Making the Gingerbread House

"But Solomon took thirteen years to build his own house; so he finished all his house."

1 Kings 7:1

A post or two ago, I said that we had built a gingerbread house. Well, Mommy and Daddy went out on a date, and we watched the little ones. We fixed and cleaned up dinner and then we built the gingerbread house! I (Kimber) decided that I was going to try and do the icing, but the stuff was so thick and would squeeze out the back end, getting me all sticky. So we resorted to...fingers! The best utensils for anything! :)

Hannah with her icing fingers.

(I soon became Lydia-watcher and photographer)

Decorating the gingerbread house



Applying some candy




Everybody get your fingers in there! :)

Hannah perfecting the icing

(And the icing did taste good so we did lick some of it off...after we finished decorating, of course!)

The finished product with the decorators.

This picture is blurry but most everybody is looking at the camera.

Voila! The gingerbread house!!!

We all ate a little bit off of it (most of us ate the candy!) but that stuff will definitely make you sick, so we decided to save the rest for Mom and Dad. ;) But, with our family being on the healthy side, Mamma didn't want us eating a lot of it, so the next morning we had 1 more thing off of it and then...it disappeared. (Accident....I think not!) :)

---

Today we started up school again after our Christmas break. Everything's gone well so far. Mommy and Daddy made up a new schedule and so we have to get all the "kinks" worked out today, for them to address. I'll scan the schedule and post in on the blog for those of you who like to be scheduled. By being scheduled a lot of things get done a lot smoother and easier - especially when you live in a 10-person family! She's great at making schedules!

One of my favorite things about the new schedule is that I have 1 hour of sewing time. I'm going to see if I can make my own skirt by Christmas. I know that sounds like a lot of time, but I've never "read" a pattern for a skirt myself, so I have to figure lots out - plus learning how to sew as straight as possible would help too! ;)

Willingly Jesus',
Kimber

Christmas Eve Dinner

"Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you."

Luke 22:20

Here are the pictures of our Christmas Eve dinner!

The table

Alexis, Eden, Seth and Caleb waiting for dinner

Daddy, Paw-paw, Na-naw and Hannah at the table

---

This has nothing to do about Christmas Eve, but I thought I would go ahead and tell you how our New Years went. Tuesday afternoon, the Lawhorns (Uncle Mike, Aunt Stacey, Kaitlyn and Sarah) came over to visit. We (most of the children) played Kemps, Speedminton and walked over to our many-animal-farm and talked. The adults stayed inside (much warmer there!) and, of course, talked. For an afternoon snack we had Pumpkin Bars that I (Kimber) and Mommy made. I made Cream Cheese icing to go along with it too! We got the recipe from a friend at church, Mrs. Nigro. They (the Lawhorns) left before dinner. Wednesday morning, as some of you may know, it was extremely windy. I love being outside, especially when it's windy. So, I went out on our hammock and let the wind rock the hammock. It was wonderful! And then I convinced Hannah and Eden to come out too. Daddy brought out a fuzzy blanket for us to cuddle up in and we rocked to and fro. I love watching an incoming gust of wind. The trees far in the distance start to bend first and then soon, all of the trees around you are bending. I involuntarily smiled because I just loved seeing the wind creep upon us all of a sudden and I loved watching the trees sway back and forth, while the chilling wind blew my hair! Anyways, that afternoon (after a very speedy lunch) we went to pick up Na-naw (grandma), Kaitlyn and Sarah from Best Buy and then we went to Na-naw's house. We played Apples to Apples and ate dinner and then our family and Na-naw and Paw-paw went to church for Pastor Rick's vision for 2009. I really enjoyed the service! Then we went back to Na-naw's house, played some more games, Sarah and I made Spritz cookies and decorated a few of them with Daddy and Mommy, got comfy in our jammies, watched the ball drop in New York and then went to bed. I woke up this morning around 9:45 but Hannah and Alexis were up much earlier. Breakfast was great - Paw-paw made another one of his awesome breakfasts! We relaxed a little bit, did our devotions and then watched Kung Fu Panda. Some family members and friends arrived for lunch. There was lots of yummy food out like Fritos, chips in general, Jello, cheese and crackers, lots of pies, a grand assortment of cookies, etc. Everything was great! We all got to talk to Mr. and Mrs. Hare, some friends from our old church; it was nice to see them. Lydia actually let Mrs. Hare hold her! (She normally wants Mommy, if she's in sight) We left their house after Lydia nursed and dropped off our Great-Grandma (we call her G.G) and then went home. We had a snack dinner of veggies, fruit, turkey, nuts, and hot cocoa!

Willingly Jesus',
Kimber

Christmas at Paw-paw & Na-naw's House 2008

"And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger."

Luke 2:16

After the Christmas Eve service at our Church we all slept great (at least I did!) and then we woke up early and went over to my Na-naw and Paw-paw's house. Most of Mommy's brothers and sisters were there, too! Paw-paw made an excellent breakfast for us, a few of the wonderful things he made were: his specialty, pancakes (he made up his own recipe), potato pancakes, blueberry pancakes, plain pancakes, sausage, scrambled eggs, Gritz, cinnamon rolls, etc. Everything was so yummy!

This is the dessert table for later that day.

These are the cinnamon buns! I just had to take a picture! ;)

After breakfast and clean-up, the family went to the dining room to read about Jesus' birth in Luke 2 and then to open presents. All the children, were on the floor, and the adults on chairs placed in different spots.

Listening intently.

Josiah

---Present Time!---
(Daddy was photographer during present time)

Caleb got one of the series in Jonathan Park

Alexis & Seth also got a series too!

We had listened to the first 2 series and really liked them, so we were glad to get another!

Josiah - he sat in my (Kimber) lap.

A wreath on the window

We had the Christmas Nash Luncheon that day during lunch time. That's when most of our extended family came over for lunch and then, after lunch, they played Dirty Santa/ gift exchange. I went out and took some pictures of Uncle Sean, Uncle Chris and Joel (my mother's cousin son) as they were playing football after lunch. Dad was in back occupying the little guys.

By the way...the football they were throwing is in each picture - see if you can find it!

(If you can't, leave a comment and I'll tell you where the football is in an update on the post, later)

Uncle Chris just threw the ball and Joel is getting ready to catch it.

Joel throwing the football.

Uncle Chris throwing the ball to Uncle Sean who is ready to catch it.

-

This was the flag on Na-naw and Paw-paw's tree. I thought the way that the sun was shining through it was neat, so I took a few pictures. If you look carefully you can see the sun rays, shining through the flag, in the shape of a cross.

Well, that's about it of our Christmas Day! Lunch was great with lots of yummy food and desserts. We helped clean up afterwards and then went home.

Willingly Jesus',
Kimber

Christmas at Our House 2008

"And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city."

Luke 2:1 & 3

After we returned from Grandpa and Grandma's house we cleaned up the house, put the new presents away and re-organized a few things. Then we had a relaxing Tuesday with a wonderful rest that night. Wednesday morning we had our personal family Christmas!

All the years I remember doing Christmas with my family, we always did it Christmas Eve - at night. I always liked opening gifts at night because we had all the Christmas lights illuminating the room and we were all cozy in our jammies - there was just something captivating about it. (Maybe it was just staring at those beautiful lights and wondering what presents were in the "wiseman bags" ;)

But we wanted to try something different so we did it in the morning this time.
I'll tell you about our day as I go along with the pictures!

Josiah helping with breakfast.

Alexis making the Drop Biscuits.

Daddy cooking his family-famous eggs!

Beautiful Lydia!

Relaxing before opening the gifts. (We ate breakfast and did devotions first) Those burlap sacks are what we call the wiseman bags.

Hannah - in her jammies - with some goodies in front of her.

Getting ready to open a wiseman bag. Lydia is sleeping and Mamma is temporary photographer! :)

Daddy got some peppermint patties! :)

Mommy and Josiah

Alexis

Josiah with some of the "goo" he got for Christmas. His "goo" changes from purple to pink. Eden got some "goo" too - hers glows in the dark.

Seth

Caleb

The presents Hannah and I received on the piano bench!

Alexis building a 3-D rhinocerous.

While we were opening gifts, one of our neighbors dropped by a kit for building a gingerbread house and as we were opening Christmas cards another neighbor brought by some cookies and pound cake!

-

This is an idea of what everyone got for Christmas:

Books - lots of books - probably close to 10 books.

The Mr. Pipes series, Jungle Doctor series and books on eventful attacks/wars around the World War I & II era, plus a story of missionary heroism. Mommy and Daddy are always looking for books (we love to read) to increase our knowledge and help us become knowledgeable on different events in History. We probably get books every year - and finish them all by the next Christmas (maybe with having read them over a few times) just in time for more books!

Vitamin C Chewable Tablets (500 grams).

We love the flavored Vitamin C's and they're very good for you so why not get them for Christmas? :)

Fingernail Polish

Three different shades

Peppermint Patties

I don't know anyone in our family that doesn't like peppermint patties! Candy makes a great present!

Oatmeal Creme Pies

Yum!

Really Nice Winter Gloves

Daddy and Mommy used the gift certificate from Bass Pro (the one we got if we went to bluegreen resorts) to buy those for us! The only problem is that it has to get cold enough to use them - snow would help too! :)

Musical Instruments

Beat sticks (I don't know what you call them!), djembe-12" (Daddy's favorite - He used to play the percussion at our old church), mini Congo, shakers, and last but not least a temporary violin for Alexis! Alexis has had an interest in violins/flutes for a while so Daddy and Mommy borrowed one from Mrs. Robinson, Alexis' best-friend-forever, Jamie's, Mom. She has it for a year or two to figure out if she would like to pursue playing the violin.

Music Books

Twister

Twister is such a fun game, the only problem being that 8+ people can't play at once!

Candy Cane

Tripod for a Camera weighing no more than 1 1/2 lbs.

-- One of my (Kimber) favorite gifts!--

Hair Accessories

We constantly lose them, so we always need new ones!

-

I don't remember what else we got, so that's good for now! Lydia did get a really cute pair of clothes! We relaxed a little bit more (Hannah, Caleb and I read our new books - Missionary Stories, The Story of D-Day and Jungle Doctor) and then prepared our Christmas dinner. Na-naw and Paw-paw (our grandparents) came over to celebrate with us. The table was set with a tablecloth and Mamma's fine china and glasses. We had sparkling grape juice for our drink to remind us of Jesus' sacrifice. I'll see if I can post the pictures soon. After dinner we went to church for the Christmas Eve service. All of us went in the service as a family, which we really liked!

Willingly Jesus',
Kimber

Christmas at Grandpa & Grandma's House 2008

And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”

Luke 2:12

(This post is a series of 3-5 posts on Christmas. I'll try and post one every other day or so.)

We had a great Christmas with all of our family and friends! Since we have 3 families to celebrate Christmas with we have to figure out a way to be able to celebrate with all of them. Since we do Christmas on Christmas with my Paw-paw and Na-naw (mamma's parents) then we celebrate Christmas with our other grandparents a few days before. In this case, we stayed at their house Sunday, the 21st, thru Monday. We had a great time!

Like I said before (I think) I wasn't very active in my photography at their house but I did get a few pictures in! Here they are!

Seth, Josiah and Caleb in front of the Christmas tree!

My grandma

(That's Eden on the floor, beside my cousin's dog, Zepo)




Josiah eating a candy cane

Alexis getting a candy cane

Caleb and Seth playing a game

Zepo, our cousins dog.

The family in Christmas attire!

Lydia in her adorable dress!

Singing carols to beautiful music accompaniment by Hannah, Alexis and Caleb (playing the piano, recorder and guitar).

Lydia reaching for a flower!

Getting ready to open presents!

(Left to right: Caleb, my cousin, Diana, Seth, my cousin, Stephen and Aunt Amy)

(I didn't take any pictures of anyone opening presents)


Some of the gifts we received are:

Wall-E (the movie)

Wall-E figurines

Jammies

Clothes

Toys

Wedgits (building type things)

Bracelets

Mugs

etc.

All 11 grandchildren on the stairs waiting to open stockings.
From the very top, to the bottom: Eden, Cousin Amanda, Hannah, Cousin Diana, Kimber, Cousin Stephen, Alexis and Lydia, Caleb, Seth and Josiah

The Christmas Puzzle!

Every year we do a Christmas puzzle (a tradition we started a few years ago) and we finished it on Monday, with lots of help from the other members of the family.

Seth building things with his new present.

This is my favorite picture, so far, from all the pictures I've taken during Christmas-time:

The Christmas tree reflecting in a mirror!

Willingly Jesus',
Kimber