Our lovely kids

There are photos that are good, there are photos that are clever, there are photos that represent an occasion, and then there are the photos that aren't particularly good or clever or representative, they just make you grin from ear to ear.
I love this photo.

We had a lovely slow start to the day. No one woke up early, no one got up early. I don't think we were all downstairs in the sitting room and opening presents until 9.30. I loved sitting in my pyjamas, tea in hand, watching their faces, and witnessing all my hard work and planning turn into a massive mess and genuine gratitude.
We stayed home until 2pm and had no guests for lunch. which meant everything was really simple and stress-free. In fact, I think I only snapped briefly three times today - which is pretty good, considering I have PMS.

After lunch we took Dylan for a walk on the beach and the teens didn't wear particularly practical footwear (there's a surprise!), so Richard gave Gemma a piggyback across the stream. Apart from the footwear thing the teens managed to put their cool thing aside for most of the day and seemed to enjoy themselves even though the wind was pretty unpleasant. (Oh - Ha ha! - I do mean the cold winter wind. Not the sprout wind!)

Then we went off to Richard's mum's house for the rest of the afternoon where there were at least 12 other people already and it was almost a little too warm and cosy.

Richard's been suffering with a cold for a few days and this evening it's moved to his chest. On top of that, the improvement offered by his last course of steroids has worn off, his polyps are back, he has no sense of smell and his breathing sounds laboured.
It's such a shame.

I feel pretty satisfied that we didn't spoil our children today. The way they behaved and their gratitude has proved that to me today. They've been lovely.