Wow - what a week!

I can't believe it's been over a week since I last posted! The boys are off track and so I signed them up for swimming lessons. Then we have started basketball season and of course it is Christmas time! In November we applied to the United Way to sponsor a family for Christmas. We offered to sponsor a family with up to 6 kids, (when I say "we", I mean Aaron and myself and our boys, plus Aaron's 4 brothers and 4 sisters and their families - we're doing this instead of a gift exchange). After turning in the application last month, we waited and waited and didn't hear anything. We finally called last week and we were told that our application had been lost. Aaron told the United Way to just let it go and we would go through a social worker in another agency to find a family to help. So, we are helping this family that the social worker has assigned us, plus another single mom with 2 teenage children. On Wednesday I got an email from the United Way with information for a family that we've been assigned to sponsor. (Looks like they didn't lose our application after all!) We are now totally overbooked and can't do this by ourselves. But we hate to turn down this other family. We are looking for about 8 families to help supply Christmas for them. So I've been spending my time emailing everyone in the area trying to find enough people to supply Christmas for this single mom and her 6 kids. So far, we've found 5 people willing to sponsor the 6 children, one woman willing to make a gift basket for the mom, and 3 people willing to donate smaller amounts for gift certificates, wrapping paper, groceries, etc. We are trying to get this all done by next Wednesday. So if you don't hear anything from me, I am trying to do Christmas for my family, plus the family the social worker gave us, plus a single mom and her 2 teenage kids, plus the United Way family, plus nurse a baby, save a preschooler from himself, keep the school-age kids busy, swimming lessons 3 times a week, basketball practices and games, scouts for 2 boys, make sure the 10 year old is prepared for his piano recital next Friday, keep them reading (they all have reading logs that they have to fill out for school while they're off track), clean the house (although that's going by the wayside... way by the wayside...), try to fulfill my responsibilities in the Relief Society... and feed the partridge in a pear tree...
Happy Holidays!