This holiday season was undoubtedly a busy one and also one I'm happy to report I am now
fiiiiinally recovered from! We hosted two Thanksgiving events at our house this year, one for my family and one for the husband's. While it required a lot of prepping and cleaning, the actual hosting of said event is much easier than packing up, hauling off, entertaining, chasing, loading up and bringing home quadruplets. True story. So we were all too happy to open up the house for family to come over and hang out and stuff our faces with food.
Once December hit, we started preparing and decorating for our annual Christmas party. We hosted our last one in 2011 shortly I'd discovered I was finally pregnant again, but before we found it was four. And the following year we were so busy feeding babies that we barely knew the holidays had come and go, so needless to say a party was out of the question. It's interesting to see how many changes can take place in a year, since this season we were primed and ready to carry on the shindig tradition! Everything worked out beautifully, our nanny was over early to help us feed the babies dinner and get them in pajamas and upstairs to bed then manned the upstairs for a couple hours to keep an eye on the monitors and rock anyone that woke up. We also hired a bartender for the party and that made for less stress since all we had to do was point guests in the direction of the bar! Aaaaannnnnddd, the last guests left at 3am and the husband and I went to bed at 4am. Yeah, we partied like we used to and may have been a little tired the next two days!
Worth it.
After the party, we laid low for a little bit then geared up for the Christmas rounds with family. Christmas Eve was spent at my mom and step-dad's house with the quad squad in tow. They did great the whole time we were there, even if they did have to sit in an adult's lap for dinner. Eating from a full-sized fork is always fun, though! My mom and step-dad gave the quads the most adorable kid-sized bench complete with a Texas star on it. The kids immediately started sitting on it and still enjoy it even back at the house. The gift opening got a little frenzied and the babies started getting a little cranky and the husband and I started getting a little sick (I nearly lost my voice and we had colds for a week), but we made it home in one piece and the babies slept hard all night.
(thanks to my older brother for capturing photos that evening!)
Christmas morning we were off and running and headed to one of my aunt's house for the extended family gathering. The babies did wonderfully and everyone helped in keeping up with them as they ran around and explored the house. We fed them a pre-packed lunch in their strollers and then they actually stayed in them while we did the Chinese Christmas Tree (always fun with my fam!) and remained entertained with wrapping paper and stuffed animals.
Christmas afternoon we trekked over to the husband's parent's house and had dinner there while the babies roamed around before we gathered them into the corral we'd brought. That's when the tears started and they only went downhill from there! I wish they'd been more relaxed, we seriously never hear them cry that much and it started taking a toll. While we completely enjoyed and relished all the gift exchanges, we weren't able to linger much longer and got them all dressed in pajamas, packed into the car and home to bed.
The next day, we stayed warm and cozy at home and enjoyed our own family Christmas in the morning. We gave the babies their gifts from mommy and daddy as well as a few others that friends had gifted them. The quads love the new climbing structure, it has been used constantly and we couldn't be happier with it! That was their big gift from us, along with smaller gifts like Bubble Guppies books, stuffed animals, a tea pot set for the girls, tow truck and cars for Harrison and stocking stuffers like hair brushes and headbands for the girls (they love them!), a mini choo-choo train for Harrison and fudge cookies for everyone.
The husband's parents, younger brother and grandmother all came over that afternoon and his dad helped assemble the gym set. We had a blast watching their faces when we brought them down from naps to their new toy and enjoyed seeing them explore it. Pizza and pasta for dinner and a little TV watching later and we were all off to bed!
New Year's Eve saw us take a visit to the husband's grandpa's house for the afternoon where we let the kids around in his spacious backyard, look at the goats next door, eat fried chicken for dinner and make chocolate chip cookies in his grandpa's oven. For a man of 93, he doesn't miss much! He was asking all sorts of fun questions about the babies and really enjoyed seeing them explore his house. The husband and I had the babies dressed for bed before we left and put them to sleep as soon as we walked in the house then settled down with a movie and wine and were asleep by 12:30am!
It was the perfect way to close out the holiday season for 2013 and now we've embarked on what we hope to be a consistent 2014, with a year full of possibilities before us!
