Fahnestock Christmas - January 8, 2011

Yesterday we had Christmas again! It's kinda nice not having all the family dinners over in a few days. We gathered at Mother and Nancy's house at noon for a big meal of turkey cutlets, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, baked corn, peas, green beans, baked mac and cheese, red beet eggs, lettuce salad, ribbon salad and lots of cookies and desserts. Everyone knows that a Fahnestock meal has many food choices! So yummy!

After dinner we clear the tables (paper and plastic makes it easy!). We make a large circle because it's time for the gifts! The children love this part of the day!

Part of the circle.

We start with the youngest child....that would be Zoe!

She looks at Mommy and seems to say -

What am I to do with this?

Aidan and Paityn are so eager to help the poor girl out!

Aidan opens his gift.

No help needed!

Somehow I missed getting a picture of Paityn opening a gift.

I know she asked Aidan if he wanted to help her =)

Andrew gets a book to read.

Ellen opens a new watch.

Her Daddy watches =)

Those two girls are cousins.

They are the best gigglers!

I'm not sure why they are giggling over Riley's book!

After we were finished opening gifts, I went upstairs with Aidan who wanted to play with some favorite toys.

While relaxing in the living room I could hear those 2 girls giggling and giggling! It brought back many memories of times when our daughters were that age and the fun they had with their cousins. Sweet memories! Also, my niece Diane's son came to me with a stack of books and wanted me to read to him.

I read every one of them to him. What a sweet little boy he is!

Later, I wandered to the basement again and this is what I found....

A large group of cousins playing a game.

It was the girls against the guys.

They were having a great time!

And a group of children happily played among the adults =)

Game players and the happy children.

I was holding Zoe and Paityn wanted to take a picture.

I saw her finger in the way ...

I was telling her to give the camera to me...

And this was the result!

I took this picture of our Zoe with the big brown eyes.

She is a doll!

We had a wonderful time. It was so good to have Mother/Grandma Fahnestock with us this time. When we were together in November, she was in the hospital. I know she enjoyed seeing her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren enjoying their time together.