This year we had a nice Christmas. Pretty calm and the kids really enjoyed themselves. We had 3 straight days of opening gifts. Just a bit crazy, but at least we weren't party hopping and having things all jammed together. The night before Christmas Eve we got together with my side of the family. We met for dinner at my Grandparents house. It was a nice time, the kids were
soo wound up with the excitement of opening gifts. Natalie was so sweet. She kept saying "wrap presents?" meaning unwrap. She got a little used to all the opening and asked for a couple days after to open more gifts. So here we all are at Grandma's house.
The kids waiting anxiously to start opening gifts..
Jason too.
Elena's fave gift of the night was her Hannah Montana Guitar. She was a
rockin! She kept it on all night.
Christmas Eve morning, my nephew Jude and his sister Gabi came over to open gifts with us.
Isn't she sweet??
Christmas Eve was the usual excitement with the exception that we slowed the pace down a bit and you actually saw what everyone was opening instead of it being a whirlwind of paper everywhere. They had so much fun together. They love to spend time with their cousins.
This year was a first. A family tradition is they make plum pudding and most of us don't care much for it and it's a joke to try to trick someone into eating it. This year Natalie tried without any tricks. Elena and Stephen did too! We'll see if they will be fans next year too.
Natalie's fave part of the night was decorating Buddy the dog with her jewlery. She loves dogs!
So there it is, total picture overload. I have a few more from Christmas Day, I will post those seperatly as this is quite a few. A nice Christmas to look back on.
Is it over already? Part of me was glad to get back on a schedule, more of a daily routine. The downtime was nice, and I love being here with everyone, but our kids get a little crazy with an over booked schedule, or to much downtime. We had a little of both, but our time off was good. We were able to have Jason here for the first half of break which was so nice. 
He taught Bill and Ethan how to play rummy, so honestly for the first 3 days of break that is all they did. They had a tally sheet for their points and would be at the breakfast table playing cards as well as after dinner. We had all our family Christmas parties, We got to have my nephew over to do Christmas with him and he was able to stay the night. We got the kids a Bingo game so we are doing a weekly "Bingo night" for a game night and so far it is a big hit. We celebrated Bills birthday over the weekend and we didn't play and the kids were wondering why we didn't. 
Natalie is our official Roller. She picks the balls.
It's a lot of fun. We had one day of really nice weather. It got up into the high 50's maybe 60's so we were outside all day. So nice to get some fresh air. Especially when a week before the wind chill was -20!! Elena was able to get out her scooter that she got for her birthday and they were having races down the driveway. It was funny to watch them, because although it was nice, it was VERY windy so little Natalie was getting blown away!!
The kids had friends over a few of the days. I babysat miss Natalie's friend a few times. Here they are getting ready to take a nap. They are just so cute!
