Christmas Bliss

Christmas was a whirlwind this year! I wasn't as prepared as I was last year, so the last minute preparations were a little hectic. We had a great time though. Christmas Eve we had everyone over to our house for our annual chili dinner, church, and opening presents. The boys did a great job of waiting patiently to open their gifts. My family has always opened our presents to each other on Christmas Eve. This is a Danish tradition from my dad's side that we have always carried on. Christmas day started early, of course. The boys were so excited about their gifts. We went to my parents for Christmas dinner. Instead of turkey, we decided to do pork tenderloin. It was so good that we decided to make that our new tradition. It is something you can throw in the crock-pot (easy!) and it is so delicious.Here is my attempt at getting a nice picture of all three boys. That is quite a chore!

Here are the boys posing in their Santa hats while we passed out presents. They did a great job of being paitent, even though I heard "Can we open presents now?" all day long!

The present opening frenzy. The boys always start out taking turns, going one at a time, but then they all just go crazy opening their presents at once!

Here are the boys in their new PJ's from their Aunt Mary and Uncle Andy. They were ready to head to bed and wait for Santa to come!

These were taken at a home outside of Hansen, ID. They have an incredible light display that you can walk through. They even have a camel that you can feed carrots to! Poor Preston gave her a carrot and was rewarded with a handful of drool!

Quilt for Granny

At Thanksgiving, my family draws names for Christmas. It has made holiday shopping a lot simpler when you're shopping for one instead of six! I drew my Granny this year. It's hard to pick something for a 91 year old. I decided to make a wall hanging to coordinate with the quilt she made that is on her bed. This was my first attempt at quilting in six or seven years, and I didn't have my quilting friend, Michelle, from Flagstaff to help me! It was an Amish Star quilt pattern. I had fun making it, but I definitely need lots more practice. Quilting is such an exact art and I seem to be disabled when it comes to cutting straight! It started out OK, but as I added more and more to it, it got more crooked! My sister is a little more experienced quilter than I, and tried to help me correct it, but it was beyond repair as far as making it straight. Anyways, I finished it and, of course, Granny loved it and claimed that she couldn't see any imperfections in it! I want to take a beginning quilting class so that I can learn how to cut and bind properly. Hopefully the next project I post will be more accurate!