December 24-25, 2008

Happy Christmas!
Ah, our first white Christmas! :)
We officially started Christmas on Christmas Eve - we do our traditional 'open one gift up' thing ... Austin opened up Aunt Pam and the cousin's gift ... a guitar hero guitar! Woo Hoo! Visions of battling his family was running through Austin's head; but alas, the blue button doesn't work and I have to send it back. :(
Melissa chose a gift she knew already (she's a snooper) and had the audacity to ask for another present to open because she knew what it was. :( Poor Meilssa - she only got to open the one gift. ... muah ha ha ha! ...
The day started early (Austin was up at 4:00 which was when I was going to bed) and Christmas was in danger of starting that early. Well, seeing as I was really tired, I went and rested my head and woke up around 8:00am.
We had a 'homemade Christmas' this year and I think it turned out really well!

Austin received a chess board that Jacob made for him - it really turned out groovy! Austin is thrilled with it!
Melissa received a weaving that Austin did in school - he spent a lot of time (3 classes) on it and was very excited to give it to Melissa. Oh, and Austin (with a whole lot of help from me) made Melissa a scrap book so all she has to do is put pictures in it. (my camera is funny - this pic is w/flash on) :(
Jacob was the lucky recipient of some signs that I made for him. They are with vinyl letters (we received some gifts from Jacob's brother and sister-in-law that are made with vinyl lettering on it - cool!). I will post said signs when I get them hung ... I have visions of some cute ribbon, so we'll see how that looks. (it looks super awesome in my mind's eye!) :)
I received a wonderful frame, decorated by Melissa, that surrounded a picture of her and I when she was 8 years old and in Brownies. :) haha! I also received 3 very nice and smelly candles from Austin. He was so proud of that gift! :) He bought them at the Santa Store they had at school.
Here are the gifts from Joe and Angel and you can see the 3 candles that Austin bought me in the lower right ...
The dogs were pretty good this year and Santa did not forget them. You don't want to know what their "doggie business" looked like for the following two days! yuck-a-poo ... :(
We were super duper lucky to have the missionaries in our home on Christmas day - and I put them to work right away! Ha, it was just frosting cookies ... but there were a lot of cookies! I like to put a little maple flavoring in the icing for some of them, and they always turn out to be my favorite-est!
Ah, my Christmas Spode plates ... I was going to use my Old Country Roses, but they can't go in the dishwasher and I wasn't in the mood to do dishes by hand!
The Christmas supper was stupendous! The ham, if I do say so myself, was extra super duper yummy! We had some garlic roasted asparagus that turned out super-duper as well. I'm not even an asparagus fan (my sis Pam is) but this was GOOD! Of course, there were other delectable to be eaten and eaten they were! Now I know why that man had to take a "long winter's nap" ... muah ha ha ha.

Here is Melissa, going for the black olives ... she's addicted to them.
Poor Austin - he's got such a face on him ... oh, and check out the "Happy Halloween" shirt he has on!
When the missionaries are over, it means one thing: something funny is about to happen. Well, poor Elder Carpenter and Elder Prisbrey were fortunate to try some kimchi (rotted cabbage gunk from Korea) and may I say, there was some gagging going on. I do believe that neither of the Elders will be partaking of any kimchi in the near future. :)
All-in-all, we had an awesome Christmas. I do get a little woebegone, wishing we were with family and such, but there will be opportunities to have that in the years to come. :)