Christmas 2011

The Baking: I personally didn’t have the desire to do much baking this year and yet we still managed to have lots of baked goodies and we made some great memories in the kitchen.

And let’s just say that Kaylin stepped up to the plate and was so patient with Gaëlle. Because let’s face it, when Gaëlle is in the kitchen the only thing we hear is, “Can I do that?” “Can I help?” Over and over and over again.

She got to help with the legendary “Pink Stuff”. We like to tease Josh about pretty much the only holiday dish he used to eat until he grew up a bit, but the truth is that we all look forward to it.

 The final product. Maybe it’s not all that impressive but we have fond memories of the family that first served this to us and we can’t have a holiday meal without it.

Kaylin continued her kitchen magic on Christmas Day and for some strange reason, Gaëlle temporarily lost her interest in “helping”.

The Fun: It was such a joy to  have the family together and all in one place. The days leading up to Christmas were busy and we didn’t get to see each other daily, but we did have some laughs when we were together.

  

 

Christmas Day Hits: It’s hard to narrow down the day to just a few moments but we had fun with some of our new goodies.

 We start off our morning with stockings and this year we had a guest who provided some hilarity. Love the head scratcher.   We had a few rough moments earlier this month when Peter realized his expectations for Christmas were not going to line up with our family ways. However, we talked them out and today he did great. I was so proud of him and his enthusiasm and his great attitude. Believe it or not, Josh did not get LEGO for Christmas. This was Peter’s present. However, it seemed just a tad beyond Peter’s abilities and interest and so being the caring loving big brother that he is, Josh sacrificed his time and found himself putting together the big Star Wars LEGO set. Ah, memories.Peter doesn’t spend a lot of time playing video games but he got a couple of new ones and after the LEGO marathon, he just had to settle back for some Mario.

Gaëlle was thrilled with her new craft sets. She obsesses about a few things and one of them is “lip gloss”. She calls it “Lips”, as in “Mom, can I have some lips?” So she was pretty excited to get her own lip gloss making kit.

She also did great today. The excitement was really too much for her at times however she managed to keep it together and also did so well at showing her enthusiasm and pleasure with her gifts. When I put her to bed tonight I praised her for how well she did and she just beamed.

Probably the most loved gift of the day was GUM. Josh gave everybody gum with their presents. Peter was the first one to open a present from Josh. When Gaëlle saw 3 packages of gum she let out a “WOW!” Her face was just stunned. She sat back down and in a few moments she asked for her gift from Josh. Yes, in addition to a hand puppet, there were 3 packages of gum which she promptly opened. By 9:45 she had already eaten 5 pieces. We figure she’ll go through a package a day.

Merry Christmas.