Our Christmas

We started off our evening with a meal in the dinning room.  This is where the boys wanted to eat.  I made Bourbon Glazed Pork Loin, Party Potatoes, Edamame Peas(upon Caden's request), Salad (with raisins, apples, pecans and feta cheese), and of course Sparkling Grape Juice was served,

 After dishes, its stocking stuffer time.  They each take turns opening one stuffer at a time.

 Ellie enjoys the paper the most:)

 Then Elijah and Caden both got camera's from Nick's parents for christmas that they wanted to get pictures of Nick and I.  Of course we obliged.

 This is great....so Elijah on his own gathered a gift for nick and I.  I whispered to nick to be surprised when he opened the box(but what cracks me up is that even Liam who is looking over our shoulder is surprised:)).  Such a sweet thoughtful gift from Elijah.  Inside was a paper angel, a homemade christmas card that he put lots of thoughts into(and of course I cried over it and perhaps I shouldn't post this, but even nick got a tear or two in his eyes), and then he wrapped each of us two packs of gum, and then to top it off, he put the remaining Hot Tamales in the box.  You see, Elijah has had this box of hot tamales in his room for months, and everytime I go in there (without him knowing of course) I take a hot tamale for myself.  Well, the other day he came down and proclaimed that his hot tamales are almost gone and that Liam must have eaten them!!  I confesed and he was perfectly fine with it, so fine with it that he gave me the rest of them as part of my Christmas gift!!!  Gotta love a tender hearted boy who is willing to give his momma his candy:)

 The boys LOVE, and I do mean LOVE to paint ever since they started Cornerstone School and have Mrs. Metz as their art teacher.  Well, they finally got a nice set of water color paints to share.  I got Liam some washable paints as well so he stays out of the water color paints as those weren't all that cheap!

 Ellie and her gifts.....a ball, and bibs:).  She is at the age where gifts really aren't remembered so we didn't go all out and spend much on her.  It won't be long before we will be getting things like a kitchen set, a stroller, crib, etc for her dollies, and all those big items she is going to need to "play mommy".....so we are saving up now!!

To cap the night off, we did our yearly tradition(the boys don't let me forget it either as they LOVE this part).....our dessert of fondue with yummy things like banana, strawberries, apples, pretzels, and pound cake to dip.  I tried a new blendtec recipe for our fondue this year.  It was good, but I think I like the "usual" one best.