Christmas

Wow! Six kids on Christmas keeps you pretty busy, so I'm just now getting around to posting pictures. It was really a wonderful Christmas this year. Victor's brother arrived at 5 am Christmas morning. He and his girls went to sleep around 6 am and of course our kids woke up at 6:30. So, we had to take them downstairs in the basement for a while to let everyone else get a little sleep. We finally got everything going around 8:00. Santa went a little overboard at our house this year, but it was Alana's first Christmas after all! Santa brought Collin a Karaoke machine, a play kitchen for Alana, and a train table for Dylan. Collin was the only one who really understood what was going on and opened all of his gifts. Alana just loved to open presents and wanted more and more. I let her open all of her presents as well as mine. She would have opened everyone's presents if I'd let her! Dylan wanted to open everyone's presents except his own. We finally got his presents open, but he enjoyed Alana's play kitchen and Collin's karaoke machine more than his own gifts.

Alana was so hyped up all day long (and she really didn't have much sugar)! She has always had volume control issues (she runs on loud and louder). However, she was off the charts on Christmas. I think I told her 100 times to stop yelling because it was hurting my ears. My ears were literally ringing at the end of the night! She also reverted back to some of her old bad habits on Christmas. She would bring me other people's toys and tell me "remember share -- share be nice?" and want me to open their gifts so she could play with them. However, when someone wanted to play with her gifts, well, let's just say the "share be nice" didn't seem to apply to her. It was fun to see her so happy, but unfortunate that she wasn't very kind to others. She is definitely our little diva princess (yes, we're working on the diva part)!

Later that day, we went to see Victor's dad and then later my dad. The next day we took off for Springfield to visit Victor's mom. It was a very full and busy Christmas, but so, so wonderful! Enjoy the pictures! Luckily our kids get along great with Eric's kids, so they all had plenty to do which kept the bickering to a minimum. By the 27th though all the kids were exhausted and getting really cranky! It was definitely time to get them home and start settling down. Things are much calmer today and everyone seems to be getting along. I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and that 2008 brings even more joy!