Family Christmas

After traveling back home Christmas Day we set right to prepping for my sister Tracey and her family to visit on Saturday. Natasha was tasked with vacuuming again and still thinks it's a super fun job!

Tracey has 2 daughters, Kaydan and Michaela, ages 10 & 16 and a son Christopher, age 13.  It was awesome to have all of them in the house for the weekend. Natasha did super well early in the day and looked very happy opening her presents. She said they don't celebrate Christmas in the orphanage so this was her first time ever (I apologize for the video quality, I was taking it with a baby crawling up my arm).

Natasha, Hayley & Michaela had a great time playing on the internet for a while, practicing their selfie skills and texting each other while in the same room (I still don't get the point of that - teenagers I guess).

Making Smores in the Living Room

Later in the day we played a fun game of Charades but Natasha didn't want to participate and was fairly irritable and sad for the rest of the day.  It's the first time we'd seen that from her and we're not quite sure what the cause was but she turned it around by next morning.  It's a pretty common response for children from these situations. They look at the joy & happiness of Christmas and a family gathering and realize that they've been missing out their entire lives on what others take for granted. And in Natasha's case, she may never have another Christmas unless she finds a family.

She did however set right to work on making the fleece blanket she received as a present and by the end of the day she had it completed and was curled up on the couch with it.