Merry Christmas! Happy Everything! My parents left today after spending a few days celebrating the holiday with us. I took too many pictures of some things and none at all of others (why didn’t I take a picture before we went to church? No idea.) but the baby took a nice nap today so I had time to cull and edit what I got, so here’s our Christmas weekend in photos.

My mom has worked at Target forever. Almost 20 years, I think. She got me a job at her store when I was 15, then I opened 3 stores in South Carolina when I was in college, worked at another when we were stationed in Virginia Beach, and started working for our district office until we were moved here to Connecticut. So we both love Target way, way too much. One of her co-workers makes and designs shirts, so these were a very appropriate gift. They say “Dear Santa, Just take me to Target”.

Christmas Eve, ready for Santa!

Christmas Morning!

I really, really, REALLY tried to go with useful and wanted over quantity this year. Santa brought the big kids new kid Kindle Fires plus a few small things on their list (Caroline asked for socks and notebooks, Evan asked for a laser gun and Legos, so that was pretty easy). From us they got some clothes and lots of books. Extended family did a great job with thoughtful, fun things the kids have been playing with intently. We’re doing one more mini-Christmas when my in-laws visit in a few days.

I hope you and yours had a beautiful and merry holiday too! We’re going to treat the rest of winter break as extended Christmas, so more matching jammies to come!

Surprise! I’m catching up on my blog so you get two of these in a row.

Sunday:

Caroline took 2 dozen Nutcracker selfies

The Garde Arts Center in New London

I’ve taken this same picture almost every day this week

Monday:

SO MONDAY

Totally normal way to drink water.

He really loves his baby oranges

Tuesday:

This Tuesday is also very Monday

First try! I totally forgot how to do it but he liked being up there.

MATCHING

Wednesday:

Parking lot nursing sesh

Daddy doing an Elsa braid

MORE MATCHING

Thursday:

Red velvet cheesecake thumbprints

Beautiful toddler cookies

Superman helps make dinner

Friday:

More of me NOT walking the kids to the bus stop

Static hairs

Skeptical baby is always skeptical

Saturday:

Winter wonderland

Super cool superman

Caroline and her new best friend Kit at her birthday dinner

I was looking for an old post on the blog this week and ended up scrolling through tons of these iPhone photo posts from weeks 210-220. It was SO fun to see what we were doing 100 weeks ago (Evan was getting head stitches, I wore Lincoln in a lot of wraps, Caroline smiled). So even though this is a full 2 weeks late, I’m vowing to catch up and do better in 2017.

Sunday:

Baking day!

Helpers

Most of these are gone now.

Monday:

You go to the bus stop, I’ll stay on the porch out of the snow.

Penguin wearing

Making kale salad (which was delicious)

Tuesday:

Kitchen helper

Seriously, my kids LOVE cooking

At the Polar Express

Wednesday:

Cute brother time

King of Bedhead

More cooking

Thursday:

Blanket? Scarf? Blanket scarf!

I keep wearing this kid so I never get to wear the baby

Cookie makers

Friday:

Very patient cat

Snoozing through the Velvet Mill Holiday Market

Stuffing his face with dinner cupcake

Saturday:

They asked me to take their picture and posed

Again, this was at Caroline’s request

BEBEH SUSPENDERS

That last picture is from the day we took our family photos so I could order Christmas cards. Today, most people should GET our Christmas cards in the mail, thanks to my quick editing, remembering to buy stamps last week, and Minted’s amazing addressing service (not sponsored, I paid them a ton of money for cards, but the envelope address printing is SO WORTH IT). Almost all the wrapping and gift buying is done too, so most of this week I just get to relax and do Christmasy stuff like more baking, planning fancy Christmas appetizers, and watching Christmas movies. I might even get a long winter’s nap or too, because E has most of the week off. IT’S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR.

This was my first attempt at twinkle light bokeh photos, almost exactly 5 years ago. 

Here is the best one. It was a total accident because I had no idea how to use my camera.

I took some more for our Christmas card in 2014, but for some reason I never blogged them?! That seems very unlike 2014 Suzanne. She blogged everything. Not like this lazy cow 2016 Suzanne who can’t even do once a week. But I’ve looked through every post from the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015 and can’t find them.

For posterity, here’s the best one from that set:

And this year, I attempted them with all FOUR of my children. Finnegan is still super skeptical of group shots and being held by his siblings. He is pretty sure that’s neglect, and I should rethink my life choices for allowing it.

But capturing matching jams and twinkly lights is my favorite and I’m going to take this photos every year for as long as I have even one child who will cooperate.

This year’s jams were a gift from my friends at Gymboree, who are the best. Finding jams that fit ages infant to big kid isn’t always easy, but we’ll be able to match for years in gymmies.

(Also, I’m actually sort of horrified by how much bigger my children are. This is not ok. Why do they grow so fast?!)

Here’s my quick 30-second list of tips if you want to take twinkle light photos yourself.

1. White lights on white cord on a white background.
2. The further away from the lights you can place the kids, the blurrier the lights will be.
3. Set your DSLR camera on A or AP (so you control the aperture) and use the smallest number your lens allows.
4. Use natural light (besides the Christmas lights) if possible, otherwise your photos will be really yellow.
5. Don’t be afraid to crop after the fact – if the edge of your backdrop shows, just cut it out when you’re editing/looking at your pictures on the computer.

Let me know if you try, I LOVE this kind of pictures!

I’m a week late, but in my defense I have four kids. That’s basically the reason for everything these days. Why does your hair look like that? Why is there a hole in your pants? Why are you eating corn chips for breakfast? Why can’t you remember to mail Christmas gifts? How come your Christmas tree looks like it’s losing a fight?

Four. Kids.

Sunday:

Christmas!!

I did not do this OR take this picture

Brothers

Monday:

Linc is obsessed with Octonauts

He also really likes my nativity

Tuesday:

Watching Octonauts

TBH we BOTH fell asleep face down on the couch

Gross weather

Wednesday:

Sleep smirking

We brush their hair and it STILL looks like that

Raise your hand if you are 3 months old

Thursday:

Pre-coffee tantrums are intolerable

Linc says these are Peso pajamas

I don’t even love them but this is REALLY good

Friday:

Skeptical of his hedgehog shirt

Perhaps rightly so

Piano lesson car selfie (why is it SO DARK at 5 pm??)

Saturday:

Horse drawn carriage ride in Mystic

Prettiest advent calendar I’ve ever had

Demanding more Octonauts

It feels like we – especially Linc – watch a lot of TV these days. But that’s because four kids. If there’s a chance Finn will sleep for an hour or two we are definitely staying home and I need them to not act like wild animals. TV is really the only way that happens. 6 months from now we’ll be at the lake every day again and they’ll forget what TV even looks like.