Our family Christmas #2

I like to buy gingerbread kits after Christmas and save them for the next year, my favorite part is helping the little kids decorate them.

Our family Christmas #1

We got together with Isaac's and Seth's families, and Tara, before Christmas for family time.  I brought costumes for the 6 grandchildren who were there.  Because of Hannah's and Tessa's actions, there were some sarcastic comments about the "good angel" and "bad angel."

About the same time as Hailey ripped off her wise man crown,  Hannah turned into the "fallen angel".  (We also loved the tattooed Mary.)

Elizabeth "Mary" wanted to take this very reverent picture, and she looked lovely with her baby sister.

Tara is 21

This is a great picture of Tara, but unfortunately I don't know how to crop out Wayne's tummy or the dirty dishes or the aluminum foil.  I wouldn't even attempt to crop out Elizabeth, it is a tradition in the family for her to be front and center in every birthday-cake-blowing-out picture.

Our Christmas

 We gathered at Isaac and Rachel's on Dec. 21 to open presents from each other.  The five grandchildren posed for a nativity picture (with and without costumes). (Grandchild #6, Gabrielle, wasn't here.)

 On Christmas morning, the four of us posed for our annual stairway picture. Everyone else was at their own houses or at in-laws.  Our first Christmas at our new house!

I ordered this folded book from a book artist for Tara, it was the most favorite gift I gave this year.

Nativity made of hardware

This was one of my favorite nativity scenes at our stake Nativity Celebration this year.  Someone was pretty creative to have thought of it.

Tessa's birthday

 Tessa is one year old today!  I took these pictures in our church's foyer.

I think she looks like a Kewpie doll when she puts her eyes sideways like this.

Seth's 27th birthday

We had a family get-together for Seth's birthday, and AS USUAL, we didn't remember to get candles.  Seth scrounged around in the kitchen until he found this "2" left over from Tara's 20th birthday.  And then he just bent a candle to make a "7".  Because thats the way we do things around here.

Yummm!  Cheesecake Factory cheesecake!
It is interesting how Elizabeth is ALWAYS next to any birthday cake when the candles are being blown out.

Cupcake train

My niece Jade made this for her son's birthday party.

Valentine's Bacon Roses

Tara bought some silk roses at the dollar store and tore off the flowers.

She rolled up bacon and fried it in that shape.  When the bacon was done, she put a toothpick in the middle of the bacon roll and stabbed it down through the plastic base of the flower.

Here she is giving the roses to Andrew.

Pumpkin Roll for Wayne's birthday

Every year, Wayne wants me to make Pumpkin Rolls for his birthday cake.  We LOVE them.  You can see the end that we cut off of one, it has a pretty swirl inside.

Thomas and Wayne

PUMPKIN AND CREAM CHEESE ROLL

Makes 10 servings.

3/4 cup all purpose flour

1 t baking pwdr

2 t ground cinnamon

1 t pumpkin pie spice

1/2 t salt

3 eggs, slightly beaten

1 c sugar

2/3 c canned solid pack pumpkin

1 c chopped walnuts (I've never put these in)

Preheat oven to 375.  Grease a 15 x 10 x 1 inch jelly 

roll pan.  Line it with wax paper ; grease and flour the 

wax paper.

Sift flour, baking powder, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice,

 and salt onto wax paper. 

Beat eggs and sugar in large bowl until thick and fluffy, 

beat in pumpkin.  Stir in dry ingredients. Pour into 

prepared pan. Spread evenly with rubber spatula.  

Sprinkle with nuts.

Bake in preheated moderate oven (375 degrees) for 

15 minutes or until center springs back when lightly 

touched with fingertip.

Loosen cake around edges with a knife.  Invert onto clean 

damp towel dusted with confectioners sugar; peel off 

wax paper.  Roll up cake and towel together.  Place 

seam-side down on wire rack; cool completely.

Unroll cake.  Spread with Cream Cheese Filling.  Reroll 

cake.  Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Cream Cheese Filling:  Beat together 1 cup confectioners 

sugar, 1 8 oz. pkg softened cream cheese, 6 Tablespoons 

butter and 1 teaspoon vanilla until smooth. (Don't use nonfat 

cream cheese)

Roasting Marshmallows on New Year's Eve

Wayne bought a great firepit to use for camping, and he set it up on our back patio on New Year's Eve.  We had a great time sitting around it on that cold evening.

Like any self-respecting grandmother, I kept trying to convince Thomas that he needed a
blanket over his legs but he wasn't having any of it.

It was really cold when the fire died down, and nice and warm when the fire was burning, and, looking back, I would say gathering around the firepit gave us some really good memories.

Christmas Eve

For the past 30 years, we have taken a photo every Christmas morning, showing the family lined up in the hall or on the stairs, waiting to go open presents.

This year we completely forgot to do it.

However, on Christmas Eve, everyone was at our house.  So we took pictures of everyone, and here they are:

Janette, Seth holding Tessa, Tara, Hannah on the floor, Wayne

Adam holding Anson, Tiffany, Bryce, Marianne

Thomas on top of Isaac, Rachel holding Hannah and Elizabeth

Wayne, Amy, Zac

We had a very nice Christmas!

Christmas box

This is one of my keepsakes.  This is the little box Wayne gave me the first Christmas we were married, when we were poor students at BYU.  I think I gave him our homemade Christmas stockings, because his family had the tradition of filling stockings (my family never did that).

Lego Nativity scene

At our stake Nativity Celebration this year, we had over 800 nativities on display.  Here is one of my very favorites. 

A boy made this out of regular Legos in two hours. (It wasn't a Nativity set you could buy.)

He made four separate scenes.
Left:  a city scene with Roman soldiers and a marketplace, complete with a Ninja climbing up the side of the building.
Center Front:  sheep and shepherd in the field, and a completely white angel.
Center Rear:  Stable, star, Holy Family, animals.
Right Rear: camels and wise men.

The Holy Family.
To the right, you can see the camel from the Wise Men scene.

Christmas cookies!

Elizabeth and Thomas helped me decorate all these cookies at their house on Monday.  I had all the colored frostings already in the bags with the decorating tips on and everything, before I got there.  It went really smoothly!
Elizabeth decorated a bunch, and ate two.
Thomas decorated about two, and ate three.

Hannah spent most of her time jumping up and down.  She really loves this contraption! 

Soldier Puzzle

My kids love this soldier puzzle.  We only get it out at Christmas.  I bought it in York, England when I was there during BYU Study Abroad in 1979.

Veteran's Day

“A veteran is someone who, at one point in their life, wrote a blank check made payable to 'The United States of America', for an amount of up to and including their life.” Unknown

Thanksgiving craft for FHE

I saw this at one of my friend's houses.  They wrote what they were thankful for on paper leaves.

Write Nativity on your calendar

Our stake puts on a fabulous Christmas Nativity display every december.  Go to the website and look, it is really impressive.

Thursday, December 8, 2011 6-9 p.m.

Friday, December 9, 2011 6-9 p.m.

Saturday, December 10, 2011 3-9 p.m.

http://www.christmasnativity.org/apex/

Fancy Nancy birthday party

My granddaughter, who is 4 and a half, loves Fancy Nancy.  Here is a birthday party made by one really ambitious and talented mom.

(This is the same designer who made the cute baby shoes.)

http://www.fleetingthing.com/handmade/for-fun/Fancy-Nancy-birthday-party/&2_11_43