Christmas and thereafter

Christmas started dark and early around 3:30 am.  Henry was the first up and turned the light on.  I dashed in as fast as possible to turn it off but by then Rex, who was having a sleepover with Alice and Henry, was already awake.  I laid down with Henry to try to get him to go back to sleep but he and Rex, as usual, would not shut up.  They eventually succeeded in waking Alice up and annoying me enough that I left, which then woke Greg up, which is never a good thing.  He went in, told them to hush up and then slept on the couch by the tree to prevent them from sneaking out.  I heard them again around 6:30 am.  I went in and read books with them for a while but by 7, they were done so I went out to wake Greg who said they couldn't come out until 7:30 as a consequence for waking up at 4 am.  Zora, meanwhile, slept through everything.

Greg built a barricade to keep them in their room.

Then the present opening began.  And for once, no tears and no lame gifts (I'm super bad at gift-giving).  Alice got a fat-tire mountain bike; Rex got a skate board; Henry got a sit-down digger; and Zora got the stuffed dog she'd picked out at IKEA.  Each kid also got 8 large foam pads and we all got a trip to Great Wolf Lodge.  By the time the older kids were done opening their presents, Zora finally decided to wake up so the big kids helped her open her presents, which she wasn't too pleased about.  She's the fourth child: she knows what present opening is.

Oh look, Zora made it to Christmas.

After all the present opening, we finally got around to a group picture with the tree.  (We wanted to wait for Zora.)

Showing off the books Grandma and Grandpa Robins got them.

These foam blocks/pads are the best gift ever.  The kids played with them for hours.  This is the first Christmas that the kids just sat and played with their toys and we didn't have to assemble anything or teach anyone how to use their toys or blah blah blah.  I made breakfast and then started on the dishes and Greg pushed kids around the skate boards (Greg also got a skate board) while the other kids built stuff.  It was lovely.

Zora especially liked the skate boards.

After a few hours of that, we got dressed and headed to Greg's sister's house in Greensboro.  And everyone fell asleep in the car, except Greg because he was driving.  We then spent the rest of the day playing board games.  Well, Greg and Rex did.  I sat on the couch and played with Zora and Henry and Alice escaped to Cora's third floor hidden room, her favorite place.  And then we drove home and everyone fell asleep in the car again. I guess the kids waking up at 4 am did have its benefits.

I ended up taking all the Christmas decorations and the tree down the day after Christmas.  Really all I had planned to do was mop after having so many people over on Christmas Eve, but every time I'd get the floor cleared enough to mop, the foam blocks would come back out.  So, instead of yelling at the kids, I focused my productive energy on taking down the decorations.  Besides, I needed to get the New Year's ones up anyway.

We spent the rest of the week doing the same thing.  The kids were so pleasant and happy just playing at home that we stayed at home, which we never do.  We usually go on at least one outing a day to keep the kids from killing each other and to stave off the boredom but those foam blocks, they really did the trick.