Six kids and Santa

This is what you get when you take six kids to see Santa :)

I'm surprised actually that only one out of six are screaming. Jack and Ryan are old pros at seeing Santa, Finn kept saying I don't want to I don't want to but then did. Jovie wouldn't do it without her Momma. Peter as you can see screamed and hated it.  Almira got a little red and a little nervous but tolerated it. We were pretty set on taking them to see Santa this year because it's what my Mom always did every year with the kids. A lot of years it was just her and I taking the kids because everyone else was always at work and then we'd go and have a nice little lunch at the food court. That was a lot easier with only two kids. We didn't even talk about doing anything else this time. We all pretty much split our separate ways pretty quick :)

We had our first Christmas party on Sunday with my Mom's side of the family. We had a lot of fun.



Every time I point my camera at him he comes as close as he can and gets silly




Finn got a spiderman car. He wants anything spiderman.




Ryan opening her "ice beads" she couldn't even wait till we got home to start on them, she worked on them when we "stopped by" Nanny and Poppy's



So far I'm feeling pretty good about this Christmas. Obviously I have my moments of sadness but those are just always there. I'm not feeling overwhelmed, I'm not dreading getting together and doing our normal things. I'm relieved! I must have a lot of people praying for me because I don't know how else I'd be feeling this calm. I'm so thankful for this and I'm sure my kids and Corey are too.

Corey's been great this Christmas! I mean, he is every Christmas...but I needed him extra this one and most of my shopping trips he's been there helping me out. Last week he didn't have much going on for work and I had Peter one day, Ryan was at school and he and Finn had planned to go shop for cousin Jet so I asked if Peter and I could tag along and I'm not sure he was so happy about it at first because Peter and I were a little slow out the door but I just said "you know I'm home every day when everyone else is at work and now I have someone to "play" with so of course I'm going to jump at the opportunity to do something with someone who isn't 5 and younger" We ended up having a nice little morning.

After today (Tuesday) I'm taking the rest of the week to be with just my kids and finish getting ready for Christmas. We're pretty much done but we still need to make some goodies and of course clean the house before we bring back loads of stuff. We'll probably go visit my Mom's grave too, I just wish I could figure out something nice to leave on it. I'm so happy I decided to take days off this week. I knew it would be what I need to breath a little easier and not get frazzled which I tend to do for Holidays. I'm just praying for a nice Christmas for my whole family since it will obviously be sad thinking that just last year my Mom was here and doing everything we will be doing on Christmas Eve. Her spot in our annual game will be empty and that is going to be so hard! We are missing a lot this Christmas but we have so much to be thankful for. Years of happy, perfect Christmas's to remember. I told Corey just yesterday that I'm thankful that I feel fulfilled with the Mom that I had. She really did give us everything and more.