December Daily 4

My posts are going to be out of order because I have started a blog for my class and so I am uploading photos to computers all over the place and it seems that some of my home pics have ended up on my classroom computer.  I will have to do something about that.

Last Sunday was our monthly supper group's Christmas dinner.  We had a blast!  We were hosting and Dh did a standing rib roast on the barbecue.  The smell is unbelieveable and all the neighbours have to come and comment on the aroma.  J brought the appetizers - cheese sticks and stuffed mushrooms.  I have never had the mushrooms before and am not generally a fan of mushrooms in general but these were divine.  That's a recipe I must get.  The M brought a black-bottomed cheesecake and sticky buns that were amazing and the other J brought a great salad and bread.  There were lots of jokes about needing Weight Watchers by the time we were done.

Pk and LB only have two cousins and I don't expect that to change.  Having this group of friends is really nice because it feels a bit like a big family Christmas and the get togethers we had with the rest of our family when I was growing up.  Pk and Lb love the other kids and they had so much fun.  For the kids, one of the highlights was teaching Lb to jump on the bed in his room.  None of the parents were quite as excited about this.

 It's amazing to us to see the three together.  They all did kindermusik together when they were 18 months old - I wish I had a photo handy from those days.  It's hard to believe how much they have grown up already.

 We did a name lottery for the gift buying.  Each of the kids got another child's name for a larger present and then we all got a little something for everyone.  The opening was INSANE but the kids are all very, very happy with what they got.  O is obsessed with Star Wars right now and we bought him a talking mask that the dads had a lot of fun with.  We all found it funny that the box was so emphatic that it spoke in English - we all felt that the Chinese version might have been more fun.

 Of course, we had to try and get a photo of the gang.  With all the littles, it can be more than a bit challenging to get them all in one place and looking in the same direction.  I wish that Lb didn't have a soother in his mouth (something we normally won't allow but he was being such a grump, I was at the point of doing whatever it took to get by).  This photo is going to be a Christmas classic for all of us, I think.

 We were fairly amazed that the littles were able to stay up as long as they did.  If I do say so myself, I think that Lb was awfully cute in his Santa Hat and shirt :-)