Christmas Update

So Christmas came and went and now it's New Year's Eve. Let me tell you that Christmas with four kids is pure craziness especailly when there are so many presents. When I set out presents on Christmas Eve, each child had a large pile - and that was just from Montgomery County DSS, us and Santa. I looked around while the house was blissfully quiet and felt sort of overwhelmed by the amount of presents. So when the kids woke up in the morning they were very excited by what Santa had brought. They proceeded to play with toys, rip the paper off of their packages to see exactly what they got. There were lots of toys and clothes and such. Colby got his firetrucks, Noah got his Cinderella doll (more on that some other time), and Ariyana got a TON of dolls (one of which I found disturbing enough to ban).

After breakfast we did round two. Brandon got the presents out of the truck that my parents had brought at my graduation. We Skyped my parents and let the kids open the presents while everyone in Hampton watched. That was fun! When we were done with that round of opening presents, the house was a hot mess. There was wrapping paper, tissue paper and toy packaging everywhere. I wish I'd taken a picture of the huge pile of trash that made it out to the curb on trash day...it was ridiculous. Of course Brandon didn't help much because he decided to throw wrapping paper snowballs at everyone, which then encouraged the boys to throw snowballs too. They had fun though! The rest of the morning was spent playing with toys, opening toys and generally having some fun.

After lunch and nap we went to Brandon's parents' house. We ate dinner and opened presents until very late. We had to leave the presents there to pick up the next day because there was so much! I washed all the kids' new clothes over the next couple days - a load and a half of just new clothes! I love new clothes myself and everyone has great taste in clothes so that was exciting! Now the dilemma is finding a place to put all these great clothes.

I decide that Sahara did not need all the presents that DSS sent over, so I put four of them in her closet to give to her for her birthday. I guess I just thought ten new toys for a eight month old was a little overkill. All in all, it was a great Christmas. We may need to make a trip to goodwill with some older toys or store some up in the attic, so there may be some more work involved, but I wouldn't trade everyone's happy faces.

Oh and I enjoyed playing my wii :-)

Work Yet Done

I'm off from work for two weeks. So far it's been really good. I've taken the Rose kids to daycare for most of the days and I've gotten to hang out with Colby. I think he's really enjoyed that and I know I really have. I would like to say that with most of the kids at daycare for most of the week, that I got a lot done, but that would be false. I've just felt so tired. I bought supplies to make red pepper jelly several days ago, but finally got around to doing it today. I've needed to put away a TON of laundry and I started today. I still need to wrap some presents, but I think it can wait until tomorrow. I mean why do it today if I can do it tomorrow right? :-)

A while ago I bought some movies off of Amazon with the intention of giving them to the kids for Christmas, but when I discovered the sheer quantity of gifts that Montgomery County DSS brought over for the kids I also discovered that the movies were nice but unnecessary gifts. So we're watching them over the next couple of days - Toy Story 2 today, Finding Nemo tomorrow and Cars 2 on Christmas.

Update

Whew...I've been quite terrible about blogging lately, but I guess I have a pretty good excuse :-) So, the the land of the Gill's things have had their ups and downs lately. Truth be told my marriage with Brandon has never been tested as much as it has been lately. The last six months have been rewarding but we've had to grow in patience, love, and we've had to learn how to talk about differences of opinion in thoughtful and productive ways (which I'm still working on because I always cry when there is confrontation). All in all things are going well. Sometimes we wonder what the heck we were thinking by taking in three children, but we're too stubborn to give up. Plus we love those kids :-)

This week is Christmas vacation. Since the school is closed Colby is hanging out with us at home while the kids go to daycare. I had some plans that involved going to see a movie with Colby and Noah, but then I got the crud that's been going around so I had to scrap that plan. Instead Colby watched a bajillion episodes of X-men while I slept. Ariyana got an unplanned haircut the other day (Noah found a pair of baby safety scissors and decided to play hairdresser), but other than that she's doing well. Sahara has been on verge of crawling for several weeks and today she moved over that edge. Because she started crawling, I moved the coffee table so she wouldn't hit her head on it. Plus the boys like the open space, though I think it makes them much more rowdy.

Well, that's all for now. Laundry is calling. I'll try to post again tomorrow, but no promises :-)