Christmas morning. The kids were so sweet and so excited.
Santa brought each child a book, a toy, and a candy cane full of m&m's aka breakfast.
Lego from Santa.
Santa Legos refreshed Bradley's Lego obsession, he's been rebuilding all of his old sets for the past few weeks now.
After the grownups ate and showered we got to break out the pile of gifts under the tree.
They were pretty great about sharing exciting new toys with each other.
Eleanor got the "it" toy of this holiday season, a Mystery Hatchimal.
Watching it hatch was quite the production.
It was an exciting and exhausting day, even though we just hung around the house since my parents had managed to catch bad colds in time for Christmas.
We had a short-lived period of time where Patrick and Eleanor shared a bed at night. Eleanor stopped wanting him in there and we were surprised, because she usually loves having someone to cuddle with. Apparently he's quite definite about not wanting Eleanor to put her cold feet on him and Eleanor complained about how sometimes as she's falling asleep her feet just move over onto him and he SCREAMS at her! (The last bit was spoken quite indignantly.)
I need to write a book of Eleanor sayings and proverbs. A recent one was, "A legend says if you stand too long, someone tries to push you down." Wise words indeed.
The kids have been playing Santa quite a bit since the big day, it's so sweet to watch although Patrick can and will wreak havoc to a clean bedroom while hunting down appropriate Santa gifts for his big brother and sister.
And we may have gotten a few new board games to try. It's been a lot of fun testing them out!
Patrick helped Nathan build new storage shelves in the basement for our growing collection of board games. What a great helper!
The biggest hit of Eleanor's presents may have been a chalk hair color kit I got from our local Walgreens. Both she and I are enjoying trying out different hair colors and styles and apparently it's a big deal if you show up with green or purple hair in Kindergarten.
Grandma Colleen and Kerry visited a few days after Christmas and the kids immediately settled in for good cuddles, books, and lots of fun crafts.
And princess play time in the girl room, of course.
Eleanor was recovering from being sick so we just sent Grandma Colleen and Kerry and the boys with Daddy to go to the Museum of Prairiefire.
It was fun but scary!
Patrick visited his favorite cockroaches.
And looked at all the other creatures there with his Grandma.
No wonder Grandma Colleen was a little tired when she came home and tried to read a fairy book to Eleanor.
Cute crafts to end the trip!
I was pleased that we had a few days of good weather during the break so I could send the kids outside to play. Running out some energy was of great importance.
We also went to the nearby gymnastic studio's open gym a couple times during winter break and oh dear goodness we may have overdone encouraging the boys to be best friends. Patrick's entire goal of our time there was to be literally attached to Bradley at all times. If he wasn't holding Bradley's hand he was crying and chasing after him … it was a bit intense.
The next time we went I thought things might be different because we were meeting friends there, including a little boy that Patrick really likes. Patrick ignored his friend and clung on to Bradley at all times.
At one point it was even a bit much for Bradley and he asked if Patrick could go somewhere else. Finally Patrick ended up separated from Bradley long enough to become distracted and not just pining for Bradley love … and that's when Bradley walked up to me and wanted to know where Patrick was because he missed him. So I guess they deserve each other.
They're pretty much inseparable at home now too. I caught a bit of a game of pretend where Bradley told Patrick, "I look like King Tut. But really I'm a zombie parasaurolophus King Tut."
So much love.
This is what happens every morning when Nathan leaves for work. Bye bye, Daddy!
The rest of the break was filled with a reasonable amount of cuddles
I accidentally got a very traumatizing dragon anthology for the children and they were enthralled. We sat and read classic (and horrible) stories for ages.
It was a very mellow break, I think we all needed this.
Although it was rare that anyone went and did something on their own. These children generally need to be together to be happy.
A very fun and exciting part of the break was getting to display Eleanor's princess collection at our library. She had been waiting to get to do this for ages and had no problem filling up the rather large display area.
And then games games games! Did I mention we got a few games for Christmas?
We went over to a friend's house so our 1st graders could play Splendor against the dads. Guess who won ...
Bradley even got to have some big kids come over to play games when I told my friend Julie that I needed her boys to test out a few games for website research. Here they are playing Dragonwood, a game that requires no additional testing but Bradley is obsessed with it and we averaged playing it 3-4 times per day over the break.
He even would accept playing Eleanor's Hatchimals game in exchange for her playing Dragonwood with him afterward.
Fun Patrick story, Patrick came over crying while I was in the kitchen the other day and told me he had hurt himself. I asked him how he did this and he cheerily beckoned me to follow him and he demonstrated his stairs trick for me.
And then taught Eleanor how to do it. We're trying to discourage stair tricks. I'm over the lie that children will learn from natural consequences, mine seem to subscribe more to a "getting back on that horse" kind of proverb.
And all these new toys and fun things around the house and a laundry basket and blankets are still our favorite form of entertainment.
That and stacking hats apparently.
Bradley and I have been getting in some serious quality time lately. I'm really enjoying how the game website is giving us so much to do together.
And can you even handle Patrick in this hat on our fancy smoothie date together after taking the big kids to school? He ended up saving a fair amount of this smoothie to give to his big brother and sister, because he's just that sweet.
And holy moly I think there will be a baby soon. I'm about a month away from due date!
Meanwhile, I'm trying to soak in some easy quality time with the three rather adorable children. Patrick is so cozy and clingy with me these days and he tells great monster stories.
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