Our Family Christmas

Making peppermint play dough for a fun school activity a couple days before Christmas.

I had the brilliant idea to give them real candy to decorate their play dough "cookies" with...

only I forgot that because the play dough was warm, right off the stove, the candy would MELT into it!

Their "spaceship."

So, in the end, that lovely green color we had going turned a disgusting camo-green thanks to the melted brown chocolate swirled into it.  It was so disgusting looking, and the smell had turned to a weird combo of peppermint and cinnamon drops and little boy hands, that I ended up throwing the whole batch away.  Lesson learned.  Oh well, it was fun while it lasted!  This literally kept my older boys entertained for 1 hour segments each time they played with it!

JoJo opening a car present from Grandmommy and Granddaddy.

We celebrated our own little family Christmas on Saturday, Christmas Eve Day, since we knew we'd have church on Christmas morning followed by a 3-hour car trip to Grandma and Grandpa's house.  The plan was to open presents and have our traditional Christmas Day meal on Saturday with our birthday party for Jesus and stockings reserved for Christmas morning.  Everything went according to plan until most of the family woke up with the stomach bug on Christmas morning. :( We ended up skipping the birthday party (since nobody but Mom felt like eating) and just doing stockings before everyone was ready for naps all day long!

But back to Christmas Eve Day:

A super cool explorer's belt from Grandmommy and Granddaddy!

A Little People fire truck for Addy.

Vroom!

Monkeys in a Barrel for Isaac.

New sweaters for Daddy!

Books are always a hit with our children!

So are puzzles!

This ring set from Grandmommy and Granddaddy was Adoniah's favorite gift of the day!

He sat there for the longest time putting the rings onto the pegs.  Since then, he's played with it over and over and over...

Isaac got a tool set for Christmas so he can be just like Daddy!  He was ecstatic and has been busy "fixing" and "building" things ever since!

A T-ball stand for all the boys to share!

Daddy checking out his new Garmin "Fitbit" from Mommy.  I think he likes it! :)

Look who finished the puzzle all by himself!

Making a quick recovery from the stomach bug, we decided to go ahead and keep our plans for a big Britton family get-together at the home of Nathan's parents on Monday.

For the first time in 4 1/2 years, the whole family was together!

Grandpa and Grandma with their 14 grandchildren.  There will be 3 more added in 2017!

The Britton sisters and sisters-in-law. :)

Such a cute shot captured of my in-laws!

We had a great time with the family until Josiah ended up throwing up Monday evening, so we quickly packed up our stuff and headed home, not wanting to give anyone the bug we thought had left us!  Turns out, several more members of our little family had another episode of it the following day and we've been in recovery mode ever since.  Now, I'm down with it too! 

Here's to hoping that 2017 starts out bug-free in our household!

Happy New Year to the rest of you!