Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas. I hope your Christmas was a wonderful one.
What follows is lots of pictures of our families Christmas celebration, but before I start with the stories of the day, come into my house. Welcome.
This is taken from the front door. See my fabulous tree on the right. I have lit garland on the banisters of the stairwell and above the doors at the end of the hallway (dining room)

This Santa is on the entry way table. I made this years ago and it remains one of my favorite decorations. Over the years it has been in everyroom, standing on floors and now on the table.

My 2 beautiful girls with their wonderful husbands.

Sandra holding one of the pictures that Scott had enlarged for his girlfriend Destiny. Sandra did the hard work and put the pictures in the frames, perfectly perfect.

My 2 girls that I love dearly, and you can see Stephanies baby bump that is our grandaughter Adelaide.

Sandra and Tyler with his very red beard. He loves his beard, but promised Sandra that he will shave it off January 1st....Sandra is counting the days.

Jim and Stephanie with their new camera. We helped pay for it for their Christmas gift.

Jeff and I. I am wearing the apron that Scott and Destiny gave me. It is so cute with lemons all over it, reversable and the skirt flares out just like a dress. It is the cutest apron I have every seen.

Me in my apron standing in front of my Christmas present from Jeff. It is the remaining 6 replacement windows for the rest of the house. The are double paned and very energy efficient.
I have wanted these, and I think I might have suggested it to Jeff a time or two over the past year. He was so amazing to order them for me. Once again my gift to him fell far short of his to me.

I love this picture. It is Scott with a pair of 3D glasses on. When you looked at any light it made a snowman appear around the light. Shake your head and you had dancing snowmen. Look at the Christmas tree and you had hundreds of snowmen. Tyler's mother found them and gave them to us. Scott is kneeling on the ground resting on the otterman and playing with a large bowl of colored glass ornaments.

Scott with Bella girl. I am not sure if she is happy or just resigned to being stood on her back feet and having Scott play with her.

Bella with the Christmas paper, which she loves to shred.

Over the past year Jeff has been telling me that something he always wanted to do was go bird watching (who is this man?). He loves to watch hawks in particular. For his gift I purchased him a really nice pair of binoculars....recommended by the birding society. He was very happy, he had something to play with, fiddle with, figure out and try out. ...basically a toy to play with.

This is a perfect Sandra gift. I saw it and had to buy it for her....a lable maker so she can lable everything. It goes along with her love of organizing things. She went home and used it that night.

Scott with his new snowboarding jacket. I tried to talk him into one that was more visible ...just in case, I thought a lime green and orange color combo would be better, but apparently he didn't like my suggestion, in fact he laughed at me when I suggested it.

the girls with more gifts.

this is Adelaide's outfit from Sandra.

I had 3 tables decorated for my Christmas Day breakfast, this the kitchen table, red and gold themed.

table number 2, the center pieces were all trees. The plates also had a tree theme.

Table #3, in the dining room, gold and sliver themed. In the middle were 3 candle holders.

This is Scott making Destiny's present. It has 6 pictures that he spent HOURS/DAYS working on. Editing them, printing them, getting everyone's opinion on. (he pretty much drove us all crazy while making this) He cut them to size, glued them to the board and then covered it with a resin mix. Once you pour the resin on the picutres you have to 'huff' on the resin to remove the bubbles-this took forever to do. The end result is a really beautiful collage of pictures preserved under a thick glossy covering. Destiny loved it.

On the afternoon of the 24th we celebrated Christmas with the kids, we had potatoe cheese soup with home made breadrolls. We opened gifts and I was overwhelmed by my childrens generosity. next year I am going to have to make sure they all understand the 'spending limit'. The girls Jeff and I watched the movie Elf and the boys played a game. Dessert was a peach cobbler. At 6:30 I took Jim and Stephanie to the Long Beach airport for their flight to Salt Lake City to see Jim's family. I stayed up until 11:30 preparing my Christmas day brunch dishes.

On Christmas Day I was up at 6:30 cooking again. I love having this brunch so the work is not a problem, I just really enjoy it when everyone shows up to eat and visit. People arrived at 9:30 and the last ones left around 1:30. For dinner there was only Scott and Jeff and I so we had steak and baked pototoes. Having Scott with us gave us an opportunity to talk to him and enjoy his company.

Today the 26th, I was up early and out shopping with Debbie and her friend Tammy. I only picked up a few things for Christmas next year and had a great time. I am most excited about finding the ornaments that I am going to start using next year. They are about 3", white enamel set in silver in the shape of a snowflake. I am goint to take pictures of my grandbabies and put them in the center. I also learnt from listening to Tammy that I need to rethink my complete gift wrapping process. Starting next year, I will be color coordinated and themed, with ribbons and bows. Well I will start with being color coordinated and work slowly on the rest.

It was a great Christmas. I hope yours was a good.