Merry Belated Christmas! Having just returned from Tennessee on Sunday night, and anticipating our departure to Illinois this Friday, we voted the official birth of Christ to be moved to the 18th.

Didn’t you get the memo? No? It’s alright. The date isn’t really that important.

Anywho.

We went all out. The Daddy even took the day off of work. Yep. That’s all out for this family. 😛 We rose and shone early that Tuesday morning all bright and bushy-tailed – all, that is, except for Benjamin. Who awoke feverish and fussy. He stared bleary-eyed through the whole gift un-wrapping ceremony, only feebly attempting to eat wrapping paper. Which is entirely unlike him.

(Don’t worry, he’s better now. He woke up this morning perfectly happy and healthy. And remained so until approximately 12:32pm, when, while leaning on a filing cabinet, one un-named older sister pushed his arms out from under him. Which caused him to fall gum-first onto the corner of the cabinet. Which, in turn, caused a horrifyingly huge gash in his upper gum. Blood gushed forth. And that led to our first family trip to the emergency room. Four hours later, the doctor (after approximately 30 seconds of observation) deemed him perfectly healthy and only slightly sore and sent us on our way home)

(By the way, when nursing a sore, bored infant in a hospital waiting room, it might be beneficial to have a printed sign baring the following message:

Please DO interupt us if it is finally our turn to be seen. This is not a special bonding time with which you would be interfering. This is not a crucial feeding without which he would surely starve. This is simply me attempting to pacify my injured infant who has been patiently waiting for the doctor for HOURS.

Because when the nurse finally came up to us (after passing by multiple times) she declared, “Every time I come to get you, you’re feeding him!”)

(I almost screamed.)

But anyways, this post was about what now? Oh, Christmas. Right.

This year we decided to only get toys that both children could chew on play with. So as to teach sharing. And to give headaches. So we got them a Fisher Price Animal Sounds Farm and a remote control train set (Curses! According to the reviews from that site I just found, the batteries that come with that train are worthless and expensive!) and additional track.

And then, of course, they each got an outfit. Because children love clothes.

Actually, Olivia was quite excited about her outfit and began to strip off her jammies at once in her eagerness to try it on.

Benjamin tried to eat the hanger.

Before, during, and after the present ceremonies, I was in and out of the kitchen making a never-before-seen-or-heard-of feast. It was amazing. And completely homemade!

For breakfast (which was actually around noon due to the my inability to nurse and bake at the same time. I know, I know. I need to work on that.):
Homemade Cinnamon Rolls with Powdered Sugar Icing

[What, were you looking for a picture here? Silly person! I’m still uploading Thanksgiving pictures! Actually, no. I’m trying desperately to upload wedding pictures now. I’ve given up on Thanksgiving. Someday, Silly Person, I will have DSL. And then I will share with you an amazing amount of pictures. Someday.]

For lunch/dinner/supper/all-of-the-above:
One 2lb sliced brown sugar ham (I didn’t do the brown-sugaring of said ham, but I did do the…) with Orange Glaze (and Golly Gee Willakers, that was that a yummy glaze).
HOMEMADE crescent rolls (and boy oh boy, was that more complicated that I thought (and took more butter than I thought the human body was able to digest (all in all, I used a whole pound of butter that day. (Let’s see if we can squeeze in one more parenthetical interuption here…))))
Steamed Peas (Can I tell you that of all the goodies laid out before her, THIS is what Olivia got the most excited about? She had at least half a pound of peas.)
Strawberry Tapioca Jello Salad (My husband doesn’t consider it an official holiday without the Strawberry Tapioca Jello Salad.)
Mashed potatoes (Technically, they were whipped. I don’t have a masher.)

And for dessert:
Pecan Pie with whipped cream.

And of all the above, the things that I have made at least once before in my life would be: The mashed potatoes and the peas. Yep, everything else was incredibly new and foreign to me.

Just a leeeeettle stressful. But it worked! Everything was absolutely delicious. The pie crust was a little weird, as I was half paying attention to the task at hand, and half listening to a Christmas devotional. But the yumminess of the filling overshadowed any weirdness of the crust.

And while I was doing my third or fourth load of dishes that day, Josh took Olivia out to experience her first I’m-not-scared-of-this! snow experience. Adorable pictures, people, adorable pictures. [Again, patience is needed with the coming of those pictures.]

They built a snowman. The snowman even had a carrot nose. And raisin eyes. And Cheerio hair. And it was taller than Olivia. And she loved it. And we have adorable pictures of her with it. Good thing, too, because when we came home today from the hospital, we were met with a horrible case of snowman mutilation. His stick-arms had been broken off and he was laying pathetically on his face.

What a cruel world we live in. I wonder if the squirrel had anything to do with this…

And that was our day. Well, the exciting parts anyway. There were naps, and devotionals, and lots of train-track-building (after Benjamin got over his fear of trains, that is). There was cocoa and marshmallows and general laziness (once the baking was done). It was a wonderful Christmas.