New Years Eve

I had started this post before the birth so I thought I'd finish it up and go ahead and post it.

New Year's Eve was such a nice, relaxing day that I took some pictures of things we enjoyed. The kids had one of those days where everyone played so nicely together.
I found these two coloring together in the guest room.

These two were up on Sam's top bunk trying out their new Guess Who? game that they got for Christmas.

Someone else was busy cooking...

...and feasting together. They even set up pillar candles next to their places.

Hamburgers.

Next, there was a feast that was just for mommy.

Complete with this amazing dessert tray!

Later in the day I found Cecily cleaning up some debris that she had scattered from carrying around this bag of sweet potatoes. What was so great was that she went and got the broom out of the garage by herself and got her play pink dustpan and was doing this without any help at all. Way to go Cecily!

Some fun and festive food to celebrate New Year's Eve.

We got sparkling juice for everyone and I fried some honey-buttermilk dipped Chicken Fingers. We love to dip them in honey mustard.

We also had some brie with baguette for a treat. I had some leftover salmon and lobster bisque from a special dinner I had made for Peter earlier in the week, so I served up the rest for the kids.

Tired little miss. Happy New Year! Welcome 2011!

I'm tacking on these pictures of a different day, different feast. Ben and Cecily set this one up and I can almost never resist photographing their cute little parties.
This one included dolls and a towel tablecloth.

And they didn't forget to pray. :)

A Solid Exhortation

I was just over at Nancy Wilson's blog, Femina, and she linked to this POST. As Nancy says, I always "appreciate a solid exhortation" and this qualifies. So unusually good was it, that I wanted to link to it myself. It's for wives and on the topic of marriage, but the concepts apply to submission to leadership and authority in general. Anti-cultural, anti-human nature, it's not a real easy pill to swallow, but entirely Biblical and what is needed to heal the mess we make! Thank you to Dan Phillips for the good word today!

Christmas Day 2010

Yes, there's a lot of pictures, as usual, for the opening of gifts on Christmas. Perhaps there are fewer than usual though due to the fact that I sat on the couch in one place and shot all of the pictures from there. I wasn't feeling very well.

If you're not all that interested in what the kids got for Christmas, you might want to skip this post. :)

Stuffed stockings. It's finally time for what the kids thought it would never be time for.

Girls opening stockings.

Dress-up gloves and hair clip.

Slippers! The girls got matching slippers and loved them.

Boys with their stockings.

Time for breakfast. Homemade applesauce, Almond Pastry Braid and Sausage Souffle.

We actually tried a new recipe this year for the main dish. It is a sausage/bread/cheese breakfast strata and it was fantastic.

Each of the kids helped distribute some of the gifts.

Cecily loved it so much that we let her do the most.

Not sure what setting I accidentally took this picture on, but it turned out kind of neat.

Sam with his gifts. The kids all got 2 gifts and some books from us. The other gifts are from grandparents and aunts and uncles.

Cecily and Millie both got a doll outfit from Aunt Leslie and Uncle John.

Also from Aunt Leslie and Uncle John was the game Guess Who? for Ben and Cal and Clue for Sam and Will.

Everyone with gifts from Papa and Grammy.

The boys all got slippers and the girls got matching dresses and tights.

Cecily, of course, wanted to put her dress on right away. Isn't it cute?

One of Cecily's gifts from us was a Raggedy Ann Jack-in-the-Box.

Grandpa Jerry got Sam and Will each a multi-purpose tool. They were very excited about that.

Will's books.

Ben got a horse book.

How can we get them to put down the books in order to finish opening the rest of the gifts?

Books always get a smile from Peter. I got him the hat as well. These two books are "Bonhoeffer" by E. Metaxas and "With the Old Breed" by E.B. Sledge (WWII, Pacific Theater). He got several other books that are theological as well.

One of Amelia's gifts was a bakery set.

One of Cal's was a scooter. Ben got a matching one.

Will got Return of the King, from the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, on CD.

Happy, happy Sam got a pair of binoculars equipped with a digital camera for photographing birds. This was such a great find. He had been telling us that he wanted some kind of equipment to take pictures of birds up close. Oh my. I wasn't even going to try to come up with that when I came across this completely by accident. He was THRILLED.

Amelia's main gift was this little refrigerator to go with her kitchen.

:)

And Cecily got a cradle for her baby.

What could it be?

And this?

Nerf dart guns and....

...airsoft guns.

What is it about projectile weapons? Just kidding. How could they not love running around trying to tag each other with darts and BB's? The nerf guns are indoor/outdoor. The airsoft guns are actually only for use outside with protective eye gear.

That's all. Haha. I think I can officially give birth to this baby anytime now that I've posted the Christmas onslaught, I mean pictures. The gifts were a blessing. I hope you enjoyed sharing in our fun.