So not much going on here. The kids are playing with their toys. I'm taking down Christmas decorations. I woke up this morning and did a treadmill run, then I stretched out my hips as I squatted by the tree and started taking off ornaments. I figured since I put up the tree the day after Thanksgiving, I had the right to take it down the day after Christmas.
I got all the ornaments off, stuggled with the lights for a while but finally got them off too, then it was time to take down the tree piece by piece. It's nothing personal, Mr. Tree, it's just that we already have more than our share of clutter, and you've fulfilled your purpose this year. I was really excited to see you gone, but we look forward with pleasure to seeing you next year. So I'm trying to clean and put away and hide things, the kids have been putting together lego sets and coloring. Here is the favorite received gift of each child ...well, except the first three. They didn't get any one particularly amazing gift, and the Christmas magic is a little bit gone for these older kids, so we're gonna skip Joseph Mel and Ethan, but I'm sure they liked their new headphones and socks and ACT book etc, right kids? As for the younger kids:
Hyrum - Millenium Falcon drone
Wesley - Neon Street Rollers. He would say his x-wing fighter, but it doesn't fly so well, drat.
Abi - Friends Lego Hotel ...which I ordered online and we picked up at Toys R Us today... Corey and I had a mixup and I thought he bought her gift, and he thought I got it... so she didn't get a toy on Christmas and quietly mourned in the corner that all she got for Christmas was a book and some shoes, so sad.
Lily - Elves Lego Set with the Baby Queen Dragon
Sophi - Lego Queen Dragon
Natalie - I'll just guess the Belle Lego. But yesterday she seemed most excited and pleased with all the Hi-Chew candies in her stoking.
Owen - Hit the 4 balls toy
Daniel - I'll speak for him too and say his new muslin blankets. :)
So yeah, the house is a wreck. It's nice to have a whole week to try and clean it up. :) Any chance they'll actually do any homework? I find it highly unlikely. We're all going to enjoy the break from school and responsiblity.
Hi, It's Christmas morning. But this is what happened last night... The kids all slept by the tree in the front room. It's a kid tradition that they started 10 or so years ago. They all look forward to their sibling sleepover ~ staying up late and chatting with excitement for what the morning will bring.
So last night Corey and I didn't bother making the kids go to bed. They were still up and wired with energy, but I was putting Daniel to bed, so I got Owen and put him to bed too, and that meant I was done and could retire. It was just 10:30. Corey soon came in, we decided to set our alarm for 2 am to put stuff out. When the 2 am alarm sounded I got out of bed. The house was quiet. That's good, that means hopefully kids are snoozing, and they should be at 2 am. Corey said he'd be out in a few. He had bought presents and wrapped them and wrapped the ones I had bought too, so I wasn't totally sure what gifts were what or what the plan was for the morning. We don't really have time to talk or coordinate things lately. I snooped around in his office and found the candy he bought for stocking stuffers and slowly took care of those. I ate the mangoes and drank the eggnog the kids left out for Santa, and munched the carrots for his reindeer, wishing Corey was awake to drink the eggnog so I wouldn't have to.
It's against weight loss rules to consume calories in the wee hours of the morning, right? But I had to get rid of them, but I don't like to waste... I thought snooping in the kitchen to try to find their plastic packaging would be too noisy. So I munched those out of duty, drank a little egg nog and brought the rest upstairs and put in a cup in our bathroom for Corey, then returned the glass empty downstairs to show that Santa drank it. Then I continued to wander around trying to figure out what to do. Eventually I just put out everything. Stockings and presents under the tree all ready.
I went to bed at 3:45 and Corey told me he got up at 4 for a few minutes to make sure the gifts were out, and then he went to bed. I snuggled back in with my baby.
I guess we're as ready as we're gonna be. This Christmas wasn't as well planned as others have been. We're still trying to figure out how to juggle this many kids and all their schedules. Plus with Corey being gone for 2 weeks that made it a little harder. Thus we plan to pre-empt the unwrapping in the morning with statement to decrease expectations, disclosing again that their parents have been stretched thin lately!
True to Hibbert tradition, we've got our tree up before the month of December starts. If I were die hard like my dad was in the 90's, one of them would have been up before Halloween. I say "one of them" because sometimes there were like 13 trees of various sized in my childhood home. My dad was a major Christmas man. The years have tempered him a little bit, which is a factor of age and also that he doesn't have all the kids around to help him put everything up. We usually put up two trees. Our kid/family tree in the front room holds any ornaments that the kids make at school or crafty things (just in case something like this happens!!) And our tree in the side room is our Jesus Tree - white, red and gold with a few nativity ornaments and a little nail from Corey's mom from a few years ago, to remind us of Christ and his sacrifice.
Mel and I put them up last week after Thanksgiving while the kids were up at Park City. Then we all decorated them over the weekend. Although now that we're a few days into it, I'm taking a mental note to wait a week or two next year, cause it's just too long of a time for kids to ruin any efforts we adults or big kids made to have it actually look nice...
Owen and Natalie pulled the lights off so they were totally loose, so I had to re-string them up which was a pain...
And they like to take off the ornaments. I don't mind as long as they put them back on. I don't even care if they're all concentrated around the base of the tree. But I hate having them scattered around the house. We have enough junk to clean up without adding a hundred plastic ornaments to the mess.
Owen is the main culprit for the ones loose on the floor. I blame Ethan for the broken ones since I caught him crushing one in his hand then saying "I didn't know it'd break!!" Natalie thinks they are shiny balls and throws them as high as she can on the bookshelf. Natalie and Sophi also use them as food (apples) when they play. Owen took note and puts the little ones in his mouth
Yummy!
So I was excited to put up the tree, but I'm also already looking forward to taking it down.
These little girls are serious about their coloring. At Christmas time, after taking my 3rd group of kids to Dollar Tree to buy presents for each other, I decided to stock up myself on the Strawberry Shortcake coloring books that they had there. They've been super busy coloring this past week, so I only have one more and might need to make another trip, but I love seeing them color. Here they are right before bedtime~ (Natelie is always attentively aware of what kind of work and which characters her sisters are working on...)
Sophi stopped to go to sleep, but not Natalie, so we left the light on in our bathroom and let her keep coloring in the dim light on the floor in our room. She was being sweetly quiet as she worked, so we fell asleep to the sound of little pencil strokes.
And then as soon as Natalie woke up, her eyes barely open and barely able to form words, she requested her pencil and coloring book as was back at it at the kitchen bar as she waited her breakfast..
Super cute. Abi and Lily are getting quite good at detail, as you can kind of see in Lily's coloring book. Lily also gathered the whole case of coloring pencils to have at her disposal. Sophi goes through most of the pages using just a single color. She's using a marker there above, but lately Natalie prefers using a standard led pencil or one single colored pencil for her artistic expression.
I walked over to the church today for a scripture study group and pushed the girls in the stroller ~ Natalie was in the front seat of the long double stroller, with coloring book and pencil in hand, coloring away. It made me laugh, I should have gotten a picture of it. Maybe we can recreate the moment next week. I love these kids.
I think I'm going to take down the tree today. I've taken down some of the Christmas decor and just kept up "winter" things. One of the Christmas things that I shall be storing soon is this countdown board that we had kept by the kids' rooms this month. Christmas 2015 is over, is it too late to start thinking of next year?
Yeah! Only 361 days! Walmart's "53 days" countdown that I shook my head at ain't got nothin' on these kids!
We had a good day today. We started off the day doing my favorite thing and had the kids work hard for 3 hours cleaning the house (you know, so Santa will believe that they've been good) and then we were off for fun and games. We first went to Lehi to play games with my side of the family- some great minute to win-it games and running around an open gym. Then we went for more food and fun with Corey's family.
Of course, after we got home, with it being Christmas Eve and all, the kids were much too excited to go to bed. Even Owen had the giggles, and he always gives us the giggles when he's got the giggles. Our cheeks were hurting! Owen's got cheeks of steel, or a good poker face, I don't know how he smiles so big without cracking!
(He is the cutest!)
So, back home, it's late now, but we weren't quite ready for bed. We were ready for the kids to go to bed, but they were still up with demands. First was feeding Owen and getting him to bed. I was upstairs rocking him and watching tv when A Dickens' Chrsitmas by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir came on. I went downstairs and turned off the Mission Impossible flick that was on and told the kids to gather for family scriptures after this Christmas message. Good program, it made me think of the spirit of Christmas and how I can have it. Too late for this year, but I'm taking notes for 2016. It made me realize I have a lot to work on, cause I still am of the opinion that money really could fix a lot/most of my problems and help me with my wants (am I deceiving myself?) Like, I really could donate a lot to Sub for Santa and the refugees if I had more loot.Wondering if my thinking is off. Anyway, after it was done, I turned off all the lights (to stupefy the toddlers to sleep) and turned on a candle. We read scriptures by the candle light. It worked to calm them down. Soon, they were off "to bed." Corey and I waited a bit, and then we went out to play Santa.
The stockings were hung by the fireplace mantle, white tree aglow, presents under the white tree. The kids were under the green tree. It's a tradition that they started themselves in 2007 or so - they asked if they could sleep under the tree, we said sure, and now they have to every year. "It's tradition!" I'm glad it's a simple one, and one they own, one that has magic in it all created by the kids, I was never involved. So, Corey and I went to bed around 2 a.m. Joseph slept in his room, Owen and Natalie were up in our room. Christmas jammies everywhere!
Good night little boy
The rest of them in the front room: Soph crashed during scriptures and was on the couch in her Christmas jammies.
Abi on the left on the couch, Wes huddled close to the heat vent.
Lily and Mel
Ethan on the other couch, Hyrum under the desk~
Looks like we're all ready. One last pic of the tree from the top of the stairs where we said good night to ourselves.
One last thing, Abi wanted to leave Santa milk and cookies. Ethan helped her and they came up with the best they had, Ritz crackers and orange juice.
Corey drank the oj, and then put the crackers back in the box, except for one that he smashed up and made crumbs out of.
(The next morning when Hyrum saw the plate, he joked "Woah, Santa is a messy eater..." That made me laugh to imagine a Santa eating Ritz crackers like he's cookie monster or something~ funny!)
I'm pleased to report that we had a very merry Christmas. First thing was was magically wonderful was that it finally snowed.
We've had a brown December so far and the kids have been slightly depressed that they can't dig caves or make forts. They were hoping and probably praying that it would snow, and we checked the forecast regularly, and it was supposed to start snowing during the night and it did. We had about a foot by morning and the kids were very happy.
As for presents, overall we did pretty good - only one child was visibly/verbally disappointed about not getting everything they wanted, so we were 10/11 - 91%, that's a percentage I can live with. (Poor Ethan texted us his large and costly wish list. One of the things he wanted a BYU sweatshirt, but his follow up requested specifications to Corey were such that he decided he didn't want to mess up and thus didn't get him one, but did get one for Joseph and Hyrum. We told Eth it's okay that he was sad. Mel was sad last year, so we've got a tradition of upsetting the 7th grader. Your turn next year Hyrum.
So Christmas morning; the kids woke up early at 3 a.m. Ethan's alarm didn't wake him up, but he woke up on his own as I creeped about the house, so he was awake and pretending to sleep when I took a picture of him on the couch. He couldn't fall back asleep, but stayed lying down until 3 and then woke up his siblings (except Joseph told him not to) to go see what was in their stockings. And then they went back to bed. We heard them being excited and happy kids around 6, but we didn't have anyone come knock on our door until 8. I told them to give me another half hour and make me some eggs. They did. Then Corey and I got up and had breakfast and then it was time for the party to begin. We began with the family tree in the front room - the kids had put their presents to each other under this tree.
Corey and I got coupon books and lego creations and the kids got presents that they had made or bought at the dollar store.
Then we went into the side room where the white tree is to see what Santa brought them.
Joseph and Ethan got a new saxophone mouthpiece to share. That was Joseph's favorite present.
Lily's favorite gift was Zig Zag the Zebra.
Abi spent the evening arranging all her new things on the shelf by her bed.
Mel likes her playing cards and earrings. The teenagers have been playing a game called Egyptian Rescue or something and having fun.
Hyrum and Wesley got the Ewok village to share. Hyrum's done most of the work on it.
Wesley's been practicing his archery skills and flying his helicopter that Grandma Wride gave him. All the boys got one, they love it.
Ethan got a skateboard that he can't practice on now, but is excited to give a whirl in Spring.
Sophi got a few Elsa things that she loves, but the Elsa dress was not a hit, which surprised us. Natalie didn't know what was going on but loved Uncle Marks candy cane fudge. And we gave the kids one present on Christmas Eve - we told them that they have a new sibling coming at the end of July. :) And I'm glad that I don't have to try and pretend that I don't feel like death, but hopefully the morning sickness is half over? That might be wishful thinking. Anyway, I'll share more about that news later. The new baby will be my favorite gift, once the torture to ship it is over.
The kids put up the tree the Sunday after Thanksgiving. They asked me if we could put it up, I said not yet and then went to take a nap. When I was awake it was up and lights were on it.
I didn't mind that they didn't obey me. I just didn't want to have to do it, so I was rather pleased that it was up and I didn't have to do anything. I like the kids owning stuff - like over the summer they wanted to put up the tent, I said go for it, but you guys have to take it down too. They're getting pretty good. Mel is the good leader of the pack when it comes to traditions and decorating. I need to try not to slow her down. The kids like decorating for Halloween and Christmas and that is totally fine by me, go for it, and then I usually get in the mood as I see them working. (Same goes for cleaning the house, I have to make lists for then and once they start it helps me kick it in gear.) So I did get into the Christmas spirit a little bit once they got the ball rolling and I helped put on more lights on the tree in in their bedroom windows and I took down the Fall decor and put up Christmas pinecones and such. Plus I put on the Mannheim Steamroller and they all paused and sighed and with nostalgia said "Oohh! This reminds me of Chile...." Great memories.
The kids were out in full force last night - our huge group was like a school of piranhas consuming everything in their path, I know of atleast one house where we emptied the bowl of goodies. Like a pack of wolves! Here they are devouring the sugar at a certain neighbors house, so fun~
(The kids know that all their Twix and KitKats are up for grabs if I
feel the need to tax their loot - but Hyrum has informed me I can't have
any of his Twix's "cause one of them is from Elder Christofferson" and
since he doesn't know which one, I can't have any of them. It's just
too special to share. Cute.)
We had fed them a festive meal before the candy looting began - pizzas, bone breadsticks, witch fingers, worms in the caramel for the apples - or you can dip your apples in Manjar from Chile (it is major yummy good with the tart and tangy apples from my parent's apple tree - mmm!)
Joseph was a Basketball Player, Melodie was a bag of Jelly Beans...
Ethan was a pirate, Hyrum was Mitt Romney going door to door asking for candy donations
(~ note the distinguished gray temples)
Wesley was an elf, Abi and Lily were both fairies.
I decorated their faces with dots of sparkly fingernail polish.
And Sophia as herself.
Sophia had us push and carry her around, she was saving up her energy for a big show later ~
So we had lots of fun trick or treating last night. The weather outside was amazing, couldn't have asked for a better evening for the kids. Glad they're having some perfect childhood memories. Alas, now it is just a memory and Abi's ready for the next party... She just asked me "Mom? When it is Christmas?" No, not yet! Give me atleast a week, please!
