family togetherness night

Tonight we are hanging out in the kitchen.  Dad is rolling out dough to bake off the rest of the gingerbread cookies.  He made a few dozen gingerbread men for the big feast today at the shop. 

Dad just had to make a stop action movie of the gingers dedicated to one of the cookies biggest fans: our cousin Tony.  The cookies were enjoyed by all.  A few were wrapped up and taken for enjoyment later.

Our annual Christmas dinner at Yoder Bros. was this afternoon.  The party was wonderful with lots of people, but that is not what I'm writing about.  I just wanted to note this fantastic evening as we (Jason, Zachary, Lewis, Dad, Me and Kirsten) stand around and gab.  About lots of things but mostly laughing and not really talking about anything.  

The first two dozen have come out of the oven and dad just pulled out the cooling racks.  Mom joins us too.  She warms up leftovers from her company dinner yesterday evening.  Now the kitchen smells like lasagna.  Stella searches for crumbs and dad bites into an apple.

Fred grumbles.

Zachary goes to bed as he has a wrestling tournament tomorrow where he will wrestle five opponents.  

I worked on a little Christmas cheer for my gift giving list.

Lewis has us laughing.

Jason snatches the cookies hot off the pans.

We are so ready for our brothers to join us.

But I highly doubt there will be any cookies left by Sunday.