happy christmas!!

well, it seems like the Christmas season is coming to an an end... people are taking down their decorations and now the focus is on the new year ahead. so... i thought: its a good time to reflect on my Christmas season, which, by the way, was a wonderful one : )

we all went out and looked at lights one night. there's a really rad house in livermore. i like the lights on their trees:

and, of course, deacon Dave's:

i did A LOT of baking this holiday season. i mean, i LOVE to bake stuff all the time, but around Christmas time... well, i basically go nuts. he he he. with the help of the kids and my ma, altogether we made sugar cookies, pecan tassies, russian tea cakes, spritz cookies, angel candy, sponge candy, and fudge. good god! mom had a couple of parties for bunco and bridge so a lot of the goodies got wiped out then. and i shared a lot of my edible creations with friends. the sponge candy was a big hit with kurt and brandi.. brandi's mom even asked for the recipe and made a batch for her family x-mas party. woot! hopefully everyone got to sample something that i made this year : )

some classic x-mas cookies

this is my "angel" candy. i guess it has a lot of different names... sponge candy, honeycomb. anyways, its one of my favorite's (and la's too!)

every year on Christmas eve one of my neighbors lines our entire street with luminaries. they've been doing it for at least 5 years or so. they set out the luminaries at around 7 pm. they line both sides of our entire street and set them a few feet apart. light them at around 9pm. and they stay lit until around midnight. its really awesome and i look forward to it every year! here's a picture (a craptastic picture) but it gives you an idea of how the luminaries are set up.

here's clay when he opened his x mas present from his grandparents in alaska. he got a new PSP. its a star wars one. its white and has darth vader on the back. its pretty rad. clay was so stoked! he literally fell to the floor when he opened the box!
Christmas morning. clay had woken up around 3 am. i told him, "no way, dude. its too early." so he went back to bed and got up around 7. so the whole fam woke up and opened presents. as usual, my parents went a little overboard with the gifts for the kids. but the kids were so thankful for everything they got and that made me so happy!
chloe got a mini build a bear machine. we made the bears, then named them and played with them. she was so proud that she actually made some stuffed animals!
all in all, it was a fabulous Christmas season... spent with family and friends and filled with lots of love : )