Keeping busy on Christmas eve...

I remember the days when our kids were younger and Christmas eve seemed like the longest day of the year - for them and for us!  This year, the day flew by.

We woke up to lots of new snow on the ground, so while Chris and the kids went outside to shovel and bring in wood for the wood stove, I picked up the house and got ready to go to the gym.  Once we were at the gym, I did my leg workout, which included barbell lunges (40 pounds), leg extensions (40 pounds), calf raises on the Smith machine (90 pounds), bench lunges (10 pound dumb bells) and a few extra (8 total with 140 pounds) sets on the leg press machine and 4 (extra) sets of dead lifts.  By the time I was ready to head into spin class, my legs were shaking.  Of course, spin class was awesome - the usual sweat-fest.  I still love that class so much.

Once we were finished at the gym, we headed home where I had just enough time to shower before we took all the kids and headed back into town.  Chris took the two older boys to see the new 'Hobbit' movie, since they both just read the book.  While they were at the movies, I took the two younger kids and spent some time at the mall.  I thought it might be busy, being Christmas Eve and all, but it wasn't too bad.  We were able to pass the time walking around and enjoying being together, just the three of us.  On our way home, we stopped and picked up some pizzas for the kids, then came home to finish our evening's activities. While the kids (and Chris) ate pizza, I fixed myself some mashed sweet potatoes with turkey "muffins" and it tasted really good.  I found the recipe for the turkey muffins (here on bodybuilding.com).  I made up a batch earlier this week and have used them as a go-to quick meal several times.

After dinner, I helped our six year old make some cookies for Santa.  While I tried to make them somewhat healthy by substituting half of the butter with pumpkin puree and using home-ground whole wheat flour, they were still pretty decadent and I indulged in 3 small cookies.  I haven't had regular sugar in so long that they didn't settle well in my stomach, but they sure tasted good. :)

And not that I'm biased or anything, but I'm pretty sure I have the cutest little boy in the world.  He tells me he loves me about a hundred times a day and I never get tired of hearing it.  He was so excited to make the cookies and leave a note for Santa; I'm so glad his older siblings have been able to keep him "believing" - it makes Christmas a little more special.

By about 9:30 pm, all of the kids were asleep and Chris and I were able to set the scene for the morning.  Now Chris is also asleep, since he unfortunately has to work tomorrow.  And there you have it, just like that another day has flown by.  Tomorrow the gym is closed (of course), but that doesn't mean I'm taking a holiday from my workouts.  Once all of the presents have been opened, I figure I'll have ample time to fit in a workout while the kids play with their new treasures.  I have a shoulder and abs workout on the schedule, plus an interval run, which I will do on my treadmill.  I may have to be a little creative with my strength training exercises.  I talked with Misty at the gym today and she suggested I use my resistance bands to do my shoulders, since I don't have a variety of weights to use at home.  We'll see how it goes...

Merry Christmas, everyone!