The Big Family Christmas is coming to an end. My sister, her husband and kids flew home to Hawaii yesterday and my parents fly out on Wednesday. School starts for the kids on Thursday. Christmas with the cousins was amazing - everything a Christmas should be. Lots of family. Lots of laughs, lots of fun, cookie baking, game playing, present wrapping and unwrapping, movie watching, performances on the stage daddy built, scooter and plasma car riding, bowling, rock climbing, and the list goes on.
And guess what? This is huge - HUGE. My kids have been totally regulated. I'm going to say that one more time. My kids have been completely regulated. Our kiddo that struggles more with keeping regulated than the other has been, for over a week and counting, actively calming themselves down. We have caught them separating themselves from the group for some quiet coloring time, taking deep breaths, and practicing extreme flexibility amongst the chaos and upended routines of ten people crammed into an 1,100 square foot house. I can't express how proud I am. There is NO way this kiddo could have done this last Christmas, or probably even four months ago. We have done little out of the ordinary to support our kids over the past week. We did tons of front-loading before family arrived and then we pretty much just let them go. And they've handled it; they've handled it beautifully. I am so proud of them for the hard work and growth they've been demonstrating. I suspect we'll see some fallout when everyone finally flies off and we're back to our regular routine, but I'll gladly put up with whatever fallout they throw at us after this past week.
And so, with no further introduction, I present way more Christmas pictures than you'd ever want to see.
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| Exact same-age cousins. |
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| Making ornaments for the tree. |
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| Baking cookies for Santa. |
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| One present each on Christmas Eve. |
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| Tracking Santa on the computer. |
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| 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. |
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| Rollin' deep. |
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| Brothers In-Law |
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| Sisters. |
I never had cousins growing up. Before our family came out for the holidays Brent remarked that some of his best childhood memories were of Christmas-time. Not the gifts or the tree or anything like that, but the long days spent running with his cousins. This year the kids anticipation for winter break and Christmas was off the charts. I'm pretty sure they were not disappointed. This year we made memories that will last a lifetime. That's what Christmas is all about.
