Extended Family Christmas

The dessert table. It somehow deleted it from later int he blog, so I added it. I amde the mint chocolate chip cheesecake on the left.


We had our extended family meal and gift exchange on the Sunday after Christmas. Everyone brought a dish or two and Mom was in charge of the decorations. She used greenery, red berries and apples. Pretty!


Emma had a blast with the fire truck!


Here is Grandma & Grandpa Delamarter waiting for lunch.


All of our lovely foods: Becky made scalloped potatoes, Mom made her baked beans, we did green bean casserole, Ruth did the deviled eggs & corn casserole and it has been just long enough now that I couldn't tell you what else we had or who made it!!

Doesn't a baby on the hip look right?? :-)

After this we put the kids down for naps and had our White Elephant gift exchange. We started this last year and had such a fun time that we decided to do it again this year.
Aunt Becky chose my gift, which was in a Chinese gift bag...

and was filled with a calendar from a local Chinese restaurant, chopsticks, soy sauce...

Steph was totally intrigues by the largest package and had to know what was inside!!

It was a mini exercise trampoline!! LOL!!!

Check out Grandma!! Holding onto her chocolates!! "Stay away Grandpa"!!

Huge bow. Pretty paper. Wonder what is inside????

a roll of Duck Tape!!! Which Grayden then stole away!

Dad got Grandma's! He looks a bit like a Christmas tree!


After the kid's nap, they got to have their White Elephant Gift Exchange. Emma got some bongo drums, Halie got the push top toy that Emma brought and Josiah got a musical version of that type of toy (from Halie)
I used the tissue paper and made Josiah a hat. Emma thought that was pretty cool.

So, she had to have one too!


Of course, we ended the evening with leftovers and games! We do love our table games!!

Christmas Dress #4

Our final Christmas dress was from Nana, bought for the girls Christmas portraits. SHe's holding her elf ornament from Nana.


She's learned to "cheese"!!
Our little Snow Princess, Emma Rose.

Christmas Evening with my Family

We met at Mom & Dad's in the evening for a buffet of yummy foods, followed by stockings & gifts with the girls. Then, their bedtime and our stockings.

Nana had bulging pink stockings for the girls before we ever got there to add our items to them!! (Remember the jammies that Emma was wearing???)

Silly butterfly sunglasses from Nana.

Look perfect on Uncle Robert, don't they???

Are you just cracking up laughing with her????

Princess keyboards from Nana. Making music is in our future.

We gave the girls both a Santa Spud Bud. They were 6.99 at Target AND I had $5 coupons for each! :)

Nana had bought this set for Halie and went on a hunt for another for Emma now that she is getting into pretend play.

Papaw gave the girls puzzles. Halie's had a magnetic fishing pole and Emma's are shapes and animals. A chunky size that will be perfect for beginning skills.

AKA Karate Kid
Their final gift was matching jammies with pink hearts and black Scotty
dogs. Giving Emma kiss good night.

They both have fuzzy blankets for bedtime and both suck a thumb or fingers at bedtime. Emma has Boo Boo and sucks her 2 left fingers, upside down.

Final hugs & pictures with Nana (otherwise known as Mrs. Clause)

Halie's bedtime "Boo" blanky.

The Lovejoy's and the Cantrell's. The girls were sooo tired by this point!! Ready for beddy bye!!
After the girls went to bed, we opened our stockings! I LOVE stockings!!

Dad with his stocking and a Hawaiian shirt. Mom & Dad have called each other "Boda" (for bodacious) since the "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" movie. So, Mom embroidered it on Dad's stocking. :-)

She had more than enough to fill her stocking.... but still when it is empty, you gotta make this kind of face!!

Gift cards! Steak & Shake and Cold Stone. YUMMY!!

This was one of the portraits taken in November, but I didn't know that they had made this enlargement and that Mom had bought it until it was almost Christmas. She showed me because she wanted me to pick out the frame I wanted. What a gorgeous kid!!
Mom had identical gift boxes and told us that we had to draw a number. She couldn't decide which one to give to each of us and the # would make the decision for her. WELL.... I reached into the little box and took both pcs of paper with the #'s on them!!! So when Steph went to get hers, there were none!!! LOL!!

Doing it over.... the right way.

Wondering what int he world it can be...

Perusing... Mom gave us antique quilts. She had found them while on vacation in November. After all that silliness, I let Steph choose which one she wanted, as she is the actual collector of quilts. She chose to keep the crazy quilt that was in her box.


Supposed to be posing for Mom's picture... Me, being me, was keeping her out of the picture. :-)

And then, vice versa... Such silliness!

Here we are posing with our quilts, after the silliness is over. They are quite a nifty gift, dontcha' think?? Thanks, Mom!~

We had a great evening of food, fun, gift opening, followed by games and more food! Christmas is such a huge favorite of mine!