Christmas with the Foree's

On Christmas morning, I dressed Kate up in this cute Santa outfit...

...and then used her to wake up my brothers and sister.


The stockings.

Inside each of our stockings were lots and lots of candy, little cars that were powered by balloons, and stuffed snowballs! Yep. They were like stuffed animals, but...snowballs. We each got two in our stockings, and had SO MUCH FUN throwing them at eachother. I think it's safe to say that the snowball fight was never really over...

After opening our stockings, it was time for the grandest tradition of them all. SUGAR CAKE and hot chocolate. This sugar cake is what I live all year for. It's so good, and is definitely my favorite Christmas tradition. This year I learned that this tradition goes back a lot longer than I thought. This is actually my great-grandmother Schmuhl (sorry, I should know how to spell that)'s recipe, and she made it when she lived in Germany. The tradition was then brought over when she and her family immigrated to New York when my grandmother was just a little girl. It was then carried on by my grandma, and now my mom makes it every Christmas!


By the way Mom, could you email me this recipe so I can make it and post it on my cooking blog?

You should all be very excited.

See how excited everyone is? haha.

After stuffing ourselves with sugar cake, it was time to exchange gifts. This year we all drew names.

Dustin had Jared. He got him this monkey we found at the Tempe Festival of the Arts a couple weeks ago. It's entirely made out of metal. The picture doesn't do it justice. It's actually very cool.
Andy had Jen. He got her this Taylor Lautner poster. She's blushing with excitement here.
He also got her a decorative box from Hobby Lobby, and I filled it with hair bows that I made.

I had Andy. I bought him a winter coat from Old Navy. Poor guy lives in Provo and doesn't have anything warm!
Alex had Dustin. I'm not sure how to describe his gift... it's like a cube of magnetic balls that can be shaped into anything. Kinda like playdoh-but magnetic balls. There. That's the best I can do.

My mom had me. She made me a very cute apron, and even made a little one for Kate! She also got me a box a cake decorating supplies, which I am very VERY excited about. I've always wanted to learn how to decorate cakes, and my grandma used to do it for a living, so it's gotta be in the genes right?
Jen had dad. She got him some socks, a snickers bar, and framed some of her art for him to hang in his office.

Jared had mom. He got her an archaeology book.

Did I forget anyone?

Then Dustin and I exchanged the gifts we got eachother. I bought him Gladiator on DVD (his favorite movie, but it's on VHS so he never watches it) and The Dark Crystal (also one of his faves, but it was stolen when our car got broken into about 5 years ago). He bought me Julie and Julia! I love this movie! And he also got me mommy-and-me aprons. Hahaha. I guess everyone knows where I've been spending my time lately!
Christmas was AWESOME this year! We had so much fun spending so much time with family. I'm not even close to being done posting about it, so stay tuned!