Christmas 2013

This Christmas was so wonderful!  We were blessed to have my whole family home in one place enjoying each others company, amazing food, and gifts! Jordan and I were so spoiled with all the exciting presents and delicious meals.  This year, my brothers, Andy and Scott traveled from Virginia to Texas with my niece, Kenley.  It was a long drive, but we got to spend a week with them and catch up on life.

My mom and I had fun having a little girl in the house.  We found all kinds of things to do and I think I took almost 500 pictures doing it!  

No holiday is complete without a little baking, specifically, apple pie!  Kenley, Mom, and I sliced up apples and rolled out dough to make several delightful pies.  All week long we had pie and more pie to enjoy for dessert!  I think the poor kitchen really took a beating, but the pies were worth it.

Top: Kenley and Mom slicing up some apples!  Don't stress folks, that's a plastic knife she has.
Bottom Left: Kenley slicing up her own pieces of apple for her own pie!  We also taste tested a few to make sure the apples were good.
Bottom Right: Spoon licking good.  This picture makes me laugh because Kenley was really enjoying the post pie clean up.


Together, we made a pie with a "K" on it for Kenley and we also made a mini pie with a Christmas tree on it.  In these pictures, Kenley is savoring her dessert, always eating the crust last.


My mom, aka "ZaZa" had the most perfect pie tins for Kenley and I to use.  Here, Kenley and I are getting the bottom crust ready in a Kenley sized pie pan before pouring in apples.


Kenley had her own special way to lick the bowl...
This lady is a heart breaker!  I can't help but share at least some of the 500 pictures I took.  
Top Left: finished pies cooling.
Bottom Left: That little tongue had a mind of it's own.
Right: Kenley wearing the apron ZaZa gave her!  That grin!

Christmas eve we had a wonderful little family service under the pavilion.  This is the second year we've had a family service at home so I suppose it will be a tradition now.  It all started last year when we'd planed to go to the local church service.  My mom asked Jordan, our goto Googler of the family, to look up what time the service started.  We all showered and got dressed and even arrived a good 15 minutes prior to the 6 o'clock Christmas eve service at our local Methodist church.  The activity in the parking lot was strangely nil though.  It turns out that Jordan definitely looked up a Christmas eve service, but he'd looked at the wrong state by accident!  The Christmas eve service had actually started a 5pm so we were all 45 minutes late!  At the time it was NOT a laughing matter, but we decide to make the best of it and have our own little service in my Uncle Tony's cantina.  We borrowed a church bulletin to guide us and took turns reading passages from the bible and sang Silent Night via the iPad.  Instead of small candles, we had Yankee candles, but it was very beautiful and personal.

I think Jordan's little mistake turned out to be such a blessing because this year was equally as beautiful and touching.  We still all got dressed up and gathered around the fire under the pavilion.  Family and friends read through a wonderful little service that my dad put together and we had a peaceful night.  Yes, I think that will be a great tradition to look forward to each year.
Left: Kenley with her Silent Night candle.
Top Right: Jordan and me by the tree.
Middle Right: Kenley looking on as Cindy played "Oh Holy Night"
Bottom Right: Kenley in her box watching TV.  This was one of her favorite toys and it was just an old box.  She had her own personal porthole!


Following our Christmas Eve service, our family broke out the instruments to play a few Christmas carols.  The first songs are always a little rough around the edges and the last songs begin to sound like our lips were bleeding, but there are always a few carols in the middle that sound pretty good!  This is a picture of Kenley helping Andy play the trombone.  She got a kick out of it.


Here is another goodie I had to share with you all.  Everyone is a little rusty on our instruments, but this picture says it all.  Andy's expression just says "seriously, 4 flats?" I was feeling the same way but we slugged through it.


This was the Christmas tree just before bed time.  It was beautiful and the presents were ridiculous!  I'm sure Santa was glad to have all those presents out of his way.

Top Left: Kenley opening her new keyboard from Grandpa and ZaZa!
Top Right: Jordand and his new drill set!
Middle Right: Kenley taking a shot at Scott with a Nerf shooter.
Bottom Right: Mom and Aunt Cindy Christmas day!
Bottom Middle: Mom's 18 pound roast that turned out perfectly.  
Bottom Left: Abby ready to pounce on Kenley's new present.  I seriously wanted to play with the Flutterbye, Flying Fairy!  Kenley named the fairy "Purple".

The next morning was awesome!  We got up around 7am which is pretty reasonable considering there was a 4 year old involved.  After some coffee and breakfast, we commenced the present opening.  This is a picture from the top of the stairs and the scene was mayhem.  Six adults, one four year old, two dogs, and mountains of presents produce a lot of debris.

We finally got the living room cleaned up and Abby was pooped.  By now this was day 3 for Abby to be around Sophie (my parent's dog) and all the action.  She was more than tired.


Of all the activities we did, Kenley's favorite seemed to be riding on the jitney.  She loved the extra bounce and couldn't stop giggling.  
Top Left: Again with that crazy tongue!
Top Right: Kenley and ZaZa with the potholder that Kenley made for her!
Bottom Left: Mom and ZaZa on the jitney!
Bottom Right: Kenley and me on the jitney!

Kenley helped mom and me clear a little brush and watch the boys do some wood choppin'.

I got a chance to do a little shooting with my brother's.  It turns out I'm not that great at it.
Top: The blue eyed brothers, Scott and Andy
Bottom Left: Me shooting a 9mm
Bottom Right: Scott preparing to shoot something substantially bigger than a 9 mm.

Andy, Me, and Scott riding on the jitney.

All in all, it was a wonderful family vacation!  Thank you to my mom and dad for letting us all almost destroy the lake house and for the wonderful gifts!  

I hope you all have had a wonderful Christmas and peaceful time this season!



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cheese it Up

Image
Sometimes I feel like Jordan and I live for the weekends.  We are very blessed to have each other, jobs that we both enjoy, an adorable pup, and a pretty house, so we definitely  enjoy the week days.  It's just that the weekends are when the action happens!  I don't know if we rest more during the week or the weekends! Last weekend was no exception.  We managed to strike the right balance of being productive while still having some leisure time.  Those are my favorite kind of weekends because that's a really tough balance to get! We recently planted some new flowers around our house which was a big chore.  I always get the spring bug this time of year (not the sickness).  I can't help it!  I don't have any sort of green thumb so I suppose this spring tradition will continue for years to come.  In the short time that we've had these pretty flowers, we've spent a lot more time outside.  The nice weather helps too!   Here's the run down of our new pl
Read more

July 4th with Family

Image
Happy July 4th...or 14th.  It's taken me a while to get around to sharing pictures from our Independence Day celebration but I've got 30+ pictures of family food and fun to share! There is no other holiday quite like the 4th of July in America!  Everyone takes off work to enjoy delicious food (and cold drinks), BBQ, and the faint smell of explosives in the air --- those bombs bursting in air! This year was even sweeter than previous years because my brother, Andy, and his family flew to Texas for a long visit!  I was so thrilled to see them all! Top Left: I do love a little flare!  I got a pedicure before the holiday and decided to go with a patriotic theme.  The design looks almost like a Wonder Woman theme which is equally awesome. Top Right: My brother, Scott, with his pup Lucy.  She is laser focused on the lake smells in this picture. Bottom Left: Me, my niece, Kenley, and Lucy!  Lucy sure has grown so much from when she was a puppy (see her Chri
Read more

Doodles and Drawings

Image
I've continued to have fun with my Tombow calligraphy markers that I talked about on my Tombow Watercolor post.  Pinterest is rich with unique and interesting art!  I've found that it's extremely relaxing to sit down and doodle with my markers while sipping quality wine and listening to some music.  It makes for a messy kitchen table but I feel very chill and in my own element! The only new piece of art I have to share is this "hustle" poster I made for a friend.  I began by playing with the texture of watercolor paper (verses usually using "media" paper).  The water and markers react completely different depending on the surface and paper.  I ended up with this woodland-ish doodle. Leaves are probably not the most interesting focus, but I had fun playing with the different shades of greens and browns along with the various textures of leaves.  I have so many shades of markers so it was a great opportunity to use them all!  For fun, I even
Read more