Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve dinner, lasagna, Italian sausage, corn and Strawberry Cream Cheese Jello. YUM!

I think Shauna is enjoying the lasagna!

The youngest eating dinner, ignore the background mess, that was the temporary wrapping station!

Luke, trying to ignore me and Jack and Mike not even noticing me because they are so interested in the food! We were missing Steven, who is in jail today and Drew, who had to work, but we still had a nice family dinner.

Alex's artful arrangement of the fudge I made. There is chocolate, cookies and cream, butterscotch, peanut butter and peppermint fudge.

This has been a really nice Christmas so far. It hasn't been nearly as stressful and upsetting as the last 7 years or so have been. I'm not saying everything has been perfect, but about as close as we get to perfect around here!

The kids all pitched in and helped today, which was awesome! First I got up to a family room and kitchen that had been cleaned up by Hannah and Alex. Alex was doing dishes while Hannah finished wiping the counters. I was amazed and thrilled! Hannah tired pretty quickly (more on that later) and Alex went on to wash the entire cook top (still broken, but dirty anyway) and wash all of the cabinets! Luke washed a big load of dishes a bit later in the day, after I dirtied everything up again.

Since I had a nice clean kitchen, I was able to get right to the cooking this morning. While I was doing that, Hannah came up and gave me a big hug and put her head down on my chest. I said, "Are you cold? The only time you ever hug me like this is when you are cold!" She answered, "You're my soft pillow. My pillow that talks." I KNEW she was using me somehow, I just had the use wrong. Oh well, I'm still pretty smart, for a talking pillow!!!