Christmas at Our House

We had a wonderful Christmas. We actually started a day early, enjoying lunch together as part of our gift from Grama Kelly and Grampa Dave.

This morning, we awoke to a present-filled house:

And the chaos commenced!

 Josh has perfected fried rice, and really wanted a wok. He was so excited to open it!

Audri loves jewelry!

Donovan wanted a "big candy cane"... Audri gave it to him. :)

Donovan had also asked for a belt buckle and some hair gel - he has a mohawk, but didn't have the gel to fix it. 

Josh loved his Batman shirt from Holly!

Josh has wanted a hula-dancer for his car dash for a few years. I finally gave in. :) 

Audri thought Beckham gave her the perfect gift. :)

 

Donovan is pretty sure that he'll be able to attract the ladies now... thanks to Chase. :)

Audri, wearing her gift from up north!

Donovan fixed his hair for us. :)

We spent the afternoon playing games together - we actually played an entire game of Monopoly! After some quiet time (reading and/or napping) I started dinner. 

For dinner, I made beef wellington:

And I have a cheesecake ready for dessert. :)

We've had a food-filled day, but we've enjoyed every minute of it!

Merry Christmas!

Gingerbread People

We love to decorate gingerbread. It's one of our family traditions. :) We've tried houses in the past, but can't ever seem to make the houses stay standing. This year, I found a gingerbread people kit, so we tried that instead!

The kids, hard at work:

Our completed people!

 Josh's masterpieces...

 I got hungry, and had to eat a foot... :)

After Audri finished her people, she got into the icing...

It got a little messy. :) 

We did let the kids eat their people once we had some pictures:

It was a fun-filled night!

Decorating for Christmas

Tonight we decorated for Christmas! Audri hung the ornaments on the tree, while Josh and Donovan prepared the entryway.

I hung the stockings, which are our favorite holiday decoration. :) We love knowing that Gram took time to make them, just for us.

Our finished tree - we love the Christmas lights!

Once we finished the tree, we made sugar cookies!

I don't have cookie cutters, so we each made the shapes we wanted, cutting out our shapes with butter knives. I'm pretty impressed with us!

We had a great time decorating for Christmas, and being together!

Cookie Exchange

I participated in a cookie exchange yesterday. It's actually brilliant... there are so many yummy treats this time of year, so going to a cookie exchange allows friends to also bake treats and then we can share!

I came home with over 8-dozen cookies! I suppose I should share some... okay, most of them. And probably soon, before I eat them all!

I'm enjoying everything from pumpkin spice cookies to double-layer brownies, chocolate peanut clusters to cake balls, jam thumbprint cookies to chocolate chip bars... I prepared shortbread, and had an extra 4-dozen as well.

It's yummy at my house right now!