Christmas Day

~ CHRISTMAS 2014 ~

We had a fun afternoon together yesterday celebrating the Christmas holiday!  While we waited for the Turner clan to arrive, we enjoyed a quiet morning as some studied and others prepared for the coming festivities.

Here was our dessert table which consisted of: poppy seed bread, cinnamon swirl cake, candy cane cookies, gingerbread men, chocolate pixies, peppermint blossoms, mint chocolate chip cookies, sandwich cookies, sugar cookies, and white chocolate-covered Chex mix.  Oh so yummy!  I had a really fun time with my holiday baking this year!  (And just for the record, we didn't eat all of this in one night, nor did we keep it all for ourselves.  I did make up 11 cookie plates to give to friends and neighbors!)

When Ben, Laura, and all the little ones arrived, we proceeded to open gifts.  It's always so fun and rewarding to watch children's faces light up with delight and hear exclamations such as, "This is exactly what I wanted!" or "This is so pretty!"

Rachael had a surprise gift for everyone which involved taking little Samuel upstairs for a few minutes.  He came down looking even more cute - which I didn't think was even possible. :)

He didn't quite fill it up all the way even though it was a newborn size...  Eat up, little guy!

Sarah was thrilled to receive her own American Girl doll, which she promptly named Sarah.  And sweet sister Essie sewed both of them matching skirts!  

More scenes from the afternoon:

Benjamin got what he really wanted - animal crackers in a teddy bear container!

Benjamin was so pleased with their gift for Grandpa - individual pretzel bags for his lunches.

For our Christmas dinner this year, we defied all tradition and made homemade pizza.  I had a great helper getting it ready to bake!

With an array of dessert choices, it was fun to watch the children try to choose what they wanted to eat.  Even Grace somehow managed to toddle into the kitchen with her own cookies of choice in hand since she really wanted to handle this matter unsupervised like her siblings, too.  And that was after her Aunt Jenny had carefully selected what she should eat!  

It was a pleasurable afternoon being together and having some fun!  We thank the Lord for each other and for the memories He's continuing to allow us to build each year.