Sleepy Boxing Day :)

Another quick post like last night's - I must actually WRITE about Christmas, but I haven't sorted out the photos yet. Today Neil's mum and his brother came over for the day! It's so nice to see my mother-in-law because she lives up north and we rarely see her. But usually at Christmas she comes down to stay with Neil's sister who lives about an hour from our house - in the same town that Neil works in, actually! :) So we see her then. We are going over to Rosemary's house on Tuesday for the day so we'll see her again (and Ian - Neil's brother - again too), but Rosemary and her hubby and girls were with her in-laws today so they couldn't come to us.

We had a lovely day, and more presents for the boys from Grandma! They went out for a walk while Benjamin napped and I spend a really nice hour chatting quietly with MIL in a peaceful house. I love talking with her about God, about scriptures, about prayer, about spiritual discipline, etc, because I don't have any other relatives who I can talk with in person about things like that. My family are all very NON-Christian, and Neil's siblings are Christians but not awfully "practicing" at the moment, so to speak. I just love (ADORE!!!!) God and right now I want to talk about Him and anything related to Him as much as anyone will let me! :) I love to talk with people who are passionate about Jesus like I am. It's soooo nice to relax and chat with MIL about God's goodness and our experiences and so on. Really nice! I love love love having married into a Christian family.

Nathan had no chance for a nap today. He was excited all morning with the visitors, and then they watched a Thomas the Tank Engine movie which he didn't want to miss, of course! Nathan is our latest EXTREME Thomas fan. First it was Arthur, and then Matthew, and those boys still love Thomas, but Nathan has recently become HARD-CORE, hehe! ;) We got him a Thomas jigsaw puzzle for Christmas with 13 pieces and he's doing great putting it together. He tries really hard and gets frustrated if it doesn't work for him. He got this Thomas movie on DVD so he was thrilled with that. And a few Thomas books. And other non-Thomas presents! ;)

So after the movie and lunch it was time for an outing to the park to go on the swings and run about with Uncle Ian. We didn't venture out on Christmas Day so they all needed a serious run-about today! So Nathan went, and missed his nap therefore. He did so well, even though he was tired. He didn't get upset or whiney, and he took a REAL liking to Uncle Ian. I think he might finally be outgrowing his cry-in-terror-at-strangers phase!!!! I'm so glad!! That was a lonnnng phase! ;) He climbed on Uncle Ian for cuddles and stories a lot, and was not shy even of Grandma.

We ate spaghetti bolognese for lunch, and then a buffet dinner of a whole mixed bunch of things, pasta dishes, mashed potato, cold chicken, cheese, boiled eggs, pickles (mmm!), salad, veg, etc, etc. The boys had sandwiches and picked at the above stuff too. Nathan was so sleepy that he started to nod during dinner, and it was so sweet that I got the (new!) camera to take a video clip. I didn't get the zoom right which is annoying because it should have been zoomed in way more to see him more clearly. Also the quality isn't ideal for seeing the fine detail of his eyes rolling around in his head, hahaha! ;) Soooo sweet and funny! I had a hard time holding the camera still sometimes because I was laughing so much! He just looked so sweet still stuffing his face with food and yet his eyes rolling up into his head and then his eyelids coming down, hehe! Matthew used to do that (not Arthur. Arthur never slept. At all!) but he would doze off with food clenched in his fist, not moving it. Nathan was dozing off the most when he was actually putting food in his mouth and chewing it, for some reason, and at the time it was just so comical!

Anyway, I uploaded the video clip and here it is. Never mind the mess in the background. Be glad you can't see the rest of the kitchen! *sigh* We moved the table out so that more of us could fit around it, but even so we still had one person standing/eating later :S Also, please note the bit later in the clip where Nathan picks up a piece of bread and starts to eat it, dislikes the taste and so lets it fall out of his mouth with a yucky expression, and then proceeds to put the piece of bread over onto Matthew's plate, haha! ;)

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Sweet sleepy little boy! We put them to bed as soon after 6pm as we could manage, and they were all asleep around 6.30 or 6.45pm. Then Neil's folks stayed a couple more hours. He showed his brother his flying/shoot-'em-up game on the computer, and I played Scattegories with MIL. I love word games and board games at Christmas, and she does too! All our board games are packed into the loft to save space in the house, but Scattegories is easy to play with just paper and pencils. It was fun! I won! ;)

Will write more soon. I'm already getting in gear for the New Year. As SOON as Christmas is finished it seems like my mind shifts gear and starts going all resolution-y! I never seem to stick to New Year's Resolutions and don't particularly plan to make any (though I still may, for some sort of basic structure/goal for the year), but I do already feel excited about the start of 2010 - a new decade too! Things like homeschooling, and also getting this place cleaned up once and for all! And training (yes, I said training) the children this year. That's about the most important thing I need to work on. They need to learn to obey and respect Neil and I this year way more than they need to learn to read and write and add and subtract. And learn about God more than that. So I'm excited about the year ahead, and starting to work through my thoughts and ideas and goals in preparation, which is fun! :)