blahblahblahBABY

Man oh man, I am the queen of blog neglect. Sometimes I think I should just shut this place down, it started as a place to write down everyday things about my kids and my life (let's face it, for now, my kids are my life) so that I would remember them. Things that had no place in the baby book would go here.

Except I'm one of those weird people who are obsessive about the baby book. DO NOT mess with my babies books. Every single child of mine has three books. The First Year "Baby Book", and the Toddler years (2 & 3) Book are filled out in minute detail the day something eventful happens, like potty training success and talking. Then we have the childhood book, a book chronicling the big achievements until they turn 10. Every other mother I know has given up long ago on filling the baby books with cute anecdotes and important dates, and yet all five of my children have up-to-date books. Do not ask me how, it's a mystery to everyone.

This brings me to an announcement.

Helena Joan Louisa J. 

6 pounds 4 ounces 

20 inches 

August 16th 2011 

She's a little girl who knows what she wants, she didn't give me any indication that she was ready to be born and then she decided she would like to come out RIGHT NOW. One hour and seventeen minutes of labor. I had been to the OBGYN that afternoon and I wasn't effaced, dilated, nothing. I picked up the kids from their various schools, felt labour pains, and decided to drive 5 minutes to pick up Nick at work. He drove us all home, he evacuated the car or children and their things, grabbed our baby bag and infant seat, and went to the hospital. She was delivered seventeen minutes later, much to everyone else's surprise. My water never even broke, she was born en-caul. 

So we had another baby. We sent Theo into second grade, Sera into first grade, and Pippa and Viv into preschool. We've been getting the kids settled into their school schedules and various after school activities, of which there are many. We put Theo in Hockey again, Sera in figure skating again, and Pippa and Viv in CanSkate. Thankfully that's all on Thursday night, in the same place, at close but not too close times, so we get it over with all at once. We've also got all four kids in different levels of swimming and soccer. Have you ever tried to monitor 4 different children in two different pools at the same time, while comforting a squirmy baby? That's my Tuesday night. Nick takes the kids to soccer on the weekend and he usually takes the baby with him to pass around to the various baby-crazy moms, giving me a morning free of all children. He's a saint. We've also got the girls in ballet classes and Theo in baseball. Life is hectic. 

We're busier than ever because we've found that the kids all do better with structured activities during the week, keeping them busy and tired so that they can fall asleep by 8 and be well-rested for school the next day. A few people have told us to let go of a few activities, and we will as the kids finish the seasons and decide that they don't want to do it again. Maybe we'll try gymnastics, tap dancing, or karate next. Or maybe all four of them will want to do it all again. For now, we're trying what's available and affordable while Nella (her nickname) is still young enough to sleep through most of it. We've been blessed so far with the easiest baby on the planet, the kind of baby that makes us think we've finally got parenting perfected, the kind of baby that makes everyone who meets her want another baby. This is how I know we are done; If we had another baby we would be given a baby with reflux and colic who do wouldn't sleep or nurse or poop. Nick is relieved to hear that I won't be trying to convince him to have another baby, he dated me and we agreed on two kids, proposed and I upped it to three, married me and I said four, and then we were a family of six and we weren't quite full. So we got two dogs, and when that didn't work I got knocked up. 

Nella is 9 weeks old and is either very agreeable in nature or is pretending to be 5 days old, because I'm getting 8+ hours of sleep every night. She goes to bed around 9, wakes up at midnight for a nurse, another nurse at 3, and then another at 6. She sleeps until whenever I wake her up to change her and put her in her carseat to take the kids to school. Good girl. 

But now I'm tired and it's time for bed. I'll try to update this place more often from now on!

Some love and a rant, lucky you

Internet, I got my new baby today!

No, not that one.

I finally got my new car! We've been saving up ever since this baby got on it's way, and we took home our Honda Odyssey last night and spent the better part of today installing car seats. You guys, I'm driving 5 car seats around. And in a few months they will all hold (loud) children. We put the oldest three in the third row, Mico is on the drivers side, Sera is in the middle, and Pippa is on the passenger side. In the middle row we put the infant seat behind the drivers seat, and we put Viv's seat in the centre and slid it all the way forward, so I can hand her stuff from the front and she can't poke the baby, plus it gives the big kids more room in the back. The seat right behind the passenger seat is out, so there's lots of room for entering and exiting. The kids think the new car is cool, and it is SO MUCH EASIER to shove them all inside when there's room for them all and I don't have to crawl over anyone or anything to ensure all dependants are safely buckled up.

Cool. So I like my awesome (and clean!) supervan. Anyways.

I've heard a lot of parents discussing the topic of kids clothing recently, specifically dressing little girls like little girls. Okay. I agree completely that a preschooler running around in a tube top and miniskirt is inappropriate, HOWEVER. It's one thing to dress your daughter in age appropriate clothing, it's a whole other thing to constantly dress your girl like she's a china doll.

As a mother of three girls, I can tell you that they come in different shapes and sizes, and I would never put the same clothes on my two year old as I would my 3 year old, simply because they are so different. Picture this:

Sera is 6, she has a normal but solid build. This kid won't break easily, she's not a tiny little thing, she is average. Clothes are made with kids like her in mind.

Pippa is a pixie. The child turned 3 in February and wears size 18 months clothing. And it is roomy. She weighs less than 30 pounds. She is a feather, but she eats like crazy. Things fall of this girl, but she's the one people admire and hold up to their Perfect Little Girl Image. Pippa can wear anything and make it look dainty. She's the perfect breakable little china doll.

Viv is 2, and is twice as big as Pippa and 3/4 as big as Sera. Viv has baby fat, she's a chunky lil' girl, and she's wearing clothing for girls twice her age. Putting her in some crocheted little dress would be ridiculous.

These girls eat the same things, play the same things, breathe the same air. And they are so incredibly different, body wise. I don't see how putting Viv in leggings is unwomanly, she's 2! She's not a woman, she's a baby, and if she doesn't want to wear a lace dress, fine. You try and put it on her.

Since I've been gone...

Internet, I am 8 months pregnant. I don't know how that snuck up on me, but earlier today somebody asked me and I realized I had no idea. A bit of internetting and calculating and BOOM, 8 whole months. 32 weeks today, actually. Only 8 more weeks to go, although I've got a pattern of delivering my babies 2 weeks before they're due so... I'm going to operate on the 6 weeks to go train of thought.

I've been organizing the hell out of our house ever since the kids got out of school, and I don't know how I achieved it, but I think we are organized. We spent a lot of time at Ikea and bought many shelves, and we literally got rid of anything without a designated place. My goal is to keep us organized until the baby comes.

I was dreading the thought of keeping 4 kids entertained throughout the entire summer while gestating, so we enrolled the kids in various summer activities to keep them out of my hair. Mico and Sera are learning a new language at a day camp, which gets us all out of the house by 9 am on weekdays, and Pip and Viv are being babysat three times a week by two neighbour girls who are new to babysitting, so I'm using my "free time" to clean up and organize and return phone calls, as well as keep an eye on the four girls. I'm hoping to be able to leave the kids with them for a few evenings next summer, I think they could totally handle it by then.

The nursery is done, I'm not really sure when that happened but I put sheets on the crib last week and realized that I didn't have anything left to do. It's painted, furnished, and stocked with diapers and clothes. It's also a rather small room with a wall of floor to ceiling windows, so decorating pretty much went like this:

Build a storage centre over one entire wall, floor to ceiling. Buy some grey curtains for the floor to ceiling windows. Paint the two remaining walls turquoise. Spend two months wondering what to do now. Buy a super comfortable full size daybed and set it up alone, while 7 months pregnant. Drag a white nightstand in there and buy a pretty lamp. Decide it needs to be artsy, so spend 4 hours painting an enormous family tree, complete with photos, on the remaining wall. Buy a million diapers, baby socks, and white onesies in size newborn, and fill up that wall of storage. Get out the other baby clothes and put them away, knowing full well that you'll only dress the child in cute clothes when you need to go out. Otherwise, it's white onesies all the way, baby. Buy bedding for the cool new daybed. Surprise husband when he comes home from a work trip: The nursery is done!

No, there is no crib. I'll be co-sleeping with this baby until he or she starts sleeping through the night or stops nursing and/or needing nighttime feedings. We'll buy a crib in a year or so, maybe. I guess. We'll see.

SO. To wrap up. We pretty darn prepared, and treading water.

We're all moved in!

Well, technically we moved in last weekend, but I have some silly unpacking methods so the house only became livable this weekend. I like to open all the boxes and put everything in the center of the room that it belongs in, and then just set things up from there, mostly because I hate boxes and I want to get rid of them as soon as possible.

So after an entire day full of unpacking and putting things in piles on the floor of various rooms, it was finally time to start organizing. I couldn't decide where to start, I mean, so many rooms! While I debated the pros and cons of each room, we ordered pizza and put the kids to bed (in sleeping bags, of course) early. Like, at 6 pm. They were tired, it was fine.

So we decided to start with the garage. I decided (and here we blame pregnancy brain, very little good logic) that if we finished inside the house I'd be so tired that I'd procrastinate organizing the garage, and then it would be very hot and I'd be very pregnant and the neighbours would think we were slobs. So yeah. Instead we turned on the garage lights and organized that sucker until 3 am. Nick made his whole section of built-ins come together and he hung up all of his tools and we cleaned everything and he hung our bikes up and I remembered to leave a designated place for the stroller. Big deal, I know. But anyways, our garage now looks perfect, so the neighbours will like us, right? Right. So that was our Sunday night.

Nick had last week off of work, so of course he slept until the kids came home from school and I got up around noon. It was wonderful, and it was what the baby wanted. It's all the baby's fault. So I decided to organize the master bathroom, and it went by so quickly that I organized the half bath and the first-floor bathrooms as well. The kids got home as I started to organize the kitchen so I sent them to Nick and he took the easy was out and got them in their swimsuits and threw a few floaties at them in the pool. They had a blast, and NIck set up our new patio furniture. Win-win. I organized the kitchen for the rest of the night, and we ordered in chinese, put the kids to bed early, and then kept organizing the kitchen. It was done around 11 and we went straight to bed. Well, to our sleeping bags

Houses

We're going to be moving at the end of April or beginning of May.

Nick had to make a business trip to California last week, so we arranged for the kids to stay with various people so I could go with him. My friend called it a babymoon, but we mostly went to see houses and scope out schools.

We went through over 270 houses that claimed to be waterfront homes, and in the end we had a list of 24 beach ones we liked, because location, location, location, right? We loved some of the homes in the Canyon Lake area, but we decided against it in the end, and a lot of homes in the South Laguna area made our list, but it was just too far from Nick's workplace. More than 4 hours a day in traffic is not a good thing for family time. Plus, we would never be able to afford a beach house on our own, and we wanted to make sure to take full advantage of the opportunity here, that being The Company My Husband Works For Will Buy Our House Outright For Us. There are a million contingencies, of course, but that's basically how it is. We won't have a mortgage or rent to pay, and we get to choose the house. So of course we want to make the most of this opportunity.

Now we've just got to narrow it down from twenty-four to one.

The hardest part about narrowing this down is we don't know what it's like to be a family of seven, and that's what we will become in the new house. We've been living in a two-bedroom apartment since before Viv was born, and before that we had a condo for a bit, and before that we were in England, and before that we were childless and travelling the world. We've never had room to really spread out.

So when we walked into a six-bedroom house last week, it felt too big for us. But I'm realizing the potential in these homes. The perfect home for us doesn't exist, a home with 7 or 8 bedrooms can be found, yes, but then the rest of the home is a huge palace with ornate details and way too many things for my kids to hit their heads on. I don't want a palace, I want a cozy home with a lot of bedrooms. And I do realize that I sound a bit like a princess with my demands and such, but I'm sorry. Lots of bedrooms. That is all.

*Nick and I have been considering remodelling one of the houses, moving around a few walls so that we could end up with enough bedrooms. We'll see.

Couldn't be any more excited

So I think we've pretty much filled up the Big News category for march, yes? Moving across the country, new job, new house, new school, oh, and another baby! Yes, we've got a lot going on.

We've only told a few people so far, and we've gotten a mostly shocked and surprised, but still very excited reaction. It's so unbelievable to me to be able to truthfully say "We're expecting our fifth child." because I never pictured myself with so many children.

When I met Nick he wanted two kids, and his absolute maximum was three, with the third child being an accident. After which both babymaking parties would be taking preventative measures to prevent further offspring. I didn't have an exact number when I was young, I wanted a minimum of two, probably three, four seemed perfect, and five only if we had an accident or twins. I was crazy.

Then Nick and I got serious and talked about it and decided to start with two and see if we even wanted more after that. So we had our boy and our girl, and we were the perfect little family, and for a long time (right up until I got pregnant, actually), I didn't want anymore kids. Nick did. He would totally give up his man-card every. single. time. we saw a little baby when we went out, ooh-ing and ahh-ing and slowly persuading me to just consider one more. Just one more.

So we all know where this went. Philippa was born after an almost three year gap, a long space for me considering Theo and Sera are 15.5 months apart. When Pippa was about a year old, Nick and I decided that we wanted another baby, and we wanted to have it close in age to Pippa, like we did with Theo and Sera. We kept things a little longer this time, with 2 years and a few months between Pippa and Viv. Immediately after Viv was born, we knew we wanted one more baby, and since we didn't want to have one child a handful of years behind the rest, we decided to just go for it. So there will be a little bit more than 16 months between Viv and Baby5.

Honestly, I think I'm crazy. Nick too. I was going to stop after two kids. I would have happily been done. And while I was pregnant with my third and fourth children, I was so done. They were going to be my last. And after each of them, we needed another. And that has led us here, a chaotic family of six, with kids ages 7, 5, 3, 11 months, and one on the way. We are loud, we do not fit into a normal car, and we spend an obscene amount of money buying groceries. Old ladies love us, and middle-aged women raise their eyebrows at our circus, surely wondering if we have heard of birth control. (We have.)

As we've told a few people we've gotten a few of the shocked and-not-in-a-good-way reactions. Like this baby was an accident so we are just going to trudge through it. No. This baby was planned, and even if he or she wasn't, we would (and are going to) appreciate every single moment of this pregnancy and new adventure into parenthood.

The Other Reason We're Moving Out

Baby #5

Due the last week of August or the first week of September, 2011.

14.4 weeks in and we've already chosen full names for the baby boy or girl, who will be a gender surprise.

Big Changes

So, after much preparation and renovation and innovation and just plain work put in to stay in our current home for at least another year, we have decided to move out. Very soon.

First, Nick was offered a higher-up job at work. The job was located in Las Vegas. We both felt like Las Vegas was not the place for us to be. We like Dallas, we have friends here, and I don't like Las Vegas for more than a week, tops. So Nick politely declined the offer. That all took place in the fall.

Immediately after Nick rejected the job offer, his company went through some big changes. They switched headquarters, set up some new locations, and a lot of new jobs became available. Nick was, once again, offered a new job, except this time it was his dream job. His words, not mine. This time, we seriously considered it, and requested all the details. The job was located in southern California, a place that both Nick and I love, but we always found it to be too expensive for us to permanently live. The job involved a once-weekly travel schedule, where Nick would need to fly out on a Wednesday morning, most likely to the east coast or ohio, although possibly to Texas, he would attend meetings and dinners and make sure everything was functioning correctly, and then he would fly back on Thursday afternoon and be home just in time for dinner.

We found out that the job was very secure, and had huge promotion possibilities, and that the pay was great. Then, in a very complicated and (for us) lucky situation, we learned that the company would provide a house for us to live in. We had until March 1st to decide.

We had a lot of late-night conversations and a few really big arguments. We've known since we first moved here that we didn't want to raise our kids here, that's why we never bought a house. While the school system is excellent, it was never my favourite place. And we were going to move in a year anyway. We have many friends here, but we have many friends in many places, so why tie ourselves down because of others? In the end, we were leaning towards taking it.

The Company flew our family, all six of us, out to LA for a week to see the house, and the area, to check out schools, and get a feel for what it would be like to live there. We all loved it. We took the kids to Disneyland and I'm pretty sure they would have been happy spending eternity on the Dumbo ride.

On the morning we were leaving I did my own thing, killed a few hours while Nick took the kids to the beach on his own, and then we flew home. And we decided to take it. Take the job, take the opportunity that is being handed to Nick on a silver platter. Amidst all these stories of people being fired and laid off, somehow we got lucky.

So for all the reasons you see above, and many, many more, we are moving. Moving across the country, away from family and friends, towards new opportunities.

Play/Guest/Work Room Update!

So when we left off here the playrooms was empty of any playthings. It had the bed and a workspace and a chalkboard and a bookshelf, new hardwood floor, and nice light but appealingly bright blue walls. There was nothing on the walls, floor, there wasn't even a light fixture!

We put in a big silver fan for the hot summer days to come (we do have a/c but sometimes a fan is nice too), we put in track lighting so it's nice and bright in certain areas, and we bought this big baby, to put over what I decided would be our reading area. Suffice to say, our ceiling was done being decorated.

I really wasn't sure where to go after that, so I didn't pay any attention to the room until after the first week of January. Then I found an amazing purple floral area rug that wasn't exceptionally feminine (Theo...) but still brought a bit of a delicate feel to the room. We bought it and threw it down and it was like a switch got flipped on because from then on I was all about finishing the playroom.

We found an adorable wooden table with four chairs for 50 bucks, took it home and painted it white, and now it's one of my very favourite things in the house. We decided we weren't done with the ceiling after all, and we ended up hanging four long canopies from the ceiling. Most of the time the kids don't care about playing with them, but once in awhile we'll let them hang and all of a sudden we've got four little circus tents or houses or stages (because obviously that's what they're for). Viv is too little to play in hers much yet, but when she gets older she'll have her fun too.

We decided to be very careful in selecting toys for the kids, so we bought a Lego bench that serves as both a Lego building platform and a Lego storage center, and a puppet theatre. We bought a bunch of fabric puppets and the kids love them. We bought some wooden cars and other Eco-friendly toys, and we found cheap and very comfortable love seat on wheels that we put in one corner. We bought a cheap TV on sale in January that we hung on the wall so every once in awhile I roll the sofa into the center of the room and stick a movie in the TV and the kids don't have to watch TV in the living room, plus that was our guests can watch TV in bed and we can watch TV if we're using the workstation, even though that's counter-productive.

For Christmas my mom made the kids about 8 (probably more) cushions for their little huts that hang from the ceiling, and we threw in a bunch of old throw and fleece blankets so it's a cozy room.

It doesn't have very many toys in it at all, but the kids have lots to do. We're at a stage now where the older kids can play together as well as entertain the younger ones, and we've got stations set up so that sharing isn't a big issue. There's a huge chalkboard, an art table for colouring or painting or doing homework or playing cards. A puppet station, a bunch of fabric tents to make houses or shops. And of course they can put on little plays all the time too. The big kids can read. There's tons to do in there, mostly involving the use of their imagination, and I think that's better than a bunch of noisy, flashing, battery operated junk. We have a tonne of puzzles for the kids to set, and board games galore. If there's really nothing to do, they can always watch a movie.

So overall it turned out great, I love that the playroom is a place where I don't have to watch the kids every single minute, guests will enjoy it, and Nick and I can work in it. It's everything we hoped it would be, and if the last few days are any proof, the kids love it.

I didn't want to write this but oh, here it is

Nick and I flew internationally with four children yesterday. For the second time. We took a trip to a family reunion, it was pleasant. The family, not the flying. If you were flying anywhere near eastern United States yesterday, I am sorry.

It started at 7am yesterday morning, when I woke up to find our plane delayed. Already. Our plane was supposed to leave at noon. So I let the kids sleep a bit longer and we eventually woke them up and got them ready to leave with only one minor incident over a fluffy purple tutu. Okay, check, Four kids, 6 suitcases, 7 carry ons, Nick. Good. Oh, and a purple tutu. Can't forget that.

So we drive an hour to the airport, and of course the big kids fall asleep and the baby poops and the toddler stays awake and chats the entire way. We get inside, drag 486534066902 bags and four children to the self-check in thing, check in, and then begin waiting in line.

After 20 minutes and nothing gained I send Nick to go take the oldest three for a smoothie on the other side of the airport, and thankfully they go quietly and our line begins to move and I check the weight of 486534066902 suitcases, check four car seats, and Nick comes back and shows his i.d. and the kids are all present and for a few minutes it was not chaotic at all.

We say goodbye to family and rush the kids to drink the last of their smoothies. After another round of goodbyes we corralled the kids around the stroller, got Viv in her car seat, car seat on the stroller, put Pippa in her seat with much annoyance over the fact that I'm sorry, the purple tutu may not travel with us, and got Sera and Theo to hold Nick's hands. Once all the bags were loaded onto out bus we made our way into, you guessed it, the first line. It was short, we were through it and into another line in no time. Border. After an excruciating amount of time spent trying to keep my energetic children from getting refused entry to their birth country, we made it through the border and into the security line. We had to remove each child's shoes, jackets, backpacks, and the stroller was a whole other deal. After a minor issue where we were told Vivian would have to walk through the metal detector (she can't walk on her own), we made it to the other side.

Each kid threw a tantrum while we hurriedly redressed them and shoved their backpacks on/stuffed them into the stroller. They all had to go to the bathroom so we had a long stop there to change the baby and get everyone set for the flight, and then... nothing. Our flight was delayed, and the international terminal had nothing to do if you're a normal traveller, never mind a family of 6, most of whom are under 6.

I didn't want to open up any electronics yet, lest they die during flight, so I took the kids to a section of chairs where no one was sitting and I let them run wild. I gave up. They played tag and rolled all over the floor but I did not care. Nick and I just watched, hoping they'd tire themselves out eventually. The did. And we reloaded everyone and then boarded out plane. Our tiny, tiny plane. Two seats on either side. I sat with Viv to nurse her, Nick sat with Pippa to control her, and the big kids had two seats behind Nick and Pippa. They munched snacks while everyone got on the plane, and I only had to shush them twice. Let's skip the next 45 minutes, because it involved tears, while they deiced the plane, and we'll just say take-off went well. The big kids were all excited about flying! on a plane! in the air! so high! up! up! up! and Viv nursed and Pippa sat in her car seat and drank some juice and watched the ground a lot.

The flight was really good, Viv fell asleep and Pippa fell asleep so Nick and I talked to Theo and Sera and it didn't seem like very long until we were landing. I gave the big kids some chewy candy and two water bottles and nursed Viv, Nick and Philippa played patty-cake. I'm pretty sure she had no idea we were landing. Everyone who left the plane smiled at the kids and they waved and grinned back and it was cute and they were little angels and Nick and I had a proud parenting moment. On a plane! I know!

Then we got the stroller and put the car seats on them and I put Viv in the ring sling and Pippa was on Nick's hip sling and I put the big kids in the stroller and we RAN from terminal C to terminal G because our plane was supposed to be leaving NOW. So of course we got there and the plane was an hour delayed. And then it ended up being three hours delayed and my god this entry is long so we'll just say many flights were cancelled and our flight was only delayed but the kids had nothing to do and then they ate McDonald's for dinner and we finally boarded our plane and there were tears and crying babies and sleeping big kids and it was just horrible. So we landed in a lightning storm and it took 2 hours to drive the 45 minute drive home because it was pouring rain and at 2am I walked into our place and Theo fell asleep on elevator floor and I finally got to lock our door and turn off the lights at 2:30 am.

So we all slept until noon today, except the baby woke up to eat at 8, but she went right back down. And now my kids are playing silent tag because I told them to be quieter, and I'm a zombie.

Viv Update

My sweet babiest girl is 9 months old! After four babies I've decided that I enjoy them a whole lot more after the six month mark, so I'm very glad we're in the funnest stage right now, babies are just so darn cute at this age!

Viv babe. She can babble a whole lot of random gibberish. She can crawl faster than Pippa can walk, she cruises around (very slowly) while holding onto things (hands, the couch, the dog) and she can stand up without assistance for a few seconds, longer if we distract her, thereby causing her to forget that she's standing. Yesterday she actually finished her dinner without falling asleep in it, a first, and she has also mastered patty cake with her siblings. The child sleeps more than all my other children ever have, but that's another post entirely.

Viv calls me Mee and Nick Dee, because Pippa has taken to whining Mummyyy and Daddyyy recently, and Viv picks up on the last syllables. She calls Pippa "Ipp-uh" with the "uh" part just an exhale, but it's an improvement on "Lip", which is what she originally called Pippa after she heard me call Pippa by her whole name. Viv has one two-syllable word down, Theo. She calls Sera "Sra" or just "Ra".

Basically, she's adorable and we are so in love with her.

Recap #70637 of the holidays

You = SO EXCITED.

These are the holidays I need to make the most of, because every child of mine who is old enough to care about Santa Claus, believes in Santa Claus. So we went all out, ashes from the chimney on the floor and all that jazz. They bought it, it was swell.

In the teens of December I went through the kids playroom and bedrooms and organized their toys. A pile for garbage, a pile for goodwill/salvation army, a pile for friends. I was able to kick out about half the toys, and it felt so good.

The kids got 6 gifts each, I believe, 1 from both sets of grandparents, 1 from me, one from Nick, one from Santa, and one from their godparents. Still, with 4 kids, one of whom will not rip her wrapping paper, and another who is 8 months old, it took us awhile to open everything. Surprisingly, no tantrums were thrown.

Nick and I were dog piled at 6am, by children who I suspect were up at 4, and we started opening gifts around 7. With a break for a proper breakfast at 8, we didn't finish unwrapping gifts until noon, at which point I fed the kids some of the test turkey I'd made a few days earlier, and mashed potatoes. Heavy stuff. They were all asleep by 1. I had a few hours to get the house cleaned up and set out the kids outfits, and when they woke up at 3 I was ready to throw them in the shower. Literally, I put the three oldest ones in my shower with the radio on, and I gave the baby a sponge bath. Because I cannot have my children running around on Christmas with turkey in their neck folds.

We put the kids in their Christmas best, threw on their pretty shoes, and put all but Viv in the playroom. Viv got to chill in her highchair for a bit as Nick and I got the dishes ready. And then I blinked and it was 4 and my house had 38 friends and relatives in it and I didn't have to watch my children because everyone else was absolutely enamoured with them.

Viv took a nap at 6, in various persons arms, and woke up at 9 ready to party. She was up until 12:45, when she fell asleep on my sleeping dad. Pippa played until 10, then attached herself to Nick, leaning on him and being affectionate and adorable in general before he gave in and took her upstairs. She fell asleep before he made it to the top step, and didn't wake up while he changed her into her pj's or put her to bed. Sera fell asleep playing Hide&Seek, we thought she was asleep in her bed until we went to turn off the lights and go upstairs after the party ended, and she rolled out from underneath the tree. Surprise! Theo walked around to everyone in the house and gave goodnight wishes before putting himself to bed at 10:20. Good boy.

As for Nick and I, we said goodnight to the last visitor at 2am, and he cleaned until 3 while I showed our overnight guests their rooms and sofas. I'm pretty sure I went to bed at 4. The kids slept until noon, except Viv, who woke up for a bottle at 8 and was entertained by my MIL until she fell asleep at 10.

Basically, Christmas 2010 rocked our socks off. And we are tired.

2011 resolutions, just to get motivated

• Blog here at least once every two weeks.
• Become a regular commenter on blogs I enjoy following.
• Take my running up a few notches. Do a 5k and a 10k.
• Lose those pesky extra pounds by V's birthday.
• Be punctual. This is a major issue.
• Go to sleep at a decent hour, no more staying up late.