Merry Christmas 2010- Long Version

I thought I was sufficiently recovered from the holidays. I'm still searching for leftover scraps of chocolate, most of the boxes are gone, all the decorations are packing away for next year, I starting thinking about Valentines Day candy and then I realized I forgot to do a blog post about the holidays. It was a pretty amazing holiday and what a difference from last year. It is different from our everyday routine, there are different people around, different things to do and there has been something special in the air for days. Like I said before, the kids don't really know WHAT is going on but I think they "get it."
I already posted some pics from Christmas Eve at my dad's house but I don't think they really captured the true beauty of Crazycakes. Ladies, have you ever put on a skirt or dress and it is shorter in the back than in the front and you know wearing that skirt is telling everyone your butt is bigger now than when you bought the skirt. This is Addy in all her glory. Crazy hair, missing a shoe and back of the skirt way shorter than the front. I love it. She should always wear ruffled skirts.
I think Eloise should always wear tennis shoes with her skirts. It totally cracks me up the little bruiser.
We put the kids in their pj's at my Dad's and Cousin Oliver was laying next to Addy talking to her while she was getting her diaper changed and dressed. Is was so sweet especially since when we first got to WI Oliver was wondering, "When are those babies going back to Texas?" I think he realized they idolize him so it is worth keeping them around.

This was Christmas morning before the chaos. Our present to the kids was the chairs and the bike which they got the day before and everything else was from Rich's family in TX.
The kids climbed OVER the wrapped presents to sit in their chairs and believe it or not, they each sat in the chair with the correct name with no prompting from us. It's a Christmas Miracle- they learned to read!

Addy thought she was so smart sitting her chair. She just sat and smiled to herself like, "If they think they can get me to stop climbing on the furniture by buying this chair, they have another thing coming."
Beckett immediately focused in on the reptiles on the new kitchen set.
The girls ignored the reptiles and headed to the kitchen set. They all love this thing. Actually right now I think they are cooking the reptiles in the oven overnight.

Note to self for next year- release all toys from packing prior to opening. It causes huge trauma for the kids to wait for something to be removed using multiple sized screwdrivers and dulls all my scissors when in desperation they are brought out to saw away at the metal.
I used to sing to the kids when they were little about different kids of camps they could go to when they got big- dinosaur camp, robot camp, Lego camp with Uncle Isaac, tennis camp, soccer camp, math camp, and my favorite, space camp. Now Beckett has something to wear.

I never sang about dance camp but what Addy wants, Addy gets.


I was kind of thinking that getting baby dolls would be good this Christmas but it was one of those things that seemed too complicated. Ridiculous I know. Whenever I was at Target the aisles would be crowded, lots of choices and screaming kids. When I am not with my screaming kids, I don't want to hear one peep out of other kids so I do a 180 at any store when I hear crying.
So they didn't get baby dolls ON Christmas but a couple days after when my Uncle Rich and Aunt Joni from Oregon were doing the WI Logghe family tour. They brought baby dolls AND a stroller and all kinds of other presents. It was the day the kids figured out about opening presents. Days like this remind me how fortunate we are to have a whole community of people loving these kids and seamlessly picking up when I get overwhelmed and sometimes flake out.
These twin dolls talk to one another (in Spanish) and this is the scene several times a day. There is lots of fighting over the bottles, juice box and feeding spoon. It doesn't matter that there are two dolls. Everyone wants both.

"These babies don't drink orange juice and formula. They drink breast milk!"I don't know where she comes up with these things, I swear. I stopped pumping like 17 months ago.

Unfortunately my mom was really sick on Christmas day so we weren't able to see her or any of the other people at the house that may have been carrying the stomach virus germs. I never used to think about germs so much and before the triplets we probably would have all been hanging out in the living room while she had a nest on the couch but not this year. The thought of having 3 sick kids or that I would get sick and unable to take care of the kids just wasn't worth the risk. It was a total bummer for everyone and I always feel bad like my anxiety about the kids getting sick puts a damper on things but Rich and I always discuss the "risk versus benefit" and hope that we make the right decision.
The day of it was disappointing but I think we made the right decision because we made up for it this past weekend. Next up- Christmas in January.