Joyful Day

Hello and thanks for stopping by!  I am a day late posting photos of "the big day" because I had to volunteer at Multnomah Falls yesterday with Shirley.  I sure would have rather have stayed home by the fire and relaxed, but it was a fun day there as there were many people out enjoying a sunny brisk day.  200 per hour in the visitor center!

But I wanted to share with you our special day.  This is actually Christmas Eve.  We'd gotten a book called "Santa is coming to Portland" and Travis read it to us while  the boys had cocoa.

The story got serious when it got foggy and Santa could not find Portland.. and it was VERY foggy here!  In the book Santa heard a church bell and found the town.. so I told the boys that when they headed to bed, we'd go out on the deck and they could ring my old schoolteacher's bell I had so Santa could find us.  Dayle even rang the old iron triangle/dinner bell we have hanging by the back door.  The boys went to bed assured that Santa would find us in the fog.

At 7 in the morning, we heard noises and a knock on our door.. time to get up!  When we went into the living room the boys were showing us all the fun stuff Santa left them in their stocking.. and if you look behind them.. Santa brought them 2 shiny new bikes!  (photo a bit fuzzy, but you get the idea)  :-)

Ahem.. the pile of wrapping is a bit.. big?  Kristi got Travis and pellet rifle which he was thrilled with.  

Kristi's mom got the boys two fun hats, when you squeeze the bottoms of the hat the ears flap and the monster hugs you.  Cute stuff!

The boys played nicely with their new toys and we relaxed until 3 pm when our older son Shawn and his family arrived, then we had to get busy and make dinner.  We also watched a movie the kids got for Christmas - "Planes" by the makers of "Cars".  We got the leaves in the table and got it set for dinner.

We got the same ham that his sister Darlene served - a boneless, smoked ham with a red currant glaze.  I highly recommend it.. it's from Costco.  Dayle cooked it on his smoker grill so we could have the oven for the potatoes au gratin that I made, plus the corn casserole and scissor rolls.

And here we are.. see the crackers in everyone's hands?  We started a new tradition which I learned about from a fellow blogger in England, Jane from Jane's Journal.  We pulled the cracker and they popped, and inside was a little gift, a paper hat and a joke to read.  We all had so much fun with that!  We ate our dinner and then afterwards we read the jokes and enjoyed each other's company.

The menu - ham, potatoes au gratin with gruyere cheese, corn casserole, asparagus and scissor rolls.

We got Michael and Gabriel some warm winter coats and they just fit!

This was my gift from Dayle.. an iPad Air.  :-)  

We got the girls each a tablet for their gift and they love them!

And so, it was a good Christmas - full of family and friends and great times.  I'm heading off to spend some time at Gracie's house with Betsy and maybe I'll see Taci.  Then I'm off to the pool to get some exercise.  

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  *H*A*P*P*Y* *N*E*W* *Y*E*A*R*!*

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((hugs)), Teresa :-)