Christmas 2009

A few highlights:

Went to Christmas Eve mass at 4:00 on Thursday. All the children were invited to the altar to listen to a story. It was pretty much chaos, but we could still hear Father over the mic. I could see Sam up there, but only a sliver of Grace's head was visible to me. I saw his signature mad look start to appear across Sam's face. I was able to make eye contact with him before he could haul off and smack his sister. I waved my finger to say "NO" to whatever he was about to do. That's when he stood up on the altar amongst a sea of children and yelled, "But Mommy! Grace is pushing me!" Even though they weren't the only children causing a scene, it sure felt like that was the case at that moment. I also found myself quickly praying the head of admissions wasn't in attendance and revoking their acceptance letters to the school right then and there!

After mass, we enjoyed a lovely meal at home and quiet evening exchanging gifts from each other. It made me so happy to see the kids as excited to give gifts as they were to receive them. Then, we tracked Santa online, left reindeer food on the lawn and cookies by the fireplace and hustled off to bed.

sprinkling reindeer food on the lawn

Christmas morning was a whirlwind, then the rest of the day was spent playing with toys...and eating goodies.

the only day of the year they are allowed to eat chocolate for breakfast :)

the castles were a big hit!

baby's first Christmas...she thoroughly enjoyed herself

We're excited for our Christmas celebrations with our families over the next few days. Merry Christmas everyone! And if I don't have a chance to update in the next week, Happy New Year!