Christmas 2009

I don't know why, but this was one of my favorite Christmases in recent memory. Despite the fact that we all got strep throat; despite the fact that it rained rather than snowed; despite the fact that I'm still not eating sugar so I skipped all the goodies that people dropped off. I don't know what it was, but I just really loved the Christmas season this year.

We spent Christmas day at home, in our jammies, enjoying each other and our fun gifts. It was a quiet, peaceful, blessed, happy day.

I'm lousy at planning my pictures ahead of time, so I never have a very balanced amount of shots for each kid. As usual, I have a ton of pictures of Adana, quite a few of Emma, and virtually none of the boys. Sorry guys.

This is Emma with her Santa present. She has been dying to learn how to knit, so Santa gave her a basket of yarn, knitting needles, etc. Now it's up to me to try to decipher the knitting instruction book that he included and see if we can come up with something identifiable.

I love this shot of Adana with all her "loot." It's really going to suck next year when we no longer have a toddler at Christmas time. She made the day magical with her excitement.

Emma spent most of her day modeling her new clothes. She was in heaven!

My parents gave Adana karate lessons for Christmas, and this is her uniform. The class is called Little Dragons. They focus on the basic moves - punching, kicking, dodging, etc. And they also work on respect and obedience and focus. Yeah!

Adana received a lot of dress-up clothes. She promptly changed into them (here she is sporting the bright orange tutu) and then dove back into the Christmas tree to search for more presents for herself.

This is the only picture I really have of the rest of the family. I only took this because I was trying out some of the features on my new phone. This one puts a stupid little frame around the shot. The guys are all staring with rapt attention at the new MONSTROSITY that Santa brought the family - a flat-screen TV so big that I have to sit in the kitchen in order to fit the entire screen in my field of vision.

The Christmas aftermath. As much as I LOVED this special day, this sight was just painful for someone as OCD as myself. Needless to say, we quickly organized everything into neat little piles, then gradually those piles started disappearing to people's bedrooms . . . :-)

And soon, the room was clean. The house was tidy. The kids were playing nicely together. Nathan & Adana were napping. And all was right in the world.