'Tis Mercy All: A Happy Christmas, First Days with Baby

I started a Christmas post + baby update many days ago, but since then, we have had a 6-day trip out of town to Christmas with family and now we are home dealing with illness and a newborn. Thankfully, it's not the newborn who's ill, but poor BH. He and CA got sick while Back Home, and BH is struggling to kick this. BB took him to the doctor yesterday, who sent them to the ER, where they determined he has a mild case of pneumonia, which we're treating with prayer and some meds.

We had a lovely visit from my parents the Monday and Tuesday before Christmas, in which they met and got to know Baby ME. They went Back Home about midday Wednesday, leaving a houseful of very excited, energized kids and two parents with a few preparations left to handle. BB got a sudden fever and felt badly for much of Christmas Eve, but we were able to sit down as a family before bedtime for Advent Devotions, thankfully. You can see BH's rapt attention, as he passes the salt to MK... (wink).

I love it that all the kids piled into our room and onto our bed at 6:15am, even though we'd both had a bad night's (attempt at) sleep...it means that childhood is still in effect, to some degree, from the top down...

The six oldest girls had all slept in the same room on the floor, and hence were all awake at once Christmas Morning. BH was a little late to the game, since he had the quiet of his own room.

Before presents, we spent some time on the 25th day of our Advent readings. We have a little calendar on the wall with moveable, velcro-attached nativity scene figures. This is what we use to help the smallest ones understand Christmas better.

More evidence of BH (and CJ's) rapt attention...check out these wiggles! Ha!

I think BH was the first to open a gift: two Matchbox cars from MK. He love, love, loved this gift and carried them around in his hand for hours!

We all had so much fun discovering what thoughtfulness others had planned for us. The kids worked hard to earn money to buy gifts for each other and did such a sweet job of choosing special items, keeping them a secret, and wrapping them up, all by themselves.

BB and I enjoyed seeing the kids' delight as they opened different surprises we had prepared for them. There were lots of smiles! BB is a master of thoughtful creativity, so I had a lot of fun seeing what he got for me, too.

Always snapping photos of our chubby cheeked blessing. She does appear to have a dimple like CJ and BH. We'll see if another one shows itself over time!