Christmas Family Pictures.

A bunch of gorgeous kids!! 

15 of the 17 grandkids on my side of the family. L to R

O5 & K3, my brother D &A's kids.

 Our family, L6 & J7 with E5 & R3 holding Baby G6w with J3(1) in front of them.

A8 with little brother K2 in front of her and big brother L9 beside her, brother T&D's kids.

K3 is right under L's chin with little brother R2 sitting on the floor in front of her. My sister M&D's kids.

M5 with little sister C2 sitting by her feet, my sister A&K's kids.

Missing are J14 & A11 my sister S&D's kids. 

Just the girls. Beautiful bunch of girls!! We bought their matching dresses at Costco and it was a bit confusing as there was a LOT of little blond girls running around, but MAN were they ever cute!! I didn't plan it this way but my girls are wearing new headbands from the Griggs Gift Box sent from Papa's family and they really helped us tell all those little blond heads apart. The girls LOVE their headbands :) They still were a bit confusing I realized when Uncle D asked which girl was which :) The headbands helped there too as we were able to match colors to girls for him. We don't see them as looking that alike as we always see them dressed differently, but dressed the same and you could totally get E and R mixed up!! 

 There are 9 girls and 8 boy grandchildren on my side of the family. There are 3 boy and 4 girl grandchildren on Papa's side of the family :) 

My side totals 31 members with my parents, siblings, in laws and grandchildren. 

Papa's side with parents with his sibling and niece add up to 12, with our family being 8 of the 12. 

The sort of funny thing about those numbers is Papa's parents have a bigger house :) 

My family got together on Christmas day this year, for a later lunch and afternoon & evening gathering. I took like less then 10 pictures and got these pictures from my sil A :) Thanks A!! We had a lot of fun. Playing games, talking, eating and taking pictures. D&A live in Ab and come every 2nd year and it was really nice to see them again. We had them over for lunch later that week and enjoyed visiting and getting to know them and their children a little bit more. Several of the kids, and Grandma had birthdays in Jan so they are all a year older now :) J8, K4, A12, Grandma, L10 and M will be 6. 

Baby G in her Christmas dress Grandma F made up for her from a larger dress!! Super cute!!

 Thanks Grandma!! 

Baby G's Camera Faces

She smiles HONEST but she won't do it for the camera and if she does it turns out like this....

Which doesn't look nearly as blurry on here as it does on the computer. Or like this 

Or 

Man she is cute..even if she won't smile for the camera :) 

Her soft baby on the side of her play pen was a gift from Sarah at Made on Fifth Street Thanks Sarah!

Oldest & Youngest

Baked Oatmeal Muffins!

What a great way to start the day :) I make a bunch of these a head of time and the kids drag them out of the freezer, nuke them, and make their own breakfast!! Really nice on the days when the baby finally went to sleep at 2am..

This recipe is from a book Papa brought home from Virginia in 98 called Mennonite Country-Style Recipes and Kitchen Secrets by Esther H Shank.
It's on page 90 but if you just open our book on the binding it falls right open to it :)

Baked Oatmeal

2 eggs beaten

1 cup of milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil, we use homemade butter

1 cup brown sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt 

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Mix this all together until it it well mixed. 

Then add.

3 cups quick oatmeal

1/2 raisins or not if you don't like them :) Most of us here do so raisins are a must. 

Pour into a greased 8X12 baking dish and bake at 350 for about 25 minutes. Serve with warm milk. Mildred Bucher. 

We do this recipe twice and still put it in the same size pan and it works.. you just have to cook it for 40 to 60 minutes instead of 25 minutes. This morning Papa did it SIX times and we got a 8X12 baking dish and 3  muffins short of 4 doz.