The day after Benjamin's party, our Christmas celebrations began. We got together and exchanged gifts with Doreen, Fernando, Linnea, Todd, Corinne, Amanda, and my grandma, and of course all the kids. I didn't get any pictures of the evening, but it was a fun time at Todd and Corinne's with yummy food and good company. John was able to join us, too. I did catch this picture of Grace wearing her new pajamas and snuggling her baby doll in her new pajamas. Thanks, Doreen!
Take a look at this present under my tree. Isn't it beautiful? Hot chocolate, three little bears, festive marshmallows, and five mugs all nestled in beautiful wrapping...but I didn't wrap it. I thought it was so pretty that I had to take its picture before I opened it. (It was a beautiful gift from a good friend of mine.)
I guess my role in life is just too practical to be much of a fancy wrapper these days. Each kid at our house had a different (but unknown to him/her) kind of wrapping for his/her gifts. All the gifts that were going to leave our house were wrapped in a fourth kind of paper. The gifts that were to our kids from family out of state were wrapped in a fifth paper. None of the gifts were labeled until it was time to give them away. That way, I could hide them safely under the tree without nosy eyes and prying fingers trying to figure out what they were. So, like I said, I guess I was too practical. Unfortunately, I didn't get around to bows except for the ones that went to people outside our household. I got sick with a nasty cold on the Saturday before Christmas, and I kept it through Christmas Eve, the day my siblings, mom, and grandma came over for the little kids to exchange gifts.
My mom is pretty amazing. She babysat my sister's twins on Christmas Eve morning, like she does most mornings. But then, she came over here and made brunch for everybody. It was delicious. I had planned to help her, but since I felt crummy, I mostly tried to avoid sharing my germs with everyone.
Even though I felt yucky, I loved having family over, and loved seeing all the little kids together, and loved seeing everyone open their gifts. I love Christmas. I hated being sick for it. I don't remember all of it, but what I remember was good.
Here are a couple of overhead views of the beginning of present-opening.
One thing about being a parent of three kids that I'm still not used to is that I don't get to see every gift opened or find out every item that each kid receives. Jonathan is old enough to handle opening on his own, and I just hope he remembers to say thank-you at the time. I helped Grace with her gifts and Jeff helped Benjamin, so I didn't see a lot of things until later. All the gifts have become treasures around here!
Grace had been wishing for an umbrella for months. And I knew my mom had gotten her one with matching boots a long time ago, too. She was thrilled when she opened them.
I think I already posted this picture of Benjamin, but it bears repeating. He's pretty thrilled with his gifts, too. Grace tries to play with his guitar, but he's pretty possessive of it.
Jeff snuggling with Benjamin who is making his "picture face."
Empty stockings on Christmas Eve night. I suppose it's a little weird that we hang stockings but our kids are not into Santa Claus. We didn't set out to be that way, and we aren't necessarily anti-Santa, but there are just so many important and True things to emphasize at this time of year that we didn't get around to the Santa stuff. We still have a lot of fun filling stockings, though, and Jonathan loves to help. I even got Jeff to fill my stocking this year so I didn't have to do it. :)
The kids opened two gifts on Christmas Eve: this one from their faraway great-grandma, which they loved...
And pajamas to sleep in and wear Christmas morning. (No, they're not new. Long story.) After we all put our PJs on, we watched The Very First Noel, our favorite (and short) video about the Christmas story. I was still feeling crummy, but thankful to be with my family, and so thankful for God's gift of his Son.
(This is turning in to a super-long post, so I realize it may be only our moms who are reading by now...)
Here is our tree on Christmas morning. Jeff was the first one up. Way too early as far as I was concerned, but I was feeling sort of decent, so that was great. Lots of gifts under the tree from far away, which was really fun. What did we do before free shipping on Amazon?
As is our tradition, we opened stockings first. I think the kids would have been totally content with just the contents of their stockings. (I told Jeff we should just do stocking gifts next year, but he didn't seem too excited about my suggestion.)
Thrilled!
There are no pictures for this, but we ate a slow and yummy breakfast together and read the story of Jesus' birth. We had been reading from the Jesus Storybook Bible every day during December, and we continued on Christmas morning. Then we opened gifts together...
She had to try on the new PJs. And the new dress from Grandpa. At the same time.
Trying out some new Melty Beads.
Did I mention that Jeff was the first one up? (He doesn't know I took this picture. Who will be the first to tell him?)
Busy!
One of Benjamin's favorite gifts: his new Spinbrush. The other two kids received them, and he was aching for one of his own, so he got one in his stocking.
We hopped in the car and visited my mom in our PJs. Nobody else would look at the camera, though.
I didn't capture any pictures at my mom's except for this cute, faraway shot of the boys loving on each other. Cute!
These pictures are completely out of order, somehow, and I'm not going to take the time to fix them. I may have mentioned that December was intense for us. Among the other things going on - including three birthdays in one week - we had five appointments the week before Christmas. Four were for Benjamin and one was for me. Benjamin got orthotics for the first time, and new, big shoes (8.5 XW) to go over them. (I should mention that Jonathan was wearing size 8.5 shoes at this age, but without orthotics!) There was supposed to be a post about how Benjamin is doing these days, but I think I was doing his appointments instead of blogging. Anyway, in short, he is age-appropriate and right on target for everything in his evaluations except for a 3-6 month delay in his expressive speech, which we are working on. And even though all his skills are on-target, age-wise, his physical therapist wants to see better quality in his posture and muscle tone, so the orthotics are working on that. We struggled with whether or not to go ahead and do orthotics. Ask me if you want to know more, because I left out a lot. I had hoped to be able to chat about it more with friends before it showed up on the blog, but I guess December was as intense as I mentioned.
AND, this should have gone with Christmas Eve, but here's one picture Jeff took of us with our camera timer, and then the battery died. It's out of focus, but at least it includes the whole crew. (Jeff is going to be taking some time off from being the camera operator for timed pictures, ha, ha!) The white board is one of Jonathan's gifts - a bulletin board for his room, which he loves.
All in all, we had a wonderful Christmas with the ones we loved, and we are SO thankful for all these sweet little kids running around to make Christmas so fun and meaningful for all of us. We hope you had a wonderful Christmas with the ones you love, too!
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