Christmas 2015

Our Christmas was pretty quiet. After having guests for 9 days, we enjoyed a few days at home by ourselves. And with obscenely warm temperatures, we were able to enjoy our usual late summer/early fall activities. 

The kids asked to go to church on Christmas Eve. Apparently they were going to drag their heathen parents whether we liked it or not! The kids were amazingly good and did a nice job of participating.

Christmas Eve Jeff and I had hoped to go to bed early. However, Ree couldn't sleep and I think her last time to come out for cuddles was at 10:37. Yawn. Poor Santa thought he would never be able to visit our house. It's funny. We thought Ree was on the fence about Santa 2 years ago. So I cooked up a scheme for Santa to bring her a ridiculous gift. Santa brought her a Barbie dream house. It was expensive and enormous. And we had to bring it back from Ohio. That did the trick. 

I sensed some doubt creeping in again this year  (her best friends are all oldest children, so we are sheltered on that front ), but on Christmas Eve it became apparent that any doubt was just due to the mathematical impossibility of it all. We had been watching the Google Santa tracker before bed. Well, technically most of the family was checking it. Leon actually stood there and watched it until we closed the browser window and dragged him away from the computer. Around the time the kids went to bed, Santa had visited over 5 billion households.

Ree was pondering this as she lay awake in bed. So when she asked me about it, I started by saying the magic involved was probably a lot more complicated than they ever show on TV or in books. Then I pulled in math. I argued that Santa has a window from 11pm to 5am to visit each house, and there are 24 time zones in the world so that gives Santa a roughly 30 hour window to make deliveries. That made sense to her and we agreed we probably should've left Santa some strong coffee. Finally, I joked that maybe Santa has a time turner. She laughed and relaxed. Harry Potter for the win!

The kids were given strict orders to stay in their rooms until we got them on Christmas morning. When we weren't quite prompt enough for him, Leon decided to be the human alarm clock. At exactly 7am he opened his door, shouted, "Beep, beep, beep!" and shut the door again. We got the message and were in the kids' rooms by 7:03.

Santa did come (phew!) and the kids loved their gifts. The big kids got Legos and were so busy playing with them that at 9:30 we had to tell them that their little sister might explode if we didn't open gifts soon so they had to stop playing at 10. Then when we did open presents, they wanted to open them one at a time so they could all see what everyone got. Who are these children???

Over the past few days the kids have spent a lot of time playing with their new things. They received several games and a circuit set, so there have even been group activities. We've managed to spend some time outside every day including a Christmas day trip to the park and a beach trip on Sunday.

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas! 

Sights and Sounds of the Season

It's the season for loving and giving so, of course, our house is full of hate and greed. Who knew certain children (who will not be named) could fight so much? And over such silly things? Natalia woke me up the other morning at 5:45 just to fight with me. Why does she do this? It would be so much easier to just sleep in a bit and not fight. But, noooo. And if the volume of the children goes up to 10, it has been permanently set on 11 for awhile now. Thankfully, there are occasional breaks in the squabbles and battles and no one has seriously injured themselves or their siblings (yet), so we have that going for us.

I had a moment on Friday night when I realized how much our kids do actually like each other, despite the indications otherwise. I went to put presents under the Christmas tree and discovered that there were already colorful Ziplocks of stuff under the tree, neatly labeled with each of our names in Sharpie. It turns out that Leon wrapped presents for everyone. Some were paper games he had made, others were real gifts he had "purchased" from the treasure box in his class. But before I could get too enamored with my thoughtful son, I did find the "dead" gingerbread man he decorated and hung up on the wall. (I have to admit though, the sword is a nice touch.)

The kids have actually been decorating the house like mad. Every time I turn around there are more decorations Scotch taped onto the walls. It is fun and festive (although it would drive a minimalist nuts.) Over the weekend the kids also decorated gingerbread houses. I have to say, I am impressed at how their decorating skills have improved. 

So now that the house looks like Christmas, perhaps it will start sounding a bit more like it too. The kids are actually getting better as we get closer to Christmas. (It helps that school and activities are done.) Fingers crossed that everyone actually finds the Christmas spirit by Friday!

December Fun

Although Ree has performed in dance recitals before, this weekend was the first time she danced in a full length ballet. She was a reindeer in a production of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and she couldn't have been more excited. Last Sunday night she was already excited, and she didn't know if she would be able to survive the wait until Thursday's tech rehearsal. (Her first tech rehearsal! That alone was exciting to her!) Thankfully, she survived the week, she made it through everything, AND it lived up to her expectations. The show was lots of fun and went fairly well and she enjoyed her debut as the reindeer that "dances" the White Witch off the stage to free one of the main characters.

The weather cooperated too, and after spending Thursday night, Friday night, and all day Saturday at the theater, we had a beautiful day in the mid 70s on Sunday. My parents were in town, and it was a perfect excuse to head to the beach. The water was cold, but the kids (and Grandpa Gene!) didn't care. And at least it was warmer than the snowy days in Narnia.

Thanksgiving

We had a quiet weekend over Thanksgiving. It was just our family, at home. It was both relaxing and a time to catch up on things. It was nice to feel refreshed before jumping head first into the crazy again. At some point over the weekend, it occurred to me that this was our 10th Thanksgiving with kids. How on earth did that happen? Then I decided to look back on our Thanksgivings.

2006 - In 2006 Ree/The Repo Monster/Enemy Garlic was 3 months old at Thanksgiving. We took her to Cincinnati for the first time. (The dogs rode with us too!) Ree cried and then passed out while we ate Thanksgiving dinner with Jeff's family.

2007 - We had just moved to Wilmington that week. Jeff had gone back to Athens to get the dogs, and he and the dogs arrived in Wilmington in time for a late dinner.

2008 - This year was a little odd. The boys were 5 days old and I was home from the hospital but they weren't. The NICU nurses did decorate for Thanksgiving and I think we even got cards "signed" by the boys. Ree, the cutie, had just learned how to fold her hands to pray.

2009 -We had a big crew here for the boys' first birthday and Thanksgiving. The crew was so big, in fact, that there was a kiddie table.

2010 - I have no recollection of this Thanksgiving (hey, I was 8 months pregnant and had 2-year-old twins. And a 4-year-old!) But apparently it was a low key affair with just our family.

2011 - We had a whirlwind week. We were in Orlando for my cousin Michele's wedding. We also went to the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner. And we went to the Magic Kingdom two days that week. And we celebrated the boys' 3rd birthday. Phew.

2012 - It was another quiet Thanksgiving at home. With some really interesting faces from Leon.

2013 - Our friend Jenna and her daughters joined us for dinner. After dinner we successfully distracted the kiddos with Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

2014 - The 2014-2015 school year is the "lost" year. I have no idea what we did! For Thanksgiving or any other day. But apparently we attended lots of school-related Thanksgiving events.

2015 - Jammie Day! Does it get any better than that?

Hope you had an enjoyable Thanksgiving this year (and in prior years too)!