Great Grandma's Ornament

This is the sweetest story I've heard in a long time.  When the kids were here to set up the train, Emma asked about the ornaments on the tree.  She looked for and found all of her family's ornaments.  Then she asked about great grandma's ornament, wanting to see it. I explained that she was the one who started the tradition of getting a special ornament for each person's first Christmas, starting with Uncle Milo.  She didn't have one.
A week or so later, as the family was in the car to come down, Emma said she needed a minute and ran out of the car and into the house.  She took this angel off her tree, wrote on the back, put it in a gift bag, and got back in the car.  She carefully put her gift under our tree, and on Christmas, great grandma opened it up.  Great grandma now has a special ornament.  Thank you, sweet Emma.

Christmas Pictures Too Cute to Leave Out

Shopping downtown Huntington

Where is that pickle?

Christmas boxes almost done.

Mom's walker worked great for keeping the lights
offthe rug

Christmas came early...lots of bread!

story night

hot chocolate!

Build-a-bear

The girls got gift cards for build-a-bear for Christmas, so we braved the crowds at Downtown Disney. They loved picking our their bears and accessorizing them.  I particularly like Claire's matching glasses.  Thank you Todd and Kathy for the great present.

Annual Swing Picture

Everyone wasn't here together for a Sunday this year, so we had to get creative with our swing pictures.  Amy's family was here the week before Christmas for my choir program.

And Todd's family was here for church on Christmas morning.

 This is where they got creative.  I think photoshop was mentioned!

Santa Came

Christmas Eve Dinner

The number of people attending our dinner this year seemed to explode!  Every time I checked, there were more people coming.  We ended up with 14 adults and 15 kids.  Besides Amy, Todd, and their families we were joined by Mark, Kris, Matt, Lauren, and their three kids. (The baby was born last week!)  Also Mel, Alicia, and Corey came as well as Jared and his family.  Jared is my cousin Richard's son.

 The last time we had the kids eat in the garage, there was a food fight!  Sophie, aged 1 1/2 at the time was blamed for it!  Anyway, we tried it again with much better results this time.

The evening ended with the kids opening their Christmas pajamas and pictures being taken.

The Family Nativity

I love our family nativity.

Cookies, Cookies, Cookies

Skyzone

A lot of dodgeball was played

...and he's off!

He's on...

Some one on one.

And jousting...

...and the winner is!!!