So. Much. Christmas.

Merry Christmas! 

It's been a pretty wonderful, pretty hectic Christmas over here.

Lots of presents.

This is the least blurry one.
They were pretty thrilled to be opening stockings.

SOCKS!

Toddler chopsticks

We give the kids a new ornament every Christmas. This year I had to make 3!

Opening books. The boys got Stone Soup, A Time to Keep,
How My Parents Learned to Eat and Lullabies and Goodnight

'Stache trying to instruct Munchkin in the ways of wearing all the clothes one gets at Christmas on one's head.

The bulldozers (pronounced "bu'dozer" or "bulldo'er") were a big hit.

We meant to set out their hobby horses so they'd see
them as soon as they came in the den, but we forgot, so
 the boys just opened them from the packing box.

Munchkin's new sweater

Lots of people we love.

Somehow this is the only picture of my brother this Christmas.

My brother-in-law has this face about 90% of the time
when he's with our family.

This is about as happy as the cousins picture got. Sigh.

Munchkin had had a long day, and decided maybe
a little catnap seemed like a good idea.

The cousins loved the tie-dye shirts the boys made them!

Soooo much family!

Lots of talking about Mei-Mei. (What I'm going to be calling our daughter on this blog. Mei-Mei is Chinese for Little Sister.)

No pictures of Mei-Mei.

Right now we're not allowed to post pictures of her online.

:-(

Lots of gingerbread-house-making.

Caroline was the director of the Forced Family Fun, a
gingerbread house contest. She was awesome. There was
even theme music.

It was lots of fun to design a gingerbread house
with 'Stache

Left to right, Most Eco-Friendly, Best Modern House, Best Traditional House

Lots of stuffed animals.

Only one Christmas Sweater.

Lots of food. (More about the food later!)

Christmas tree biscuits!

Lots of pregnancies.

Pregnancies? Yes. Pregnancies. I feel pretty confident we will not be spending another Christmas so closely connected to so many pregnancies. The odds are just too high. Of the four eligible (being both married and of childbearing years) women on my mother's side of the family, three were pregnant (counting 'Stache and I as being paper-pregnant). On 'Stache's mother's side of the family, 4 of the 5 (again counting 'Stache and I) were expecting a blessed event. The kicker? 4 of the 6 are due in July and 'Stache and I could quite reasonably be bringing home our own little blessed event in July also.

'Stache and I, 'Stache's cousin and his wife, 'Stache's sister (!!!) and husband, 'Stache's cousin and husband,
all with ornaments that 'Stache's aunt gave us.

Going to be a pretty incredible month, July.