Christmas Eve day

It occurred to me that I had not posted about our Christmas yet. We had our family Christmas on Christmas Eve day because we left for WI on Christmas Day. So, Shawn, Nicole & Emolyn came over early in their jammies and Emolyn woke up Miranda & Tyler and thus began our day.


Mimi & Pop pop gave Emolyn a table & chairs set. Perfect for all the faux foods and vintage melmac dishes I found for her to play and pretend with. She loved the food & dishes and let me tell you, this girl can pretend!


Tyler got her ELMO which was a big hit. Emolyn loves Elmo.


She loved her washable markers and immediately grasped them like a grown up. She's a natural artist.


Miranda was so excited about the Glee CD that our dear friend Nancy got her. Miranda didn't even know she wanted one, but Nancy did. Nancy is an awesome gift giver.


Nicole has been wanting a quilt rack for a couple years and I found this one for her online. It literally arrived at 8 pm the night before. Thank God. And she loved it.


Miranda got me this art piece from THIS Etsy shop that I fell madly in love with, when Amy sent me the link a while back. So you can imagine how thrilled I was to open this. Thanks Miranda! You know me so well.


Then Shawn wowed us with his culinary genius and made The Pioneer Woman's Apple Dumplings. OH. My. Gosh. I almost cried they were so good. I'm serious, they were so good they will now be a tradition at every family gathering. I'm only sort of kidding.


Here's a teaser... the recipe calls for Mountain Dew. Ok, nough said.


Here's my point... sorry, I can't let it go... my talented sons perform at every family gathering, so why not include apple dumplings. I can totally see the correlation. I can no longer have one without the other. Nough said.

The littliest culinary genius announces that it's time to decorate Christmas cookies. No one budges. She has to get rather firm. But come on, after eggs, bacon and apple dumplings for brunch and then followed by Honey-baked ham & scalloped potatoes for dinner, we couldn't possibly need a dessert! But Emolyn thought otherwise.


So we decorated the gingerbread cut-out cookies that I had made the day before and well, the creative juices started flowin.


Shawn honored our Phoenix SUNS with a special limited-edition cookie.


Emolyn does not like to get her hands messy, so she used a spoon to eat the frosting off her cookie.


A plethora of Christmas cookies for your viewing pleasure.


Emolyn fanagled another guitar pick from her Pop pop and loved teasing Koda with it. She figured everyone must love guitar picks as much as she does. Koda was not impressed in the least.


We look like a family that has had way too much to eat and needs to veg out. Actually, Randy was resting up for the 3800 mile round trip to WI that starts the next day. Can't say I blame him.


But not before he and Emolyn go out back and pick a bag full of lemons to take to my Mom. And as you can imagine, my Mom was thrilled.