Today started our badly. I woke up at 3am cause Nathaniel refused to go to sleep after having eaten just a few hours prior. After a while of his wailing, I just gave up, nursed him again and thankfully we both passed out in our own beds. When I woke up, David had already taken his pullup off and put it outside (which he does every morning) but because something is wrong with our back door, it wouldn’t close. So he left it for me to do. And I couldn’t either. So I had to call an emergency line and they came an hour later to close it (not fix it. that won’t happen until after the holidays). While I am thankful that it’s now locked, I am annoyed that I can’t use it until January who knows when. I use this door 16 times a day. What crap.

Since I got so little sleep, I was in a total daze all day, even after two coffees. So finally, in the afternoon, I told David we should go take a walk. We all got bundled up and went out.

Since we were going to walk for about 20 mins, I got the dinky stroller we use for such occasions. I was worried Nathaniel might be too small for it, but it worked out ok.

I tried taking several photos of Nathaniel along the way:

But he either made funny faces or sucked his thumb. But the big one smiled wonderfully.

And then played around.

And then once the kids were down, I wrote some code. It was a long, long day. Hope yours was well.

As the numbers of this month get higher, I get sadder and sadder. I don’t want this year to end yet. Not because it was the most magical year (though it did have some amazing moments) but because I am not ready for 2010 yet. I haven’t finished my 2009 tasks yet (still got three tags to make.) and I need to rest a bit, too. Can time stop for just a tiny bit?

Today I was in an inexplicably grouchy mood. I think it’s cause Nathaniel struggled with all of his naps and hence I didn’t get enough quiet time and when he was awake, he was super-cranky so that didn’t help either. Not that you can tell from the photo.

And David was subject to a lot of my random frustrations. Even though I made up for it a little bit at the end of the day, he spent a lot of today doing workbooks and watching movies and trying to play quietly (though not succeeding a lot.)

I did work on my December Daily tonight and have almost all the pages done. I find that towards the end of the month, I get tired and my table gets really messy which drives me crazy and it all goes a bit wonky. Oh well.

Today I feel wiped. Maybe the laziness begets laziness. I am not motivated to do anything. Ugh.

I played around with Nathaniel’s photo today just for fun.

David’s still playing with his Christmas presents. Today he made a house with the screws. It was fun to watch him.

I am off to read a little while the little one naps. I hope your holiday weekend is full of laughter and joy.

Today was full of entertaining David. Jake and he played cards, made a puzzle, made legos together and then we attempted to decorate the gingerbread houses we made but the attempt was aborted when David was much more interested in eating the M&Ms then putting them on the house.

When Nathaniel woke up David played with him for a while and just hugged him spontaneously. And I just grabbed my camera and snapped.

I love these boys and I love seeing them together.

And then everyone played with their Christmas presents. David played Spongebob Operation and then with his gears and Nathaniel ate his toys.

I spent most of my day relaxing and reading and writing blog posts. And I started a new book. Falling even more behind than usual but I don’t care. I need time to do nothing for a while.

Christmas in our house started last night when David got to open one present.

As it turned out, it was a science toy so, of course, we got to working on it immediately.

While Nathaniel hung out with Daddy and relaxed.

Then, everyone went to bed and Nathaniel decided today was to start at 4:00am which is when he began crying and would not stop. So after we all woke up, he fell right back asleep and slept all the way until 8:30.

While he slept, I set the table.

This year, I’d decided to make some pancakes. The recipe was from the Barefoot Contessa book I have and it’s baked pancakes. I had never tried them before and while they look a bit funny, they actually tasted quite good.

David got “full” immediately because he knew we’d open presents after breakfast. And as soon as he was allowed, he opened everything in his stocking and moved on to his presents.

Since Nathaniel showed no interest in opening his, David kindly opened all of Nathaniel’s presents, too.

Here’s a shot of our room right after all the presents were opened.

After all the present-opening was done, Jake fell into a deep sleep on the living room couch.

While the kids both played with their new toys.

And then while Nathaniel napped, we all watched Mary Poppins and then Jake and David made some of David’s new pirate legos while I relaxed and worked on some upcoming posts.

And we ended the day by making some royal icing and preparing our graham-cracker gingerbread houses so we can decorate them tomorrow.

Baths, nursing, stories, snuggling and the kids were both asleep by 6:30. Now it’s time for us to relax and enjoy the last few hours of Christmas Day.

I hope your day was full of delight and joy like ours. I feel very blessed today.