at least 30 pounds were leftover.

OCTOBER - At the ward Trunk or Treat, my Crockpot of chili sat quietly because there were 40 other ones to choose from.

DECEMBER - tonight

So my first resolution for 2012??  Don't sign up or volunteer to bring food to any ward party or church activity because I will haul most of it back home and throw it in my freezer!!  That is one resolution I know I can stick to!!