Merry Christmas to all...

It was a tough transition last night, all of the kids were definitely excited and behavior was off. Ultimately Logan, Addison and Matthew went to bed crying. Riley ended up crying because Matthew was so loud he couldn't sleep. I ended up eating a hershey bar (and I haven't done that in a long time) because of the stress. Then, I put the presents out, wrapped the last couple and filled the stockings. I was in bed by 12:30 and only had 2 people in my bed this morning when I woke up.

...Speaking of waking up...Riley did - at 7:30! - I think a personal late record for him! He came into my room and laid next to me and said,..."know what?...Santa came!" I asked him how he knew and he said...cuz I saw that the cookies were gone. "I asked him to write a note back to me on the cookie note so I want to see if he did" - (score one for the tired Santa cuz I had - at the last minute written a note on the back of the cookie note! - there was no sign of asking for it but I thought it would be cute so, whew!)

...I got up and made them wait till I got dressed before they went downstairs and then, there was a mad dash down the stairs to the living room where the tree and presents were. By the time I got there, the packages were separated into piles and they were waiting patiently for me. ...It took all of about 5 minutes but mostly there was squeals of happiness and excitement. all of the packaging (and you know how hard that is) was undone by about 1 hour after we were up and they were happily playing with new toys...the first broken toy occured at 9:30 and there was some consternation (and squabbling) but again Santa scored by (accidentally) choosing two radio control cars with the same frequency! - so the one whose antenna broke could use his brothers control panel to run his car!!!

...Wendy and Pat arrived around 1:00 just as I was getting the girls down for a nap. And I started finishing the cooking. Dinner (and the girls) were ready by 3:00 and we opened presents from Pat and Wendy...and (score again) the boys got another radio control car and guess what? the one whose first control panel was broken got the one that has the same frequency as his first car! now he can use both cars at the same time?!

...We all sat down to dinner of ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, asparagus, mixed vegetables, and these "to die for" pumpkin dinner rolls that I made. Boy I ate about 4 of them and I am stuffed!! The ham was the moistest one I have ever eaten.

...all of the kids ate (first miracle), talked about what was great about their Christmas in turns (second miracle) and thoroughly enjoyed themselves( and so did I).

Merry Christmas to All...I hope your day was good too.