Merry and Bright!

Well we’re home from our trip and boy do I have a ton of pictures to post, nothing new I realize ;) Anyway, we had a great time and as much as I dreaded the long traveling days it was WELL worth it as expected! Before I get ahead of myself let’s get up to speed with Christmas! Alex and I came home a few days before Christmas to start our amazing 2 week break and wow, was it ever needed!

As expected and very much anticipated mom and I spent most of our time leading up to Christmas and the day of Christmas in the kitchen and shopping…

   Looking back I feel like we didn’t even accomplish that much in the kitchen leading up to Christmas, partly due to the fact that my glass mixing bowl literally shattered right before my eyes:

Yes, that GLASS bowl literally exploded on me while nothing and no one was touching it! Apparently Pampered Chef makes non microwavable glass, is that even possible?   

Our other “given” was of course getting our butts to El Sombrero  before Christmas, so we made  it on the night of Christmas Eve, Eve!!

We also made it to “Cringlefest” that night for a HUGE Statesboro High, BA and SEB reunion! It just gets bigger and bigger every year, thankfully Lou and I hit about 20 birds with one stone at this year by seeing all the people we love under one roof!

My loves!

Kayla and I were determined to get together while her and Lance were home from Kansas and look what happens when you set a goal and work together towards achieving it :)

  Christmas Eve was spent with Alex’s family, shooting guns, opening presents and eating Mikes famous chili (with saltines and butter- weird concept but actually really good) and oh yes, the weather was perfect!

Mike got a new gun and he couldn’t have been more proud to show it off… Naturally Alex fell in love with it and and now thinks he needs one!

He also thought i would fall in love if I held the gun…. no such luck but does this look like the most posed, un-natural stance of all or what?

Can you tell the dogs knew it was presents time?

They were right in the middle of the action! Oh yes and notice Karen “borrowing” Julians Christmas present while opening her own presents… Yes, the Lazy Boy addicts Karen and Mike are trying to turn their grand daughter into a Lazy Boy lover as well with her first miniature pink one!

When we made it back home that night we HAD to watch the traditional “Home Alone” and the next morning Mom and I  had the best of intentions to make cute vegan pancakes for Billys Christmas breakfast!

I think one of the three turned out edible! It was so hard to keep them from getting burned! If you were to tell me when I was younger that I would one day wake up and want to cook cute Christmas tree shaped pancakes before opening presents I would have thought you were the biggest liar of all!  

However, you wouldn’t be lying at all, the last couple years “us kids” take forever to run in the living room and see exactly what Santa brought us!

Eventually though, our bellies were full and on to the presents we went!

Santa was good to us as always!

Tucker was “tuckered out” as usual after all the excitement…. He is a big 7 year old now (as of the 28th)!!!

Happy Birthday my big, lovable, gentle, protective, mama’s boy!!

I have to say, my absolute favorite part about Christmas this year was STAYING IN ONE PLACE!! Don’t get me wrong we would have loved to see Alex’s parents were they not out of town and working but it was so nice to just relax and stay off the roads! I think it’s literally the first time we have ever not driven back and forth from Hilton Head, Pembroke and Register…

As a result we actually got to take our time and eat a good Christmas dinner (as oppose to lunch) at mom and dads this year!

 

Tara brought Phoebe to join us and  the princess needed her own chair at the table of course! Sorry Phoebe, mom must have counted heads wrong when setting the table ;)

  Naturally, daddy continued his tradition of being first to the table! Can you blame him? Look at that spread!

Lastly I have to share my most favorite present of all…

Mom put together a family cook book for me full of her recipes, grandma and mommoms recipe and a few of my aunts! She also wrote who’s recipe it was and or who enjoyed eating the meal….

I absolutely adore it!

We hope your Christmas was as merry as ours!