Q Holidays

Mary turned 13 on December 23, and we celebrated in style by seriously cleaning the house and then inviting five of her friends over for a sleepover.  And...it was lovely.  We invited friends from all different phases of Mary's life:  past friend from our previous town/school, friend from Girl Scouts, friend from swimming club, new friend from middle school, and BFF.  They all got along splendidly and were So Much Fun!  And when I ran upstairs for a moment and then came back down at 12:37, I noticed that ALL was QUIET.  They had actually all bundled into their sleeping bags and settled down for the night.  I was expecting at least a 3 AM-er or something.  Nope.  Good, sweet children who were all apparently tired...?  Anyway, Mary said it was the Best Birthday Party Ever!

 Mary also learned a valuable lesson about texting while watching her baby sister.  See, Sophia is a CLIMBER.  None of my other children were climbers!  So, now we can no longer just stick her in the high chair with a handful of Cheerios and turn our backs for a moment.  Nope, she must be physically monitored at all times.  Mary forgot this rule.  And while Mom was downstairs turning over the laundry, Mary had put Sophie in the highchair and then left the room to answer a text.  All of a sudden, Mom hears THUMP and "WAAAAAH!"  A very, very scared Mom (and all the rest of the family) rushed in to find a scared, mostly-unhurt, crying baby.  Oh, I think I lost a few years of my life on that one.  Thankfully, Sophia only ended up with a bump on her nose.  And ALL were reminded of the "can't leave her alone!" rule.  I wasn't even mad at Mary--just relieved that my baby was OK.  (She also climbs out of the bouncy seat, the stroller, and any shopping cart.  No straps can contain THIS child!)

X-mas was spent opening presents and except for a few comments of "not getting what I wanted" by the middle two (one apparently forgetting he has a birthday coming up and the other apparently forgetting she JUST HAD a birthday a month ago) (and both apparently forgetting that they did not provide a Wish List until about a week before X-mas when 95% of the gifts were [sorry!] already bought and shipped and wrapped!), it was a great day.  (They really DID get a lot of what they wanted, just not ALL of it or sometimes SPECIFICALLY the item written down.)  We then cleaned up and headed off to our Japanese restaurant and had our lunch.  We set off for the movie theatre, and...it was completely, totally packed with people.  The line to buy tickets was soooo long, we eventually gave up--by the time we would have bought our tickets, we would have missed the first half of the movie!  (NEVER has this happened to us on X-mas day!)  We headed back, played with some of our presents, and then John took Mary and Keith back that afternoon to watch The Hobbit while Izzy, Sophie, and I stayed home and watched a few movies here (we were unsure of Izzy's reception of the movie--even though she's been read the book--and we were unsure of the 9 1/2 month old's ability to stay quiet now). 

New Year's Eve started somewhat sporadic as everyone seemed to have a different idea of what to do, and at one point all five (since Sophia can hardly be counted since she was always with me) of us were each in different areas of the house.  We finally all converged to the den where Mary, Keith and John played Just Dance 3 & 4 (well, John for ONE song, anyway--heh), and Izzy and I played Headbanz.  John, not being the dancing type, broke out the Rock Band upstairs, and we finally all got together up there and sang and played Beatles tunes until we watched the ball drop.  Mary strained her neck at her swim practice earlier that day, so after Just Dance, she was basically done for the night and spent the rest of the evening dozing under a blanket on the couch.  John kept Izzy and Keith up until almost 2AM playing on Rock Band. 

We slept in a little on New Year's Day (Well, me and Sophie, not so much--even though Sophie was up for MOST of NYE apparently not wanting to miss out on the fun?), then we met friends of Keith's and Mary's for sledding.  Most Fun.  Keith came home and took a two-hour nap, but the rest of us were up (Mary and Izzy finished the day with a playdate with their friends) and totally exhausted and totally NOT READY for school on Wednesday morning.  Ugh.