Baker Christmas Party

The day after Christmas, my family all came to my house for our family Christmas party. We had a big meal with turkey and all the trimmings. Everything was so good!

Dan, Jorgen, and others in the background:

Adam, Debbie, Javier, Abby:

Ben, Mom, Adam, Debbie

Kids' table:

Other end of kids' table:


Mickelle and Ben:



Ann & Javier:

Dan and me:

Abby and Jorgen (hiding):

After dinner, opening presents:

Uncle Javier made these awesome marshmallow guns for the boys. They were in heaven. I am still finding marshmallows in the carpet.

Yummy pies:

After everyone left, Andrew finished up his space shuttle Lego kit:

I realized that this was the first major holiday we've celebrated together as a family since my Dad passed away. We sure did miss him!

Christmas Day 2011

The kids actually slept until about 7:45, then we all got up and checked out our stockings.

Then opened presents (lots of pictures, sorry!)

Andrew built his Snap Rover in less than an hour:

We had to take a time-out from the fun and go to church at 1:00. I got to sit up front with the choir while Dan got to wrestle with Jorgen, who was not having a good day at church. He was being a little snot. The other two were good, at least. After church we played some more with our new toys, then had Christmas dinner, which was just leftovers from our Christmas Eve dinner. I really wanted it to be a low-key, relaxing holiday and it was. No travelling, no cooking, just staying home with my family. It was great.

Jorgen's Polar Express train:

Jorgen got this train to paint from Uncle Joe. He worked hard on it and was so proud of it when he finished.

Bethany got into a new book right away (I think it's Fablehaven):

Dan helped Andrew with his new Erector Set. Dan said he always wanted one when he was a kid and never got one. He was almost giddy helping Andrew. They built a lawnmower.

The lawnmower:

Christmas Eve 2011

We spent Christmas Eve at home, but it was still packed full of fun. Grandma and Grandpa Nay came by with presents for the kids.

We made graham-cracker houses:

Mom's house:

Jorgen's house (he liked frosting more than anything):

Bethany's house:

Andrew's house:

Dad's house:

We also made cookies for Santa:

We had our traditional (for us) Christmas Eve candlelight dinner, with ham, baked sweet potatoes, green beans, rolls, oranges, pumpkin pie, and sparkling cider. Yum!

The kids got new pajamas:

When they were ready for bed, we read the Christmas story from Luke 2 and sang a couple Christmas carols. They went to bed pretty late. We let them all sleep in Andrew's room. Then our non-sleeper (Bethany) kept coming upstairs every half hour, even with repeated warnings and threats. It was so late, Santa wasn't able to leave presents until about 1:30 am. We were very tired!