Merry Christmas & Happy New Year??

Yes... I know.... it's April.  I'm a bit behind.  Here's the quick summary.  Over the next few days, I promise I'll get myself caught up to spring.

Christmas for our family this year was at Jimmy's house.  With the addition of Soeung, Miles and Camille this year, his house is much fuller!!  We arrived early on Christmas morning and looked in the windows to find the 3 kids already checking out the gifts under the tree.

We quickly joined in as the wrapping paper and ribbon began to fly around the room.  Star Wars and Wii games seemed to be the hits this year.

This was the year I finally finished Will's needlepoint stocking.  Having started this project shortly after Will was born, I had promised myself that I would complete it by the time he finished high school - I'm ahead of schedule!!  If I take this long on every stocking which needs to be completed for our newest family members, I will need to work at it a good bit faster than I did on this one.

Even the adults in our family get stockings.  In fact, this is usually much more anticipated than the wrapped gifts.  There's always a bit of a surprise in each stocking, and it has become quite the challenge to surprise each person with an unexpected treasure.  We really enjoyed seeing Miles, Camille and Soeung get into this family tradition.

Marci and Ryan arrived with our newest granddaughter - Malenda Sage.  At 4 months old, Malenda was quite delighted with all the activity.  Her cousins were absolutely taken with this new little baby.  Marci was able to find a quiet corner for Malenda, who still snoozes quite often.  But, when she was awake, she was all smiles.

Everyone contributed to the Christmas dinner.  Jimmy's sweet potatoes were a particular favorite this year.  And what would Christmas be without granddaddy's famous cheese grits casserole!  As usual, there was so much food that all of us had to eat that evening and the next day to finally finish it.  The cat, Butterscotch, seemed quite content with his catnip toy and didn't even seem to notice the feast on the table.

How many in our family now?  10??  Last year we had one grandchild - now we have 4!  What fun we had with these kids!  We were tired at the end of the day, and went home to sleep well - the best part about being grandparents!!