Christmas Day the Instagram Way

Hello everyone!I hope you had a joyful Christmas, full of good memories-in-the-making.  We had a very hectic-busy-crazy-actionpacked pre-Christmas weekend - with children coming home to roost for the Christmas holiday.  Lou and her guy came breezing through our front door first, all tanned and relaxed from their honeymoon cruise.  Then all the other his, mine, and ours slowly trickled in until we had children and pets and noise and activity filling every single nook and cranny of Casa de Chaos.  That picture at the top of this blog?  It's missing two working sons, some crazy yapping doggies, a couple psycho cats - and a partridge in a pear tree.  I baked, and last minute shopped, and wrapped gifts, and sang Christmas carols, and even sang in the church choir on Christmas Eve. 

 

Why am I telling you all this?  Because I want you to see how someone who LIVES for scrapbooking and photographing those special moments could have been so sleep deprived (and maybe a teeny-tiny bit high on sugar from all the "test bites" I had to take) that I forgot to check my camera battery - on the main camera, on the good point-and-shoot camera, and on the back-up point-and-shoot.  And guess which camera had a completely dead battery Christmas morning?  If you guessed not just one but all three, you would be correct!

But, hey, it was Christmas morning - and I was happy and all of my family was happy.  So rather than stress about it - or attempt to make everyone hold off on opening gifts until a battery charged ('cuz you know that wasn't going to happen) - I whipped out my phone and Instagrammed all the highlights. And that was okay. 

I got the new son-in-law happily modeling his new boots...

 

...while wearing the "very manly" pajama pants (with images of doggies wearing antlers) that just happened to match his father-in-law's and brother-in-law's pajama pants (courtesy of the BEST mom in the world a/k/a ME!)

 

 

Don't worry, the hubster wasn't upset in the least about wearing matching pajama pants (because, hey, they were "manly" pajama pants, after all).  But I think he was a very teeny little bit put out that now he has two people in the family who are taller than he is.  See?  Look at his feet.  He is standing on his tippy-toes because he wants so badly to be the tallest!!!

Then there was Jesse - who has the best sense of humor.  And, apparently, a thing for my Kalliebeth's sparkly, glittery hat.

 

He r-e-a-l-l-y likes to include himself in pictures.  Not a shy bone in that boy's body.  Can you tell?

 

This was the first year that the Childe got more clothes than toys for Christmas.  Considering the fact that she was trying to wear everything all at once, I don't think she minded too much.  What do you think?

 

Like her big sister, she likes sparkly things, too.  Fortunately, Jesse drew the line at trying on her sparkly skirt - but I suspect it was only because the skirt was too small to fit him properly!

 

Even my big girls let me get a pic of them in their matching pajamas without grumbling One.Single.Time.  It was truly a day of Christmas miracles - ha!

 

 

After a few hours of festivities and feasting Christmas morning, many of the adult kids had to start heading back to their homes or off to see other relatives.  Of course, I made sure that I snapped "just one more pic" before each of them left.

 

 

Until finally, finally, only the youngest two birdies who haven't yet flown the nest were left.  They were in their rooms, quietly playing with their new loot.  I turned around and the hubster was clearly "resting his eyes" for a minute. (Notice the little ball of fur squinched down next to him - apparently one of our doggies needed to rest her eyes, too!)

 

 

...and with that, I finally sat down, took a deep breath for the first time in days, and closed my own eyes for a minute or two.

 

I will be back with new projects in a few days, so stay tuned!  Until then, hoping your Christmas was all that you dreamed and wishing you a Happy New Year - full of peace, love, and crafting!