McCartney Family Christmas - Part Two

Family Fun!  Driving, lots of driving, lots of food preparation, shopping, wrapping gifts, and then ENJOY!  Family is such a special thing.  Being part of a large extended family is a special, wonderful, crazy thing!  I'm grateful for the family I was born into, and for the family I married into.  We had a great day, thank you to Maureen for hosting!  The ice storm is raging tonight (we are all safely home now) but thankfully it didn't interrupt the fun of today.

Jen planned a really fun white elephant gift exchange.  It was lots of fun!

After that it was the present exchange.  Each cousin buys one gift for one cousin.  This year we had Meagan and Sarah to buy for.  We bought Sarah a mini-donut maker.  I think she liked it.  I hope so anyway!!  I tried to get a good shot of Alice giving the gift to Sarah, but it didn't really work out that way.

Meagan bought for Alice.  Meagan wrote a card and it was so cute to see her give Alice her gift!

Kate was to give Meagan her gift.  Meagan suggested that she liked homemade gifts so I took her at her word.  I had fun making somethings for her.  They seemed to me, more like something we might give their Grandma... but Meagan seemed really touched!

Last in the cousin gift exchange was Rachael giving a gift to Kate. Kate was SO excited for her little people princesses!

Jen had some fun presents for Ken from China.  A tie and a deck of cool cards.

 There were the gifts from Nana and Papa.

 And lots of FAMILY FUN and eating!!!

 

This year I was determined to get lots of pictures - candids and posed shots.  I am very happy.  I love pictures!  Here are the family pics!

The Molinas

 The Jakobs

The McCartneys

The Laughlins

 Ma and Pa

Ma & Pa with Hugh & Sandy

And I wanted to add this... I made a framed "mistletoes" pic of the girls feet, snowman hand ornaments and hot chocolate reindeer for Meagan.

McCartney Family Fun - Part One

The Jakob Family - Ken's sister Jen, her husband Eric and their kids, Konrad, Anders and Ezra came to stay with us today.  The family Christmas get together is tomorrow in Burlington and they were coming in from Ottawa.  Kate loves her cousins - all of her cousins!  I remember the first Christmas that she was alive, all the kids played together except for her and Ezra, they were of course too little.  I remember wondering what it would be like when Kate was old enough to play.  It is so much fun.  It makes me think about fun times that I spent with my cousins when I was a kid. 

Jen and the boys had a bit of a rough ride here with weather and roads, but they made it.  Ken's parents popped in briefly to drop off a gingerbread house and say hello.  We're all looking forward to having everyone together tomorrow!!

Christmas Baking

I'm not really a baker. I don't mind baking, but I'm just not that into it.  This year however I decided that I wanted to try a new tradition - gingerbread.  A friend put up pictures of the gingerbread that she made from scratch to make gingerbread houses and I was inspired.  I made the cutouts for the house, and I even made a bunch of trees for Kate's class.  We've haven't made the houses yet, and I'm not sure when we will, but I wanted to take a picture to remember the baking that I did for Kate's class, because who knows, that might never, ever happen again!

Fiona Things

I think I've already put up a photo in the exersaucer, but who cares, she's so dang cute! (Picture - Friday, Dec 6.) 

Now to food.  What to say?  Much like Alice, Fiona has shown an interest in food for quite a while now and much like Alice she likes the idea of food more than actual food.  She has been fed many things in various ways for over a month now.  Mostly just tastes of things.  In the last two weeks when I've actually tried to "really" feed her she has been decidedly uninterested.  She showed the most enthusiasm for a chicken braise I blended for her. At least she did the first time I fed it to her.  The second time, she wouldn't eat it at all.  I had Kate feed her a bite of mushed up banana and rice cereal for the official first feeding photo.  This was after all the first time we fed her rice cereal. (Picture - Wednesday, Dec 4)

Here she is enjoying the braise. She doesn't look particularly excited, but she opened her mouth and was grabbing the spoon lots. (Picture -  Monday, Dec 9)

And today I finally got the picture that I wanted of Fiona in front of the tree in her cute Christmas shirt. And eventually I'll even print the picture and put it in the "first Christmas" frame. (Picture - Thursday, Dec 19)