Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Christmas 2017

We enjoyed a lovely Christmas celebration at home here in Texas this year. 

On Christmas Eve the girls usually only get to open one present (their Christmas pajamas), but since it was on Sunday this year, I decided to let them open their new Christmas dresses before church.


We decorated sugar cookies together in the afternoon. Can you tell whose is whose?


We feasted on our traditional (for us, at least) Christmas Eve dinner of cold cereal. The favorite this year (meaning the one that got eaten up the quickest) was Brenna's Tootie Frooties, followed closely by McKell's Marshmallow Mateys. I just barely finished off the last of Ashlyn's Golden Puffs today!


The story of the Nativity was re-enacted. Russ played his usual double role of Joseph/donkey.


Here are the lovely ladies modeling their new PJs. I learned my lesson a few years ago when I bought the four of them identical jammies, and Kaylee just about died. I think I was successful this year with finding individual ones they were each excited about (Kaylee - Harry Potter, Ashlyn - Descendants, Brenna - Shopkins, McKell - Frozen)


I didn't take very many pictures of the actual Christmas Day this year, but everyone was happy and content and enjoying their gifts. (And Russ made me promise not to make anyone clean anything up all day - that was hard!)


McKell's gift from Santa was a Barbie house (or mansion, as she calls it). It's taller than her, and may have taken Santa's elves some extra hours of work to get it all together. Brenna and Ashlyn both got bikes. 


And Kaylee got a new piano. We bought a smaller digital piano 5 years ago when she first started taking lessons, but she's progressed enough now that she was ready for something nicer (and something with all the keys in working order - there was one key on the other piano that brought nothing but silence when it was pressed). She has been playing piano WAY more since Christmas. :)


Ashlyn and Brenna both opted to give me some homemade gifts this year. They were up late Christmas Even finalizing their preparations.

Brenna put together some little sock puppets and put on a puppet show for me.


And Ashlyn's gift may be one of the most memorable gifts I've ever received. I'm qutie sure NO ONE else could have come up with this idea. She wheeled out a cardboard box, with a cardboard cutout of a snowman, and a toy shopping cart filled up with wadded up paper balls. What?

The snowman's word bubble says: Anne! It's your turn. Throw as many paper snowballs at Ashlyn as you want. Then let your family use the rest if there's extra!

Apparently she felt that on the night we all played out in the snow a few weeks prior she had hit me with snowballs an unfair number of times. She thought I might be interested in a little revenge. But since we don't normally have snow for making snowballs, she improvised.


 I couldn't stop laughing as I pelted her with dozens of her homemade snowballs.


 And she . . . couldn't stop gagging while she went through her BeanBoozled jelly beans. :)

1 comment:

  1. I love your pictures and stories! Thank you. And love you and your cute family!

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