Christmas Day 2014

Merry Christmas, Peter!  This is the yummy sight I woke up to at 7:30 this morning.

And this was the scene across the hallway where the children gathered to watched some of Guardians of the Galaxy to let me catch a few more winks.  Such patience.  I was impressed and grateful.

The line-up.  Get ready...Get set...

GO!

Where to begin??

Faith got a sewing machine and Bethany got a cell phone.

Santa brought Clark a bike in preparation for his driver's license:)

George got his first bike.

Andrea helped me embroider everyone's names on towels in an effort to better manage the towel usage in our house. They liked them, but they're enthusiasm was dampened upon realizing I would be able to identify who left their towel on the floor.  Thank you, Andrea!

One of our absolute favorite books is now permanently in our library.

We paused in the middle of present opening for Abe to read "The Book With No Pictures".  Very funny and Abe had us all laughing.

Elinor had a thinking girl's Christmas-- books galore, a chemistry set, Mad Libs, and a Grow a Frog kit.  Love this girl!

Kind of a funny story about this shirt I bought for Faith.  It was on sale at Kohls.com and I thought it said, "Crazy like a fox".  When it arrived I realized it said, "Cray like a fox".  

WHAT?  How could they misspell a word on all these shirts?  No wonder they were on sale.  I would have returned it except the customer service line was too long last week.  Fortunately, I asked my younger, hipper sister-in-law Katie what the deal was.  She kindly explained to my older, lamer self that "Cray" was the new, slang way of saying crazy.  

For real?  Oh, okay.  I feel dumb.  I guess we'll keep the shirt.  Fay-Fay is now cray-cray!

Sweet Pete got a new bouncy chair, pacifiers, shoes, onesies, and a teething toy from Abe.

Sometimes I think Abe is just a grandpa stuck in a younger man's body.  He wanted bow ties and handkerchiefs for Christmas.  He's so cute!

Bethany sewed me this makeup bag. 

A couple months back Abe brought me home a lip balm from a fellow vendor at a show.  It was the perfect lip balm, with just the right amount of gloss and non-offensive flavor.  He was so sweet to track down the vendor and get a large supply so I won't run out for a long time to come.  That's love.  You know what else is love?  He gave me a gift card to Barnes and Noble with a note attached that said he would come with me and slowly walk around with me while holding Peter so I could take in the sights and smells of the bookstore I love so much.  And I was to use the money on something for me and not school things for the kids.  He knows me so well!

A tin of English biscuits (cookies) from The London Market downtown.

THE picture of Christmas morning.  I like to call it "The Agony and the Ectasy".  The joy when Cannon receives walkie-talkies.  The agony when George is overcome with envy before he understands that walkie-talkies are only good when you share them.

A family gift of Nerf laser guns.  These were a popular item today.  I hear they eat batteries for lunch, but they work great!

Grandpa and George tested them out this afternoon.

Grandpa showed no mercy with all his tactical military training.

Cannon was a pretty good pilot of his remote control helicopter.  

She wanted a music box/jewelry box.

Oh, I'm sorry, Beth.  Would you like us to let you be alone with your shoe?  They were Clark's gift to her.

Here is something I'm pretty excited about-- new duvets for all the kids' beds.  How warm and snuggly!  No more ratty, falling-apart mismatched blankets.  You would have thought they would have lured the children to their beds before 11 pm tonight!  No such luck.  They kept saying, "But it's Christmas!"  

The girls tested out the new sleds.  We're big believers in cheap plastic sleds.  Well, truthfully, we've never had really nice sleds, so I suppose those could be better.  I should say we are contented with our cheap plastic sleds:)

This was a very special moment of the day-- when Cannon opened up his very own set of scriptures.  In the past we've given scriptures to our newly turned eight year-olds.  But when you read fluently at six, you must have scriptures to read!  When you're six it's hard for scriptures to compete with remote controlled anything, but I think he appreciated them nontheless. 

 Abe made his traditional British fried breakfast-- only this year he waited until about 1:00 pm to make it.  And he wore his bow tie all day.  

Will the children someday regret the lovely expressions they pull in pictures?  I hope so.

 Speaking of pulling faces and the pot calling the kettle black, most of my people got me gummy bears (my favorite treat) for Christmas.  I'd really like to tell you more about Clark's gift, but he threatened if I did, then the gift would become null and void.  Oh shoot!  I've said too much already.

It's been a very mild, dry December so to wake up to a white Christmas was a treat indeed.

Except that arrows can very easily be misplaced when shot into snow.  Maybe it will turn up next spring.

We didn't get far with the sewing machine this evening, but we did figure out how to sew a straight line.  I'm hoping that Bethany can pass on her sewing knowledge to Faith.

I'd like to say the day wasn't as extravagantly obscene as it appears in this picture.  But I'm afraid that's not true.  We lived it up.  We were in fat city.  It was over the top.  We killed the fatted calf.  

Or maybe nine people in a smallish room on Christmas morning just looks like a tornado struck.  Either way, it was a wonderful culmination to a beautiful Christmas season.  Merry Christmas to all!