Christmas Morning at the Lovejoy's

Here we are on our bed ready for stockings. Emma has been changed and fed and we are ready!

This has been our family tradition as far back as I can remember, opening stockings on Mom & Dad's bed. So, Martin & I have continued it. He also had a similar one, but "Father Christmas" left their sock by their bed. Now,we will continue it with Emma.

Emma had plastic bowls w/ lids, wipeable bibs, a sippy cup, bubbles... She mostly liked biting on the lids!

We blew a few bubbles right then and did more later and she loved watching them. She couldn't quite figure out what was happening when she reached for a ball looking thing and it popped each time.

Yes, I know, my eyes are closed yet again! The only one that shows my stocking stash. Chai Latte tea, SD card reader, seam ripper, tape measure, thread, lipsticks, chocolates...

Martin and his stocking goodies: super glue, coffee, shower gel, car air fresheners, car magnet, Raisinets, and this years Craftsman ornament (a level). He has collected a new one each year we have been together.

Stockings are over with and we have moved out to the living room. Daddy read Luke chapter 2 before we opened gifts. We read it out of the NKJ this year, so I had to actually listen, rather than say it along with him. I didn't realize that I still knew it until one Sunday this month when Pastor Wolfe read it and I could say it all along with him!

We did Emma's gifts first, as she wasn't going to last too much longer. She is usually awake for about 1 1/2 hours and we were almost over that at this time! These fur lined boots are from her Grammy, to add to her extensive shoe collection! :)

Mommy got her these pop beads. The picture shows them as a necklace, but there is not quite enough in the box to actually do that!! We gotta get another set of them, as she does like playing with them now when she can only look, lick and chew. She will like them more as she gets older.

Here she is opening up her new ball. I found a ball that has rubber ring thingys around it and this makes it easier for her to grasp. It has sounds, lights and music. She LOVES it!

Her main gift was a Johnny Jump Up. She has been doing the whole bouncy/ jumping thing for about 2 weeks when you hold her in an upright position. She will love this-at least we hope she does!!

A pose with Daddy just before naptime. Gotta get some rest before heading off to Nana's for lunch!

Notice the pile of paper and stuff behind us! We need a maid service.

Martin's friend Dave sent him this cookbook. It is a Marmite cookbook. Marmite, you ask? What is that? UGH!! It is THE most disgusting stuff ever created! It is made from yeast extract and is used for a variety of things. He eats it spread on bread, like we would peanut butter. Definitely an English thing!

Here is my main gift. A Cricut Jukebox. I have a Cricut and the Cricut Design Software and now I can add the Jukebox to that selection of scrapbooking tools! Can't wait to actually set it up and use it!

Miss Jessika loves the tree. She sleeps under it almost everyday. Somewhere there is also a picture of Jazmine, the other cat, under the tree.

Our Christmas breakfast: Monkey Bread ( I cheated this year and just bought it at Wal-Mart rather than making it), tropical fruit salad w/ yogurt and OJ. Notice the mugs and plates. Fancy gold script on them says love on one and joy on the other. Love and Joy= Lovejoy. Get it? :) Oh, and it was too warm for Martin to enjoy coffee, so we had OJ in the coffee mugs!

Christmas Jammies

Here are a few pictures of the kiddies in their Christmas jammies:

Emma has a matching Santa cap with hers and she just looked adorable! Halie had cute plaid flannel ones that made her Mommy happy, but Halie wasn't so impressed I guess.

Emma looks like such a big girl sitting in that rocking chair at Nana's house. She is such an entertainer! And kept everyone amused!

Here are the little ones, Emma in the rocker, Halie and Josiah on the bench. Josiah is my cousin Cyndi's little guy. He is about 14 months old and Halie is 16 months-look who is bigger. (And Emma isn't too far behind!)

Their Mommy's say that ONLY on Christmas eve would they give them a cookie at bedtime! :) We were trying for cute jammie pictures with all of them and the cookies were a way of controlling the "I wanna run aways". We put them to bed in pack & plays in various rooms after this and went to play games.

We got a picture of Mommy & Emma with her "Natalie" bear. I have my eyes closed, which is quite typical for me! But, it is the only one with her & the bear! The battery had died on our big camera and we had switched to the little one in the diaper bag. It says it has red eye reduction which usually helps me to not blink, but it doesn't work like most others and I still usually have my eyes closed. Makes me grumpy when it is time to scrapbook though!

Extended Family Party

After our own family exchange was over, the rest of our extended family arrived. Delamarter's and McNay's both sides of Mom & Dad's family. We had our usual Christmas Eve buffet. Everyone brings appetizers and desserts and we eat too much! Meatballs, Shrimp & cocktail sauce, Cheeseball, Fried Rice balls, Texas Caviar, Baked Crab Dip, Pizza, Pigs in a blanket, Sausage bundles, Nachos, Deviled Eggs...

On the buffet you will see cookies, a brownie shaped like a Christmas tree, Martin's Golden Fruitcake Bars, German Chocolate Thumbprint cookies, Buckeyes, etc...

Above this is my cousin Cyndi, and her hubby and son. We did a White Elephant gift exchange this year, where you re-gift something that you already own. Old. New. Used. Dusty. Doesn't matter. Martin's gift that he brought was a 1958 Car Repair Manuel. Cyndi got it but her husband, Grayden loved it! Martin printed out clip art of a '57 Chevy that he changed the color of to Bronze/copper, and taped them all over the gift box in hopes that Dad would choose it! But, he did not.

Robert received a Hunting game, where you plug the rifle with into the TV. Kinda perfect for him! I read off Christmas trivia questions and the person who got the answer right got to choose the next gift. They could pick a new, un-opened one or to take one from someone else. Most everyone was nice about it, until we got to Dad. He took a nifty cutting tool from Martin. So, when it was finally my turn I took Dad's nifty cutting tool and he got the final unopened gift...

Stephanie got the gift that I brought. It was 4 Christmas mugs and 4 different packs of hot cocoa. Pretty nice White Elephant gift, if I may say so!

Dad's final gift was a gold cherub filled with bath salts!!!! We were all cracking up! What in the world would he ever do with that??!! HEE HEE!

We also gave the Cantrell family a kite. A huge cow kite! Martin loves his kites and has flown some of them with Robert. They now live on a ranch and Halie loves cows, so they got a cow kite! Look at their faces! Cracking up!

Aunt Ruth got both little girls a gift of a stuffed animal. Halie got a horse and Emma got a teddy bear. But, her bear was special. "Natalie" was ordered and delivered from Harrod's, in England! She has a pink Harrod's ribbon around her neck. Someday we hope to take Emma to see Father Christmas at Harrod's. THE Harrod's, per martin, as it is THE only one in the world. By the time we got to open the stuffed animals, Emma was asleep. So, Mommy opened it.

Nana gave both girls a pink piggy bank, as well. They have a digital counter in the lid that counts each coin based on its size. Keeps a running total. Emma now has 5 banks. Where are the coins to fill them???

After the gifts were opened and the mess cleared away, we cleared off the table and got down to business! We love to play games when we are all together! We started off the evening with Blurt! A reader reads off a description and you BLURT out the answers until someone gets the correct one.

Then we moved on to Uno Attack. There were 7 of us playing, including Dad. We did 1 round normal play and then made up some new rules and turned it into Dirty Uno Attack! Mom came in later and joined in for one round. We ended the evening with a fast paced game of Dutch Blitz. I won that one!! YAY! Mom played with us and Martin sat that one out. He was our score keeper and picture taker. Moves way too fast and has too many things to watch at one time for him! Women can play this game better and we have decided that it is because men really do have a one track mind. This is true for my hubby anyway!

We cleared up just before midnight! I helped Mom clean up and then swept all of the floors before we headed home. We drove home, emptied the car, put Emma to bed, cleaned up my own house, got ready for bed and looked at the clock and it as 1:15 AM. UGH! Not enough sleep for me! But maybe I'll hear Santa by going to bed this late... :)

Family Christmas

We did our family Christmas on the afternoon of the 24th, as Steph & Robert couldn't be there for the 24th and then for the 25th. (Robert had to work a 1/2 day each day and the 2 hr. drive each way is too much!) We did stockings only this year, which is my favorite part, because funds are a bit tight for us (and for Steph) with our visa issue still going on. As you can see, the stockings are not your average bought-at-wal mart size! Mom made our stockings about 16 or more years ago and we love them! This year she had to add 2 more for the granddaughters. Theirs are even a bit bigger than ours!

Emma's stocking is just about as big as she is! Mom just quickly added scrapbook sticker letters for this year, but intends to stitch their names on later.

Aunt Steph made Emma 3 really cute onesies. I just cracked up at "miso cute"!! (You know, like Miso soup.) This one has "Miso Cute" and a Chinese take out box, one has a fancy"E" and little jewels, and the other says something like Princess Diva, or some such.

Halie loves animals right now and her Mommy requested them for her stocking. So, I bought some that were quite a bit bigger than these and Nana got these smaller ones. We both found jungle animals, but farm animals were not to be found. She is in love with cows and horses!
**Notice her Christmas shirt: "Best Present Ever". Cute! Cute!

Papaw found Emma a sippy cup with her name on it! We requested sippy cups for her stocking and tah! dah! a red Nuk one and a purple one with her name! Mommy also got a different brand for her stocking at home. Now we need to try them all out and find out which one actually works best for her. Emma also got a plastic, wipeable bib, as this Mommy is tired of baby foods ruining her cute bibs! She also got a fabric teether book, an Old Navy gift card, ladybug jammies, a turtle bathtub toy bin, a set of shape blocks with the bucket..............

Dad and his plaid flannel stocking. Mom's is the same, except it has an eyelet ruffle around the top. Not sure what he is opening here. He is hard to buy for, as he has most every little thing and when you ask him what he wants or needs he says things that cost $100 or $200!! Not quite stocking stuffers, even by my Mom's standards! At least this year he got no socks, ties or boxers!

OK! Now it is Christmas! Martin got his fruitcake! Mom always gets it for him and often it is in his stocking! What a yucky thing! I have learned to eat (even enjoy) a lot of various foods since being with Martin, but fruitcake and Marmite are 2 that I just can not do!

Robert has already got the candy and toys out! He and Martin got this flashing, spinning gyroscope type toy, where you have to get it spinning and running around a hand held track thingy and it lights up as it spins. Mom put them in there more for the little girls enjoyment, but the Dad's liked them too. Robert had his out right away. And you can count on it that candy doesn't waste away! Munching on Cookie Dough Bites and now the Dipped Pretzels... Where does he put it all???

This isn't the best picture, but it was the only one that showed both girls with their gift. Mom got them both a childish nativity set. It is breakable, but the characters look like little kids rather than old fashioned biblical type characters. I believe it is Fisher-Price, or maybe Playschool, that has a plastic/rubber nativity play set that I really want for Emma for next year's Christmas!! It is about $40 and I'm hoping to find it this week at a greatly reduced price!!

Papaw bought both girls an animated bear. It is a Papa bear reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas". I thought it was adorable and Emma liked hearing it and watching it move as it "talked".

Here is our lil' reindeer. She wore Halie's Christmas shirt from last year. It was dark pink, so she had a pink headband and socks. Mom couldn't figure out why I had her in pink for Christmas eve until she saw the words on the front.

Papaw reading to Halie Dawn, the bookworm. Martin read to her several times when we were at their house last week. She is reading Emma's kitten book. This is the one that I think Santa's suit reminded her of, with the white furry kitten.

Mom's 2nd December Table

Mom usually sets a gorgeous dinner table and especially for a holiday. The past several years she has done one Sunday with a gold and white theme. You see, Grandpa & Grandma gave her a set of gold sparkly wisemen statues and she didn't quite know what to do with them. Gold wisemen just did not match anything and was not her style!

She decorated the table, the buffet and the sideboard/cabinet. As you can see, she used lots of white candles, lace tablecloths, gold beads and some gold balls/baubles/ornaments.

Here are the gold wisemen... That first year it was a way to use them at least once and let Grandma see them and then we were hoping that Mom would lose them somehow. :( But, Mom has continued doing it each year in honor of Grandpa & Grandma Delamarter. Gramma gets so much enjoyment from seeing them on the table! She says "Oh, Robert look! The wisemen." And mom's gold & white table is quite pretty.

There is some kind of gold mesh ribbon down the center and gold sheer ribbon tied around the cloth napkins.

Just slipped in a picture of Emma and Papaw. She is doing better and better with him. She has been going through a phase of being frightened of strangers and even more so of men, Daddy excluded. Sadly, Papaw fell into that category somehow. But, she is doing better each time she sees him and this day they got to spend a bit of time together before she tired out.

3rd Christmas Dress

Here is Emma's third, but not final, Christmas dress. For once I did not have a matching or co-ordinating headband. Couldn't find the right shade of burgundy or cranberry, much less an off white one so I could add the bow.

We took the camera with us, so that Dad could take our family picture after church. This is Christmas Sunday and the day we usually take family pictures, but Mom is working this weekend and was asleep.

Each Sunday, I tried to coordinate our clothes with Emma, but this day I had nothing that matched. So, I went to Mom's closet to have a look... Tah! Dah! There was a black and burgundy dress that she wore for a Christmas party several years ago. Wonderful!

Here is a wonderful gift from Emma's Papaw, my Dad. I asked him to make her a bookcase by her first birthday. Her other Gramps, from England, made her a toy box when he was here in August and I wanted her to have something from both grandfathers. Well, he completed it and had it ready for us to take home. Daddy was impressed; Mommy was thrilled; and hopefully someday Emma will be thankful for her Granddads handiwork! We'll be painting them both to match. We already have quite a lot of books for her and needed someplace to put them that was more accessible than the top shelf of her closet!!