Christmas Whirlwind Part 3

Finally after all the preparation, baking and decorating Christmas day arrived!  Let me tell you… I had 95% of my Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving so I could ENJOY the rest of the month before Christmas.  But with all the projects, wrapping and such time still flew by!

All the stockings were LOADED with love and affection and goodies for everyone

Dad camped out in his favorite chair waiting for the festivities to begin.

My three nephews and my niece were decked out in the Christmas jammies watching Spongebob while waiting to have breakfast so we could open presents.

Here’s Mom & Dad’s tree fully decked out with presents.

My cutie-pie niece Lilly Jo with her pigtails and dimples.  She gets embarrassed when “Auntie Kim” points the camera her way

The fun began with the opening of stockings.

My brother Thad holding his youngest – my nephew Cole.  He’s such a sweet baby boy.

I got the coolest little Nerf toys in some McDonad’s happy meals (which wound up as stocking stuffers).  One was a little plastic basketball hoop and ball and the other was a set of goal posts and a foam football.  Here’s Thad showing Lilly how to “flick” the ball.

The present opening “mayhem” starts

I think Cole had a fun first Christmas!  He was doing really good for being passed around from person to person.  He is such a blessing and we all wanted to share some love with him.

Here’s “Nanna Kaffy” (as my niece calls her) holding Cole after a wonderful Ham feast.

Ever the doting Mother AND Grandmother, my Mom just can’t get enough of her grandkids

And now it’s “Papa Tim’s” turn with his little grandson.  I just love the way Dad looks at him

And the way Cole looks at “Papa Tim” – “Yeah, I think he’s pretty okay.”

Cole kept sticking his tongue out all night!  It was cracking me up!  I have about 15 pictures of him with his tongue out so I had to share at least one.  What a bundle of joy!

Last but not least – someone actually pointed my camera at ME!  I’m usually the one behind it

Hope you all had a warm and wonderful Holiday Season!  Here’s to a Happy and Prosperous 2010!

xoxo

Christmas Whirlwind Part 2

I was a baking MACHINE this year.  With 9 different kinds of cookies and 3 pies.  I usually do gift baskets for my parents and my brothers and their families, with cookies and chocolates and goodies.  This year I opted to do cookie buckets for them and some of my other friends.

I spent 4 nights in a row after work up until after midnight baking and baking and baking and then cleaning and scraping and washing   It was all worth it as everyone enjoyed the tasty treats come Christmas Day!

This is what my counter top looked like every night after work for about a week.  Bags of sugar and flour, mixers, measuring cups and measuring spoons.

I am SO glad I went to Costco and bought the huge bags of brown, white and confectioners sugar there.  It’s MUCH cheaper and I probably would have run out half-way through my baking.  And NOBODY likes having to run to the store in the middle of baking something!

I made Russian Teacakes or as we have always called them, “Snowballs”  which are always a favorite at Christmas.  Here they are cooling on the cookie sheet before being rolled in confectioners (powdered) sugar.

Here they are after being rolled in sugar and waiting to be packaged up for gifts.

By special request I made some Snickerdoodles for someone very close to my heart   xoxo

Frosted sugar cookies are probably in the top 3 of Christmas cookie favorites.  These are usually one of the first to disappear from the plate.

These were so RICH and delicious!  Cookies made from devils food cake and frosting made from sugar and cream cheese….YUM!

This doesn’t even show all the types of cookies I made (oh and there’s mini loaves of banana bread in the back too).  But this is what my dining room table looked like for about 4 days before everything was done and I could box it up.

They were all delicious tasty treats!  I spent SO much time in the kitchen… maybe next year I’ll just make the top 3 favs   Maybe I’ll add a few of these recipes here to share with you all later

xoxo

Christmas Whirlwind Part 1

Well I’m little late with the Christmas post…. but the holiday season was CRAZY!  And I know there are loved-ones who would like to see the pictures anyway

I spent a lovely day/afternoon with my Mother helping her drag out the Christmas decorations and decorate her tree.  Mom & Dad used to be Christmas tree “purists” having a REAL tree (noble fir) for as long as my memory can take me back into my childhood.  But after years and years of climbing through the woods to find that “perfect” tree or spending BOATLOADS of money on a tree at a tree farm they finally opted for a fake tree.  Luckily Mom found one that looks really nice and is still big enough to hold all those ornaments she’s been collecting over the years.

Helping Mom decorate her tree brings back so many Christmas memories for me.  She still has MANY of the ornaments I remember from my childhood

Along with some new ones that get added every year.

We made quite a mess of the living room in the process of unpacking everything.  But Mom was very grateful to have help with this project

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care

Here is Mama standing next to the tree, I think we were pretty much done at this point.

Mom and I with no makeup, wearing our sweatshirts and a smile after a long hard days work of dragging out boxes, climbing up ladders and hanging the decorations

Love you Mom!!

xoxo