It's Christmas!

It's Christmas Morning in Arkansas!

Christopher on Christmas Morning:

Sarah enjoying the gift opening:

Steven watching others open their gifts:

Christopher and Sarah having fun on Christmas Morning:

Samantha is excited opening a gift:

Simon being held captive so the others can open their gifts:

Sandy modeling her gifts from Rebecca:

I thought this was a cute way of Adam and Savannah addressing a gift (family pic) to us:

Here is the grandma enjoying playing with Simon:

Miranda and Dan and family arrived the day after Christmas.  It was so fun to see them.  Then Kera and five of her six came on Saturday. How do you know when you have 13 grandchildren in your house?  Just check out the toys in the family room:

Or the shoes at the back door:

We've played games in the evening-- five crowns, Wacky Six and dominoes.  The cousins have enjoyed playing among themselves with train tracks, legos, going fishing, and even monopoly.  Steven is fascinated with Monopoly.  He'll pull it out and play it every day. He's learning how to make change. 

I was cleaning out and organizing the file cabinets in my office and he wanted me to play Monopoly with him.  I said he could play for me.  So he came in every two minutes to report who I'd landed on and what money I owed.  He had interesting rules.  Each time I landed in jail it took a different number to get me out.  Nine or seven... but I don't think ever double ones.

One evening Dan Mc entertained the children with these balloon rockets:

Food has been tasty. We decided to have "Christmas Dinner" on Christmas eve.  We invited a couple, an older sister from a retirement home and our two neighbors-- Barbara and Ernie over for dinner.   It was a nice evening. 

I decided I liked that.  I worked all day Christmas Eve on the food.  We made the Christmas breakfast casserole and cinnamon rolls that evening.  So then on Christmas, food was so easy.  We cooked the casserole and ate leftovers all day. Leftover turkey, stuffing, pies, rolls, casserole.  Yum!

Everyone has pitched in with the cooking, so it's gone pretty smoothly. Sunday was a good meeting.  Deborah helped out as primary chorister.  I tell you... you're here a week and you're part of the ward.

Just how many women does it take to fix a Sunday dinner of 7 adults and 13 children?