Probably my favourite pictures each year happen on Christmas morning. Of course though. My three kids all in their jammies, in great moods, fully accepting that my BFF camera will be joining us. What’s not to love?

Well….I guess it’s easy to say this NOW….now that nearly a month has passed us by and all the feelings of “why do we do Christmas?” that creep in around Dec 27th have faded.

NOW I love to look through these sweet and funny pictures.

Ahem…..to keep it magical though….I will skim over that part.

I know I have some family out there who have been waiting to see these soooooo here they are, with only a LITTLE blabbering from me 🙂

Our Christmas morning routine starts with the kids waking us up bright and early, climbing into our bed and opening stockings together (easily my favourite part of the day) although this year was laughably different. We woke up at the crack of dawn…..on our own. We could hear the kids awake, in one of the bedrooms….playing a TWENTY MINUTE LONG GAME OF EYE SPY. Yeah. For real.
Are you ready? They were letting us sleep in!

With stockings done and strewn about the bed, we head downstairs for breakfast.

Okay okay this is the part where I will stop talking. On to the gift giving….

ONE NOTE: This first picture does a great job of summing up how the entire day went (for the most part) with the two older kids happy, thankful and loving…..and our youngest. Being herself. Keeping it real. Does not hide her feelings.

we got Willow books that we thought she could relate to…

we mistakenly thought she would love this fancy princess-eque dress…..

Ki however LOVES her batman tee…..phew…

Possibly Ki’s most loved gift, her very own super hero costume. She wore it for a full week before I finally peeled it off of her.

Yep. That is our girl ❤

This is me of course…opening the baseball bat I always wanted (well….sort of….I mean that isn’t a REAL shark and there is no knife strapped to it but….) it was a hilarious surprise from my husband who apparently DOES listen when I talk, now and then.

The cutest moment of the day was when Quin gave the girls the gifts that he shopped for, picked out and paid for all on his own. He couldn’t have hoped for a happier response, especially from our sour puss Willow who opened her pegasus and exclaimed in her loudest voice “I ALWAYS WANTED ONE OF THESE!!” and nearly popped his head off with a bear hug ❤

Ki too was given something picked out especially for her from her big bro, a make your own plush cactus for our crafty girl, which she has already completed and creatively named…..cacti. cac-tee.

mmmHmmm…..

Don’t get the wrong impression. It is 95% craft supplies, clothes and books….

We didn’t get our family pictures by the tree this year, but I did get the kids with my Dad, so I am happy with that 🙂

We lovingly started a collection for my Dad about 10 years ago. He didn’t know it at the time but he loves collecting statues of bulls (insert laughing face here…..) and this year we happened upon this perfect addition to his unwanted bull statues. Though it is all just an ongoing joke…that happy face tells me he secretly loves his collection.

oh yeah….and I went way out of my usual healthy treat zone and gave them each a tin full of questionable goodies. I WISH so hard that we were videotaping when Willow opened hers….the delight was almost terrifying.

and that’s that. I didn’t bring my camera along to any other family events as I usually do in order to actually just sit down and relax…….next year it comes with me. I missed everything 😦 I prefer seeing things through my lens, it is my memory keeper. Lesson learned.

That’s it. A month has about gone by and now it is time to focus on….planning next Christmas. HELP! HELP!