Christmas Day

So, Christmas started off kind of rough, with little sleep and sick kids, but it was still a great day. We even had snow during the night and woke to a white Christmas! We have a curtain on a rod so the kids can't see in the living room, and have them come out youngest to oldest, but Aubree refused to come out! it was pretty funny, she was like, there's no way i'm going out there alone! So Grace ran out, and the rest followed. Stockings, a bit of breakfast (cameron didn't feel like eating anything, Reese was too anxious to eat, and Aubree was too interested in the presents) and the kids starting opening their gifts. I was trying to get some pics of them, but either they're blurry from kids moving fast and not enough light, or i miss the moment cause the flash takes a while to go off, so either way i don't get good shots. I had missed a couple super cute moments already, ( you know, the one time a year when kids are voluntarily hugging each other and thankful) and was frustrated, when Reese said "What you need is a micromanager"
"Yes! With kragle too!" I yelped, giving him a high five. It was hilarious, and we all laughed at me. I can get a little tensed up about pics, so it was a great stressbreaker for me.

So we went on, and enjoyed our christmas holiday together.

a smile! wow!

Reese avoids pics of him at all costs, but loves to photobomb

Cameron bought gifts for all of his siblings, not just the one they were assigned (someone got into the spirit of Christmas, hooray!),  Grace spent hours playing with her little bird toy, and thankfully Santa brought a couple other bird ornaments Aubree could play with too. They were both enthralled with that bird.It's already losing the fuzzy coating.

Grace even let Bree have turns with the bird!

Aubree went around unwrapping everybody's candy, lining them up on the table, and taking one bite out of each piece.

 I kept cleaning it up, and before we knew it she had gone through everyone's stocking candy except RD's. I think she only ate treats all day. She also loves to peel clementines, but doesn't eat more than 1 or 2 slices, so we had three or four oranges in pieces on the table.

Cameron laid on the couch most of the day, but we gave him snuggles and cuddles, and most of us napped that afternoon.

Then we had an awesome ham from Trader Joe's, fabulous potatoes with emmentaler cheese broiled over the top, inspired by his Christmas meals in France with raclette potatoes, and some other sides. I was so excited to use my grandmother's china, and Nana's napkins, they went together beautifuly, and I loved having pieces of memories with us. It was worth unpacking, washing, washing again, and repacking the china. We were so stuffed, but still found room to gorge on sweets we'd made the day earlier. We never did get around to making a buche de noelle, but we seem to have  more than enough treats around, so we were ok with it.

Only 362 more days till Christmas!