Merry Christmas!

Ah...Christmas with children. A time for joy. A time for excitement. And a time for nervousness, and fighting, and insomnia, and (thankfully, minor) injuries, and (thankfully, minor) illness. We have somehow, amazingly made it to Christmas day. And this is the point where I block out the insanity that has consumed most of the past few weeks, and especially the past few days, and focus on the amazing little moments that do actually happen. Here are a few from the last few days.

We just have a little four foot tall Christmas tree this year. Although Natalia removes all of the ornaments on the tree she can reach each day and we find them in some really strange places, at least the ones at the top are safe. (And whenever Natalia sees a Christmas tree, she calls it a "Don' Touch." If only she took her own advice!)

I took Leon, Michael, and Natalia to Chick-Fil-A on Saturday. We made it safely through the parking lot. The kids ate all their lunches and played on the playground without incident. They had a sundae bar out, so I even got them each a kid-sized ice cream and they enjoyed eating them and didn't spill ice cream everywhere or immediately get sick from the fried food/sugar/dairy bomb. Santa Cow was there, and Leon couldn't stop hugging him. And Ree had so much fun with Jeff she didn't even complain about missing the fun.

It's been nice enough out that we've been playing outside every day. Guess who likes to climb up and go down the big slide all by herself?

Almost there!

Whee!

Santa came!

And the kids were actually playing nicely together with Natalia's new kitchen.

Unfortunately, among other things, we are now sharing the annual Christmas cold. If only the kids would sleep as well as Minnie...