Christmas day is here

The boys corralled the girls, mostly Aubree, in their room before we were all set for them to come out. Aubree got to come through the curtain we set up first, but she hasn't done it enough, so she came right to me. The other kids ran in, and the usual excitement and gluttony of candy followed. We tried to get them to eat something substantial by making them sit at the table with homemade healthier cinnamon rolls, but they were too anxious to eat much.
We gave and opened presents with glee, kids jumping and exclaiming too quickly to get a good picture, but at  least they were good memories.

Aubree was thrilled with any and everything, which is super fun. Reese had succumbed to too-cool-to-ask-for-anything, so he got stuck with socks, underwear, pajamas, and a shirt. He was gracious. but later when talking about his birthday he said he didn't want to make the same mistake of not giving ideas and getting clothes. The way he said it, it's almost worse than getting anything. I guess it's the disappointment. To my credit, they were cool versions that he had talked about getting, but I guess he didn't mean as a gift. Which I can understand, when I wanted a can opener I really didn't mean for Christmas (first-year-of-marriage-example.)
This year we tried out matching funds for the kids to give gifts to each other. Grace got into the giving spirit and spent all her money on a fun gift for Cameron.  I made the mistake of suggesting some candy Aubree likes to Cameron; she spent the whole morning with some sort of candy/treat in her mouth. By lunch she said she "didn't feel so good", so we had to cut off the sugar and force some protein, but she was rather wild all day.
Anyway, we had a great time playing games, watching a show, and eating a simplified but yummy version of our Christmas ham feast. Christmas weekend was a wonderful time together.

The next week was a crazy week of farming out kids, driving to Utah to look for a house to buy, driving back, trying to decide what to do, and ultimately only knowing what we don't want to do. Which is a little stressful when we're moving out in less than a month.
We still have a Christmas present we got for grandparents, but haven't mailed yet. And we didn't even attempt cards. Sigh. We haven't started the New Year on a great foot, but we're excited for the new adventures we'll have! at least, I will once we have a plan to not be homeless :)