Saturday

We spent this morning up at church for Christmas pageant practice. This year's pageant is a series of ten scenes, including Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Ruth and Naomi, and Mary, Joseph, angel, and shepherds. It actually is pretty entertaining! Katie is Mary and Ruth (in different scenes, obviously), and Travis is Shepherd #1 (he points at the star).

Here Katie is receiving the news from the angel...

and here she is telling Joseph that she will forgive his initial negative response to her news and marry him (though not without an eye roll or two).

Here Travis is telling his fellow shepherds to look at that star. He plays a very low key shepherd.

 And here he and his fellow shepherds are told to fear not. Not really an issue, actually.

Katie and Ed decorated the tree this year. Ed did the lights and put the angel on top, and Katie did all the rest. I love that girl!

Tonight my parents came over for dinner and Banagrams!
It is the last day of Hanukkah, and they brought their menorah and yamukas for all. The kids and Ed were impressed by my daddy's ability to read (and chant) Hebrew. He is pretty cool!

After dinner -- stew, rolls, and salad. It was good, but maybe a bit heavy, given the very chocolate Yule log I made for dessert. But we all soldiered through!

Here is the cake this morning, before frosting. It looked much more log-like this way.

 And with frosting. I was lazy this year and didn't cut off a piece and attach it to the side. Not all logs have branches sticking off them.

 My mom does the dictionary work (checking the legality of words) when we play Bananagrams. And Travis makes duck lips. And wins. My dad won one game and Travis won the rest. We love him anyway.