Christmas Day

We had a great Christmas this year. About 11 am we went over to Bainters to see what they had gotten for Christmas. They had gotten a wii. Grandpa and I bowled. For the first time in my life I beat Grandpa at bowling. I have never had such a high score. Then Baxter beat me at golf.

About two in the afternoon Tina and her family came down from Waldorf and stayed into the evening. Playing games, watching pirates of the Caribbean # 3 and sleeping.

Trudy fixed a ham, we had leftover potatoes, green salad, and rolls. Trudy had cheese and crackers we all pieced on and her homemade toffee, fudge, and peanut brittle.

I don't know about any one else but Grandpa and I had a great two days. We enjoyed all the gifts we received from everyone. With Trudy's gift we went to Ruby Tuesday and had lunch Wednesday. We are putting Sid's and Grandma Blake's toward a memory foam mattress. Dad has yet to do our car windows with George's gift.

My sisters sent me some nice goodies also that both Sid and I have enjoyed. Thank You everyone.

Christmas Eve at the Stevens

Sid and I, and the Bainter family went up to Tina's for Christmas Eve dinner and the opening up of the new PJs for the next year.

We had a great dinner, beef brisket, shrimp, green tossed salad (made by me, nothing special), Olive cheese bread, (recipe by pioneer woman, very good), Holiday bacon appetizers ( pioneer woman, again very good, done by Tina), Delicious Creamy Mashed Potatoes, (pioneer woman, by Trudy, again very good), and chocolate cake.

I also have cinnamon rolls thawing out, (pioneer woman, made by Tina) that Grandpa and I are going to eat today. They look delicious.

After dinner we had the opening up of presents. Then Grandpa and I came home and crashed in bed. Woke up to find that Santa had filled our Stockings with goodies.

The Bainter's youngest to oldest starting with Stevie.

Noah

Ceci

Zane

Baxter

Youngest to oldest Mckay

Chancy

Justin

All three older guys have matching bottoms

Then Tina with her pink Pjs.

As you can tell Dad and I didn't get PJ's this year.

Lincoln and Tina saw how much we enjoyed watching the kites at Ocean City sooooooooooooo we received one for Christmas.

Now we need to find a place to fly it where it won't get caught in any trees.

Ward Christmas Party Dec 8, 2007

The ward was greeted as they came in to the rec hall by Christmas carolers , as you can see Sid was one of the carolers. They sounded pretty good. A little later you'll have to guess who Santa's helper is): ????

After we had a great dinner of soup served in a roll, green salad and dessert, the primary children sang a few songs.

Cecilia was an angel and Zane was a Shepherd.

Then everyone sang christmas carols and Steve told the story of the Christmas Orange.

After the story the ward sang Old Saint Nicolas and guess who showed up. Yep you guessed it. Santa Claus.

Here is Noah on Santa's lap.

Zane and Santa

Cecilia and Santa

Finally Stevie. She was scared to death and she even knew who Santa was.

Baxter and Santa

Since we had been up in Waldorf taking care of Tina's boys while Tina is in Utah they came to the Christmas party. Mckay finally sat on Santa's lap.

Then Chancy couldn't resist but then again he wanted a candy cane so he sat on Santa 's lap also.

We all had a great time. Sorry about some of the pictures I just can't take all clear ones. I took pictures of all the children that sat on Santa's lap, about 80 and half were clear. It is to bad that the grandchildren were in the last half of blurred ones.

Christmas

Sid and I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

This year has been great for us and hopefully for you all also.

Love you all

Thanksgiving 2007 in Maryland

Set up the table for 14 people. Tina and Lincoln's family, Trudy and Steve's family and dad and me.

We served buffet style worked out great

Stevie Bainter and her dad Steven.

Tina Stevens

Baxter, Justin and Cecilia

Lincoln Stevens

Zane's plate. Big eater

The feed. As usual we had way to much food. All the pies are in the house on the freezer. We munched on them all day. Tina and I were lazy and bought our pies. Trudy was a trouper and made her pies.

The delicious looking rolls, Tina made. It was all very goooood.
I did a pretty good sweet potato casserole with the potatoes we raised this year.

The only thing missing was our family on the West Coast and Halley and Ryan in Salt Lake.

Love you all and hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.

After we finished doing our Christmas cards. At least Tina and I did cards and Trudy did teachers gift boxes. Ceci, McKay, Stevie and Noah did their advent candy calender. Ceci went right at it.

Here Ceci is tying inbetween the candy.

Finished.

Stevie and Trudy laying out Stevie's candy. Stevie did the counting of the candy and then mom got the ribbon ready to cut.

Stevie tied all her indivdual candies.

All finished.

McKay is laying out his candy for his advent calendar.

Trudy showed McKay an easy way for cutting the ribbons that go in between his candies.

Mckay's finished advent calendar.

You can tell this takes a lot of concentration to tie all of these candies. Steve helped Noah for the first part.

Here is Noah with his finished 25 day advent candies for December.

A good way to finish the day. I think everyone had a great time. Some of the Bainters and Stevens were playing x box games over at the Bainters. Lincoln slept some and then he and Steve watched a football game. Dad just wandered back and forth between watching us do cards and the computer.

After all was finished and put away the adults just visited at our place until 10:00 pm.

We are so grateful for all of our many blessings and being with our family. The Lord has given Sid and me so many great things and the most important is family and the gospel.