I should buy stock in wrapping paper!

Well, it's done. All the gifts are wrapped and under the tree. The presents from Santa are open and displayed nicely bearing the lucky child's name.
I was worried at the beginning. Barely into the first quarter of the wrapping game, I ran out of tape. I didn't know what I was going to do. Then, to make things more tense, the Barbie convertible Corvette required 4 (yes, 4) 'C' batteries and a 9-volt! Come on, seriously! But, I managed to pull it off: I grabbed packing tape and used my husband's fingers to hold asymmetrical strips of the stuff. Searching, I found a 9-volt and 3 'C' batteries in my battery box and one my son's drawer. Whew!
Problem solved.
I also had a nifty idea to wrap presents for each child in distinct paper. They each got to choose a pattern of paper they liked. Joe wanted snowmen, Sarah wanted rainbow, Sam got a Santa motif and Mary wanted Strawberry Shortcake. Sounds easy, right? Just wrap and each child knows which presents are his/hers! No tags! Yep, you guessed it. I managed to screw that up. I gave my mom the wrong wrapping paper and Joe and Sam's papers/presents are mixed up. It wouldn't be so bad if I hadn't already wrapped some of the presents in the original set-up. Thank goodness for my mom who wrote the correct name on each of the mixed-up wrapped gifts.
Overall, the night went well. With the help of my mom and husband (who barely complained while putting together the 2 3-wheeled scooters for the twins), we managed to finish up by 10:00pm!
Merry Christmas to all! Now get some sleep!

Christmas is almost here!

Wow! It's been awhile since I've posted. Probably thought I'd fallen off the face of the Earth? Not quite. The poop is...I've been busy working towards having that 'perfect Christmas" we all dream of. You know the one. The Christmas where, for starters, the weather is perfect so the kids can enjoy all the presents they got OUTSIDE so you can clean up the wrapping paper bomb that exploded on your living room floor. The Christmas, or pre-Christmas, when all gifts were planned out and perfectly shopped for and purchased at the LOWEST PRICE. The Christmas morning where the kids want to sleep in (taking suggestions on how to achieve this one). The Christmas where...well, I realize there is really no way for that prefectly planned out Christmas morning to happen. Still, I can dream. Right?
Mike needs the computer ASAP so I will have to continue this post later.