Christmas Day 2016

Christmas was wonderful but apparently I spent more time enjoying the moment than documenting the fun with pictures, which is I suppose the way it should be. Here are a few pictures of the girls opening their presents from us and Santa.

After we finished opening presents at our house, we headed to my parents' house and opened presents with them and my sister. Didn't get any shots of that action, but I did get this pic of Olivia and my dad playing with the new chess set they gave her. Smart little cookie! She tried to teach me a few days later and I'm still confused. Ha ha.

After a tasty brunch with my family, we came home, relaxed a bit, and started to prepare for hosting dinner at our house. Yusaku's parents came over a little before dinner so we could exchange gifts with them. The kids got a fun magformer set where you can build your own robots and Obaachan and Ojiichan worked together to build the girls a beautiful doll couch.

building a robot

We had a delicious dinner, including my new favorite holiday recipe, Brussels Sprout Gratin! I sopped up every last drop and if it wasn't such a labor of love, I think I'd make it every week! After dinner, my parents and sister exchanged presents with Yusaku's parents and we had a nice time hanging out and visiting. It was a wonderful Christmas!

the best picture I have of the whole group before we started eating
at least Olivia is smiling, even if her eyes are closed ;)

Playing Olivia's new Spot-It game from my parents

Natalie playing with her new Scratch Art with Aunt Sarah

This is the "I remembered at the end of the night that I didn't
have any pictures of the four of us" picture