Christmas Eve

Every Christmas Eve, our family has a tradition to celebrate the ringing in of the holiday festivities by having a party at Nana and Papa's house. In the past 18 years or so that I have been a guest we have had as many as 30 or so people at this annual get together. Years ago a tradition began that we would all go to a Christmas Candlelight Service, then to their home to feast on yummy hors d'oeuvres. YUMMY! I mean a spread like none other. . wings, meatballs, dips, desserts, sausage balls, and any other type of typical holiday snack treats you can imagine.

The kids in their traditional Christmas Eve photo. Somehow all of their outfits coordinated, scout's honor I didn't do it!

Our entire clan with J's family. Notice little AC's face, somehow a precious smile was captured, I loved her expression in this one!

The family with Memom and Pops!



Once our kiddos came into the picture, we started a family tradition of giving the kids fun PJs each Christmas Eve night, sometimes matching, then they would change quickly into their matching comfy PJs, then be ready to head to bed as soon as we got home. This year I thought I would stray from my usual tradition colors of Christmas and go with a fun, wintry, pink and green! Remember we have 9 girls at home right now, lots of pink. The boys were great sports and enjoyed their green penguin pants and little J's fun Santa green PJs. Enjoy the fun photos of our festive night.

AC opening her first set of Christmas jammies. Priceless.



All dressed and ready for bed. Notice the one little elf lying in the front!


Have my youngest set of children decided to form some type of gang I do not know about it. Notice the gang signs? If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this one describes our family a little better. True life. It's great.


And after that, "the stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nick soon would be there. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"

Check back in the next few days. . I hope to keep posting and catch us all up to Christmas Day in our home!

Enjoying the Season!

I absolutely LOVE Christmas time! Love it! However, we 11 children to buy for and some 30 teachers, many relatives and friends. . Christmas, the real Christmas I love, somehow like many of you find, got lost by the wayside. I tried at all times to soak in the meaning of the Advent season:

There's not much I can say about this photo! Just glad I captured the moment!


Not much I can say about this one either



Little J saying his much practiced line in his school Christmas program. "And all who heard the story were astonished"! Dear Lord, may we be astonished by the story of Jesus' birth EVERY time we hear it again. God being made into flesh astonishes me time and time again.


Making cupcakes for Christmas, YUMMY!

M. E. is always very creative in her decorating and includes LOTS of sprinkles. She is always faithful to taste a few too!

Preparing for Christmas!

I am completely months behind on my posts, so I thought I would at least take the next couple of days to catch myself up on December. . over the last days and weeks, we have been doing lots that led us up to the past few days. We always start the Advent season by putting up two Frasier Fir trees in our home. . one is always large and one is smaller. We have lots of fun doing this as a family. And it is always inevitable that the larger tree ornaments (my "fancy" ones) get broken. The kids always anticipate whom I will "fire" over the course of the decorating process. It's usually the poor soul that allows the ornaments to slip through their fingers and crash onto our hardwood floors. Ironically, it was me this year. Oh well.

I actually recorded a few moments of our hard labor that day!


The crew away at their work!

The tree above is the smaller tree we traditionally decorate in our den, our main family room. Around December 14th, I noticed it was already dead as a doornail. . I had forgotten to close the heat vent above the tree this year. So for two straight weeks, hot air had been blowing on our beloved evergreen. The next day, my sweet hubby went back to the tree farm, and they replaced our tree for free. However, that meant undecorating the tree and redecorating a new one. Thanks to M, who was already home from college, we knocked it out BY OURSELVES! The new tree below:




This is a shot of our "big" tree once it was completed. . notice the "after" shot below. It was taken weeks later once it had gotten very brittle and lots of presents underneath!



We are always very proud of our trees over the course of the Advent Season. . they represent to us a symbol of Christmas we love to look at the entire month! Now, unfortunately it is time to take them down. Brittle needles are piling up on our floors. . we will endure them a few more days then enjoy a family bonfire out back! Enjoy your trees for just a few more days!

Notice the update!

Hello out there to everyone wondering if I have dropped off the face of the earth. . I haven't. I feel like I have, but I haven't. It was time for an update, so enjoy the Christmas music and new photo. Hopefully there will be much more to come very soon. I miss you all!