Things have settled down a little here on Christmas Day, so I thought I would take a minute to update the blog. It is amazing what a difference a week makes! We have had people over to the house over the last several days and the overriding observation is that the girls seem so much happier and settled in this week over last! And, I would agree. They seem to be settling into what it is like to live in the Bernadsky household!

I told you previously that the girls had discovered our Wii, so for a family gift Kelly and I went and bought a couple of new games and some new controllers as the ones we had were original and were showing their age. We had the kids pick numbers yesterday afternoon and the winner got to open the present, which was Caleb.

We all went down and played Wii yesterday afternoon, with Jessie, Riley, and Leah on a steep learning curve with a bunch of competitive children all yelling and directing each others movements. I had THOUGHT that a game that four players could play together would be a positive thing, and ultimately it was, but we had to bring down the level of competition a little bit…

Last night the kids opened presents from my parents, who live in Arkansas with my sister, Nicole, and her husband, Josh. They were not able to come up here this year, so they sent presents on ahead. Everyone was in a festive mood waiting patiently to open the presents.

We went youngest to oldest, so started with Mia.

Then Caleb and Luke opened their cap rifles.

My parents got Jessie, Leah, and Riley nice necklaces.

Riley more than the others struggles a little with the attention aspect, which is amazing because of the three she is the most outgoing and wants to interact with people. But she doesn’t necessarily appreciate all of the attention being on her! So, when it comes to presents, she is somewhat of an unwilling participant!

The boys modeled their gift cars well!

We put them all to bed (including the older boys who complained about having to lie in their beds and stare at the ceiling, seeing that it was “only” 11:30) and pulled out the presents. It takes up a lot of real estate to lay out twelve stockings!

This morning Kelly had to make her way downstairs past all the kids waiting patiently on the stairs!

We have a rule that you can’t come downstairs until everyone is ready, then you come down, open your stocking, and have a little breakfast. After that, the main presents get opened.

Some waited with great expectation!

Others waited comfortably.

And yet others seems a little irritated with the process!

But once they were all ready we were able to take a quick photo!

Off they went to open their stockings!

After that, and a quick breakfast, we Skyped my parents so that they could participate with us as we opened the rest of our presents.

Kelly’s parents came over for our traditional Christmas Day brunch and the sixteen of us sat down to share some time together!

After brunch, the girls got involved in building their Lego sets!

And Ali took a little spin on her new bike!

It is interesting to see the girls concern over cost, which was first evident while we were in China but really came up today! I think we are fairly modest in the amount of presents we purchase for the kids, but the girls were very concerned over how much everything cost us. Leah received a new set of paints and an easel and we told her we needed to buy something solid for her to paint against, but she said no that she could make due and that we didn’t need to spend the money. Riley, also, commented on how much everything cost. That is something new to us in that Ali never mentioned it and, in fact, Ali was pretty “Americanized” within a few months of being here!

Tonight we all travel to my in-laws house for Christmas with Kelly’s parents and siblings. Between the four families, there is something like 26 grandkids, so there will be a LOT of people! We will see how the girls do with just a large group of people!

Cameorn