Christmas Pictures

As a child, I remember counting off the days of December leading up to Christmas day. I wouldn't dare do that now; it goes by fast enough as it is! Our Christmas wasn't officially over until this past Saturday when we had our get-together with hubby's side of the family. In spite of having a few out for sickness, we had around 50 people there. Which means I was too busy visiting to take any pictures;) But here are a few pictures of my own kids and our Christmas festivities.

Christmas eve happened to land on Wednesday night this year, so we had our regular church services that evening. When we arrived back home, the kids were anxious to start their Christmas eve scavenger hunt. Here they are, ready for their first clue.
The Princess seeks guidance from the Buzz Lightyear hanging on our tree.
Rub a dub dub, three presents in a tub...

The Professor likes to try out new recipes, so I had promised him he could make the hot chocolate for Christmas eve. He made dutch hot chocolate using a recipe he found on the Taste of Home site. It was quite good. The candy cane's melted into the hot chocolate and gave it a delicious peppermint taste as well. That's coming from a professed peppermint hater (myself:).

The Princess with a mouthful of homemade sugared doughnuts, one of my own childhood favorites.
We finished the night by reading some assorted Christmas stories, including Twas the night before Christmas. Since I still had some Christmas presents to wrap, I was up past midnight that night. But I did manage to make some pecan fudge in my sleep... I haven't decided if I'm going to share that story yet. It's true, but a little scary;)

Christmas morning began with reading the Christmas story from the book of Luke. Which was then followed with a breakfast of blueberry pancakes, sausage and eggs. My husband made breakfast Christmas morning. I almost feel guilty about that, but have decided instead to just call my mother-in-law blessed (referring to the virtuous woman here) and just enjoy it:)

On to the presents. Here's this years designated elf.

The Princess started piano lessons a few months ago, but really wants to learn to play the flute as well. So she received a much desired recorder to practice on for now.

The Artist put a Bible "like Dad's" at the top of his wishlist (closely followed by legos). So I ordered him one from Christianbook.com (a favorite site of mine) and had his name engraved on it, which he loved. In this picture it's blurred in order to keep our secret identities intact,lol.

The Professor loves books, so here he is with one on gardening, spys of World War II (I confess, I plan to read this one completely through myself) and an Atlas. These are all beautifully illustrated, hardback books that I found on clearance throughout the year. He's also holding a chia herb garden.
My boys also received a large lego set from their grandparents, and have been earnestly putting it together the last few days. It has 1,300 pieces, but last I checked, they were just about finished with it.

I am definitely enjoying our break from school. I've struggled the last week with a tooth infection, but thankfully had some medicine to make it more bearable, though it's wearing me out a bit. So I plan to make up for lost time in the next few days. Hopefully I'll have some pictures of completed projects to post next week.

I'm looking forward to visiting my blogging friends, and reading their after-Christmas posts as well. So post those pictures!:)

Happy 12th birthday to Mrs.Darlings Tink!

Have a wonderful Monday~