This weekend marked the first celebration the girls had as a family with Alex's parents. As usual I was not rushing with my camera to take pictures. It's not something I am not used to and so I have to make an effort to do that, so I will take pictures after the fact, with the things that they got as their gifts. (I should follow Sam's example who is never anywhere without a camera) We spent the weekend in Milwaukee. On Saturday the girls decorated the tree and got some presents from the Martins. These included, books, art supplies and a great big house with dolls. Some of the gifts were individual but most were to be shared. This has been a concept we have been trying to teach the girls for a while, the concept of 'sharing'. Since they have had little that are theirs, they tend to want to have things only for themselves, and would rather not necessarily share anything with a sister. So I was glad to see that a couple of gifts as well as the books needed to be shared. This will give us an opportunity for teaching the girls how to do this.
Things have been hectic and the weather here has been awful, which does not help trying to get organized and do the necessary things before Christmas. I have been doing my shopping after the girls go to sleep (Thanks for Holiday Hours).
I got to purchase chocolates and small gifts for the girls teachers. This will be the first time they will ever take a gift to a teacher at school bought from a parent. I took the older two on Friday night and took the younger two yesterday to do this. I wanted the girls to create their presents and had some ideas, but never got around to doing this. I'm amazed at how there are moms out there who are creative and do these great things for school and for the teachers. For us it has been an adjustment to keep up with homework, school presentations, things to bring to school etc. We are lucky we get a lot of help from the ESL teachers. We don't know what we would do without them.
Well, I have to get the girls up to get to school. I will keep up the blog throughout the Holidays. We are trying to get some traditions going into house, including some Colombian food, etc. For a great blog about Colombian culture check out "Raising Colombian Kids". There should be a link to this on our blog.
MM
I really understand your thoughts about those creative moms.... as one who inherited a teenage daughter (but only one), I can relate. Its very hard to come up to speed with older kids. Those creative moms very likely started out with one small baby, and things grew incrementally as the kids grew. Don't expect that you can do it as easily as they seem to -- it takes years of practice. It sounds like you had lovely celebrations over the holidays - so special for all of you together as a family, for the very first time. Much love to you and Alex and all four daughters. XOXO
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