Merry Christmas!

I'm just a bit sick when I think about these next pictures.  We realized at the end of January that we have some how deleted a lot of pictures.  All of our Christmas day present opening chaos pictures are gone.  We had a tinsel fight after we decorated the tree.  Those pictures have disappeared.  And, even sadder, Liam's birthday pictures are gone.  So from here on through almost the new year, most of these pictures are from our phones so please be patient.

 Zoe and I not only made pants for all the kids, Zoe wanted to make pants for her and Ceili Rain's American Girl Dolls.   She did an amazing job!

 Christmas Day!  I was so excited I got to make some cute embroidered shirts for everyone too!

 We finally did it.  We got Mark a coffee maker!  And it's a pretty red.  It has definitely been used quite a bit since then.

Christmas Breakfast and Y's first time eating hot fruit compote and my homemade biscuits.  He approved.

 Meal time is always quite entertaining in our house.

 We got Y a rubber band bracelet hook and bands.  By the time he left he had over 15 bracelets made and they almost made it to his elbow.

 We found out pretty quickly that Y LOVES cycling!  He would have been riding every single day, no matter the weather.

Okay, we worked hard to make sure Y not only tried a lot of American food but that he had some that was rather familiar to him.  He did not like borscht even though his brief description said he did.  But cucumbers and radishes and any kind of meat...that was perfect for him.  A veteran hoster had mentioned a blog called Natasha's Kitchen and testified that her recipes were pretty authentic for Eastern Europe.  Every time I made one of her recipes, Y was super excited and would quickly give me two thumbs up.  For Christmas supper, I made meat piroshki.  Oh my, we won't even discuss how unhealthy these things are all fried up.  But the taste.  Ahhh, they were amazing!  This may be our new traditional Christmas supper.