[day 359... dec 25]

Kellen came over last night to spend the night and join us Christmas morning. Very nice to have him back for a visit. He spent the evening planning and taking pictures of Xmas tree lights with lots of bokeh. :-)

We opened presents Christmas morning after breakfast, as is our tradition. The little ones opened their stockings at the crack of dawn when they got up, then when I came down, I made scrambled eggs, bacon, and cinnamon rolls to get us fueled up for gift opening.

Kellen did the honors setting up our traditional Christmas tree family photo, and this was the best of about 20 shots. Me and all my boys - love it.

[day 358... dec 24]

Christmas Eve, and we finally got around to decorating our Christmas cookies that we made the other day. Tynor even joined in, which was a nice treat. He makes his very meticulously while the other boys and I just spread on a glob of frosting and add sprinkles and other decorations pretty haphazardly.

They turned out very pretty, and tasty too.

[day 357... dec 23]

Niall's 9th birthday today! Made him our traditional Chocolatey Chocolate Cake which is just from the Hershey's chocoa can but is *fabulous*. Also the Chocolatey Chocolate buttercream frosting that goes with it. And peppermint ice cream. Yum!

We had Grandma Shannon over to help celebrate, and it was low-key but fun.

Niall got a t-shirt that he'd asked for at Target that I nixed originally (the picture is a flaming skull football thing but - whatever), a book about "What you should have learned in school" (I thought I'd find that useful too, and Niall loves learning tidbits of substantial information), a battery science kit, and the movie "Indiana Jones." His favorite of all was a Magic 8 ball. Do you remember those? He gets such a kick out of it. Of course, what he asks are things like "Should I go get ready for bed now?" when I've just asked him to do something. Sigh...

[day 356... dec 22]

My craft room is for me, right? Well, sometimes the little people just can't stand to stay out. (There's a big surprise, hmm? :-)

Here's Niall quietly reading Right Next to Me while I finish up something on the computer, waiting to start our bedtime routine.

[day 355... dec 21]

This is the angel ornament that my Aunt Cathryn crocheted and sent to me several Christmases ago. Glad to have this reminder of her on our tree, and thinking of her this Christmas season.

[day 354... dec 20]

Niall loves the two little remote control helicopters he got for his birthday, but they are so finicky about working.

He finally got one of them working just the other day and it flew gloriously for 3-4 rounds. All the way up to the ceiling in the entryway - woot! And then it refused to work anymore. Batteries dead? Connection flakey? Flight damage? Who knows. It's very frustrating. :-(

[day 353... dec 19]

I worked like a dervish today, cleaning and sorting in the living room to find the carpet again and create some semblance of order. There are still lots of boxes around but at least it's all relatively neatly sorted and you can see the floor in multiple places! And sit on the couch! Amazing.

There's also room, finally, for our tiny Christmas tree so I set it up and plugged it in. Feels much less crazy in there now, though still lots to do.

Someone from work is interested in taking the china cabinet (yay!) so hopefully that will move to a new home sometime this week and I'll have a lot more space to work with. Fingers crossed...