Christmastime Is Here

We stayed home again this year for Christmas. It was cozy and warm and sweet and totally insane. Our boys were kind of crazy but the real insanity was just the sheer number of gifts. It took us all morning, hours and hours to slowly make our way through that mountain of wrapping paper. The boys thought it was great. As usual, they were grateful for every little thing- even the socks. Everyone got things that they really wanted and needed and even some of the boys' gifts to each other turned out to be pretty thoughtful. For Marc and me, it was a little too much. So, next year we'll be aiming for something more along the lines of a Peanuts Christmas Special and a little less like a Toys 'R Us black friday commercial. At least the Nativity set was well used and loved so we didn't forget the reason for the season. Certainly our neighbors and friends helped us remember with their kind cards and treats left on our doorstep. When Bing Crosby says that he's dreaming of a white Christmas I'm pretty sure he means Christmas in North Dakota. I can't imagine anywhere I'd rather be at Christmastime.

Elijah loved his big big big big big stuffed elephant.

Tobias pretty much lived in this Ninjago shirt for days. Best present ever.

Uncle Matt and Aunt Gina sent these awesome dinosaur models.

Grandma delivered on those Star Wars boots. He wears them everyday.  

Gabe wanted to build it right away. That happened a lot. Maybe we should have let them. Then Christmas might have lasted until New Years. 

These are the traditional Christmas loot pictures. Tobias is one happy boy.

Benjamin wanted to make sure everyone saw his Minion blanket. That was his favorite thing other than his boots.

David John organized everything himself. He was really excited to get those Extreme Dot to Dot books. He even wrote Santa an extra last minute letter to remind the big guy that he really wanted those.

Somehow the elephant escaped the picture, but at least the lightsabers and "chest" set made it in. 

I don't think Gabe put that gun down all day. It can shoot a lot of darts really fast.

Okay, Gabe must have put the gun down because he played this game with the nativity pieces.

One wiseman is holding up another wiseman, an angel, two shepherds, a ram, a bale of hay, the manger, Mary and baby Jesus. Impressive wiseman.

He eventually also got the third wiseman and the donkey up there too but the other angel is a fallen angel. So sad.

Marc's colleagues always spoil him at Christmas. He got this crazy Darth Vader toaster that toasts Star Wars onto the bread on one side. It also means that bread has a light side and a dark side.... deep.

I had to include one picture of David John actually wearing the guinea pig shirt. He likes to wear it when he's hanging out with the guinea pigs. He thinks they talk to him more when he's sporting a furry face.

Twas

Every year, Christmas Eve is a special time. Not only is it the night before Christmas but it is also Marc's birthday. I love Christmas Eve but it also stressful and adding a birthday to the mix can make it even more so. So, I wrote my own version of night before Christmas as a tribute to all the parents who are up late making those last minute preparations. At the end I'll post some pictures of the birthday boy and our little guys in their Christmas PJs.

 Twas the day before Christmas and all through the house
every creature was stirring, though none had a louse
the stockings were hung haphazardly there
while the one child screamed as the other pulled his hair

the children were wrestled in a heap on the rug
'til we dragged them to bed and tucked them in snug
then Daddy with his scissors and I with my tape
frantically wrapped presents, every size, every shape

when from the boys' rooms there arose such a clatter
I sprang from the floor to see what was the matter
out into the hallway came one sickly dude
who promptly bent over and threw up his food

the stench rising up from the vomitous pile
made me quite queasy as I cleaned up my child
when what should appear to knock off my socks
but my husband mopping up with a towel and clorox

then back to gift wrapping and we had to be quick
we'd lost precious time tending to mister sick
more rapid than eagles the presents they came
as we taped them and stacked them and wrote on each a name
Gabriel, Elijah,
now Marc and Benjamin
now Sarah, Tobias
now David John and then
stash them under the tree!
stack them next to the wall!
now count them and make sure that we've got them all!

like wild deer before the speeding pick-up fly
then meet with a bumper and lay down to die
so to our bed-room we ran to hit the sack
with the Christmas chores done we were dead in our tracks

and then, in a twinkling, I heard by our door
the prancing and stamping of feet on the floor

as I opened my eyes and was shuffling around

down the stairs  those two little feet leaped with a bound

he was dressed in pjs from his head to his toes

his clothing was bunched and he was picking his nose

he held up a cup and he gave me a wink

"Hey mom, how's it going? I'm just getting a drink."

my eyes, how they bulged out and my fists how they shook

my face had gone bright red and I gave him a look

my mad line of a mouth was drawn up in a sneer

and I said, "What do you think you are doing down here?

Don't you know it's past one? And your mom is exhausted!

The hams that I've baked! The cookies I've frosted!

Now you get back in bed and you don't make a peep!

You know, Santa won't come if you don't go to sleep!

at last all was still, and the children were dreaming

and I finally slept with the stars outside gleaming

and despite the smell and the kids out of bed

St. Nicholas came, we had nothing to dread

he filled all the stockings, he went straight to work

and he made not a sound because Santa's no jerk

and laying the presents all out in a row

and giving a nod, he snuck out on tiptoe

it was only five thirty and still dark out when

all five boys were talking and giggling again

and though we were fatigued our hearts warmed at the sight

"Happy Christmas to all!" even if it's still night

This year Marc got his first pair of cowboy boots for his birthday. I wish you could see them better in the picture.
Happy Birthday Babe!

I know it's a little blurry but getting five boys to sit still together and all look at the camera just doesn't work so we'll take what we can get. I'm going to be sad when the twins grow too big for Carter's pajamas and they can't all be matching anymore. I love it.

We took a picture of Santa's hard work before the boys came down in the morning. I think Santa must have Mrs. Clause write those name tags.

Star Wars XII: The Force Awakens

 is amazing! We LOVED it! The boys recently leveled up their Galidajibas guy so we bought them all t-shirts and movie tickets to see it in the theater. So worth it.

In the Holiday Spirit

Oh, yes. My boys have the spirit of giving in spades this year. These industrious little souls have been might busy making gifts for each other and wrapping them and putting them under the tree. I know that this sounds beautiful and idyllic. The problem is, their giving is turning me into a grinch. You see, while there are some genuinely thoughtful gifts under there, primarily they are cleaning out their rooms and then wrapping up anything that they no longer want. The wrapping has gotten very creative and uses large quantities of tape. The more gratuitous the box, the better. After all the best things come in very very large packages, right? It was cute at first, but now I've developed an eye twitch that starts whenever I see a child carrying yet another... something to put under the tree. It looks like this:

I have yet to wrap a single thing. This is entirely little-boy-generated. I'm not sure if the presents are going to actually fit under the tree when I do wrap them. That is, if I can find any tape.

In Fishy Color

For some reason, when I served Benjamin and Tobias goldfish crackers the other day they were less than exuberant. This was odd because the LOVE goldfish. It turns out that Benjamin had recently had the pretty rainbow colored goldfish crackers at preschool and now our plain old, well, gold ones weren't cool enough. I apologized for my lack of rainbow fish and Benjamin surprised me by telling me not to worry about it. It would be fine. I should have known something was off but I chose to walk out of the room for a few minutes anyway. When I came back, I found these.

They were very proud of themselves. They were coloring and eating! their very own rainbow fish. Those colored toothy wax-covered smiles told the whole story. I didn't want to rain on their parade so I just told them they could only color three more each and then we put the crayons away. At least the crayons were non-toxic. I think.

Dear Santa,

I have been a very good girl this year. My boys have been pretty naughty, but please bring them something anyway. Really, if you bring them coal you would just be punishing me. They would love coal! They could throw it at each other, light it on fire, break a window with it, make sooty drawings on the wall, lick it, blacken their faces, give prank gifts of coal to their friends, etc. You get the idea. Maybe pick something off of these handy wishlists they wrote for you. Their ideas range from the practical to the bizarre. Some of them seem to think they are teenagers already and some of them are just very very hungry. Oh, and Santa? If you could choose something that didn't make a lot of noise, that would be greatly appreciated. We already have a lot of noise at our house.
Sincerely,
Sarah

*these wishlists are unedited with original spellings

Gabriel's Wishlist*
1. remote controle car
2. fat pack of Zindikar cards
3. 100 shetts of colourd paper
4. lego star destryer
5. bag of bubble gum
6. money
7. new dart gun
8. magic tree house 23#
9. new books
10. real car
11. house
12. 1,000,000 dallors
13. bouncy ball
14. my own high school
15. the entire unevirse
16. camilon (chameleon)
17. donuts for breakfast
18. wood fort
19. new blocks and legos
20. new socks

Elijah's Chrismiss List*
1. a big big elephant stuffed anamale
2. Pokemon cards
3. ewoke sidy lego set (Ewok city lego set)
4. chest (chess)
5. conepudure (computer)
6. tv in iPad
7. a fone
8. a target that comes with a nurf gun with thurdy darts
9. a big big big big big big big big big elephent stuffed anamale
10. 2 big soccor nets
11. death star lego set with 5000 pecis
12. 2 fake lite saphers that glow in the dark (light sabers)
13. a Pokemon dech
14. a Picatchu stuffud anamale

David John's Christmas List
1. guinea pig pajamas
2. treasure chest of guinea pig stuff
3. a whole set of guinea pig books
4. a trampoline for the guinea pigs
5. guinea pig bed-sheets
6. minion sticker book
7. minion book with 10 puffy stickers
8. minion chapter book
9. extreme dot to dot books
10. minion board game
11. glass jar of candy
12. whole series of Captain Underpants
13. whole sticker book
14. bag full of sticker sheets
15. guinea pig costume
16. fake Christmas tree with sticky jewels to decorate
17. a whole bag of guinea pig treats
18. supplies for a guinea pig playbox
19. The Minion Movie
20. a movie all about guinea pigs

Benjamin's Wishlist
1. a butterfly toy or real butterflies
2. a yellow minion toy
3. a yellow blanket
4. a robot butterfly
5. a fake raccoon statue
6. a Star Wars poster
7. Elephant & Piggie Book
8. Pout Pout Fish Book
9. Star Wars boots
10. The Book with No Pictures sequel
11. a real donut, no, five real donuts
12. syrup mixed with ketchup
13. a picture with packages of smarties taped to it
14. a robot toy
15. a toy Gru
16. a robot that has a square face with a remote control
17. a robot diaper toy that brings diapers when we really need it to
18. my own flashlight

Tobias's Wishlist
1. cheese
2. fire
3. broccoli
4. bread
5. minion fruit snacks
6. gum
7. yellow cars
8. rescue boy toys
9. Ninjago toys
10. Ninjago book
11. comic book
12. sucker toys
13. pictures
14. choo-choo trains
15. orange toys
16. king crown
17. cow toy
18. cow mask
19. apples
20. nesting dolls and rubber duckies

It's Great to be 8

Or at least Gabriel and Elijah think so. This has been a big month for them. Eight years old is one of the birthdays that we throw a big party for. The boys chose a safari theme and we had many little boys and one girl running around the house. We made binoculars, searched for animals, played pin the points on the compass, did elephant racing and other games. The kids seemed to have a good time and the boys got ridiculously spoiled with presents from their friends.

Of course, eight is a big age for other reasons too. In the state of North Dakota being eight grants you some freedoms like not needing booster seats in the car. As an eight year old you can stay at home, the rec center or the library by yourself for up to a couple of hours. Granting some of these new freedoms is scary, but at least we are getting broken in with the twins who have each other. Eight also means that they are old enough to be baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Both boys decided they wanted to be baptized and passed their interviews with the bishop. On the big day, they were so excited to have both sets of grandparents in town for Thanksgiving, their birthday and their baptism. Things were exciting at the church trying to get ready. The piano was locked (by the way, a locking piano is genius for a house of small boys but maybe less desirable in a church) and there were no medium sized jumpsuits. Luckily, our boys are on the skinny side and fit into the smalls. Before they got dressed, they went to check out the baptismal font. Of course, Gabriel managed to drop his tie tack in the font and at that point it was too deep to reach in and get it without someone getting their clothes wet. Luckily, not everything was crazy. The talks were lovely, the music was nice and the boys did get baptized. I called out "Watch out for the tack!" as they stepped into the font and Gabe got baptized twice because there was an error the first time but in the end it all worked out. I was complimented on "going with the flow" when things weren't perfect. Perfect is nice, but imperfect is more memorable. My little brother, Sam, gave the closing prayer and got me all choked up with his loving words of pride and affection for our boys. Afterward, we served cookies and cupcakes. Everyone was pretty happy.

I made the boys some journals and they both wrote about their experience. As a parent, I hope that they feel loved and guided. I hope that they grow in empathy and love and continue to make good choices, at least most of the time. I love these boys. We can't believe that they are this old but it's so fun that we can play more games with them and discuss good books and watch movies with them that we couldn't before. Watching your kids grow up is bittersweet but over all, it really is great that they are eight.

The Aftermath

After Halloween we have one night in which the boys can gorge themselves on candy. In fact, we have candy for dinner. Whatever is left after "dinner" gets donated or trashed. This is what it looks like.

The boys have a blast sorting and trading and eating candy until they can't eat no more. Of course, there is a price for this night of revelry. It's almost impossible to get them to bed because of the sugar high. The good news is, once they have that sugar crash they sleep like babies. Good night my sweet-toothed boys.

Halloween 2015

So, I went easy on myself for Halloween this year knowing that I would have a state school board conference the Thursday and Friday before and realizing that I would also be getting ready for family pictures, company the first weekend in November, a trip to Baltimore the second weekend in
November, a birthday party the third weekend in November and Thanksgiving and the twins' birthday and baptism the weekend after that. I give all of this as an explanation for the lack of effort which went into this year's costumes. Are you ready?

MINIONS! As most of you know, we already owned the hats so I just had to purchase yellow shirts and overalls and then cut out and sew the Gru "G" on the fronts of the overalls. We are at the local comic book and game store in the picture because we went to the Halloween activities downtown on Saturday afternoon. This was fun and we got tons of comments about our cute minion family. I'm learning that when you have a lot of something, even something that is less impressive, it makes it more awesome. I could probably just dress everyone in grey sweatsuits, but because there are seven of us people would say, "Awww, look at that family of sweatsuits!" Anyway, Marc was a big hit because most of the little kids at the event knew "Dr. Ricks" and were totally tickled to see him dressed up as a minion. He was even waving his black gloved hands and saying things like "Bello!" and "Banana!" That man loves his patients.

When we got home, I made skull shaped pancakes by request of my boys.

 

They informed me that they were "pretty good, but the heads are a little lumpy". Elitists. You try making skulls complete with teeth out of thick pancake batter!

Then, of course it was time to light up the pumpkins and go trick-or-treating. Our friends came over to trick-or-treat with us and the boys were not disappointed by the disgusting amounts of candy they brought home including full-size candy bars and cans of soda.

Here are the traditional before and after pumpkin pictures. We carved these on Sunday so I was happy they made it the six days and were still beautiful, I mean scary, for Halloween.

 

Gabriel went the very traditional route, but I love the eyebrows. Also, can I just say that I love the fall colors outside? So pretty.

Elijah chose a ghost pumpkin this year and went with a Frankenstein theme. It was a labor of love to carve all those stitches.

David John drew a monster with a zillion eyes and three mouths and several horns. It also has a beard way down there at the bottom. I don't know about you but I think that big mouth is pretty scary. The pumpkin is pretty scary too.

Benjamin wanted the tallest pumpkin. He drew a face with two eyes, a nose, a mouth, some hair and a funky hat on top of that. However, the rest of think this looks like a big monster with two lava eyes at the top and a big open mouth showing us the person he just ate. Take your pick.

Tobias drew a bunch of lines which somehow ended up looking like a cool diagram of lungs and heart. Maybe we've got a future doc here.

And here we have the whole lineup of spooky pumpkins. I love how the light shines through the skin of the pumpkins too. Good job on those scraping jobs this year boy-ohs.

The boys have asked that I leave their Gru symbols on their overalls so they can go to school as minions whenever they want to. I'm okay with that as long as they aren't fighting over bananas in the hallways. Happy Halloween!

BONUS FOOTAGE:
Some of the boys were pretty hilarious when I was trying to get pictures of them with their pumpkins. Here are some that didn't make the official cut:

 

Gabe was having a hard time keeping those eyes open. Church will do that to you.

 

Elijah went all Jaws on me. Shark attack!

 

For David John, taking pictures is, apparently, excruciating.

 

Benjamin is very afraid someone is going to steal his pumpkin. He is very concerned. He is worried. He is taking his pumpkin and hitting the road.

"Tobias, take your hand out from between your legs," I said. "Yes!" said Benjamin, "Make your hands robot hands! Like this!"

 "No," I said, "just take your hand and put it on your knee."

Tobias, in montone, "I have robot hands!"

  Facepalm.