Christmas Recap

this year for Christmas (eve) we had our own little family dinner (as in with tom's parents and siblings) instead of ALL the cousins/uncles/aunts/grandma and grandpa (since grandma is still recovering from back surgery). We had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, fruit salad, veggie/cracker trays and i made these AMAZING bacon wrapped green beans. They were a big hit at thanksgiving and christmas dinner so now i think that will be the side dish im assigned to make for the rest of my life!


the family at dinner - and miss Ayla LOVED her mashed potatoes! this pic cracks me up



After dinner we decided to unwrap presents that night on christmas eve since the whole family was there and we werent sure if everyone would be together after church on sunday for actual christmas. So we unwrapped presents from the family at grandma and grandpas and Dulany got a lot of fun stuff including a new pillow pet ( a cute elephant she calls ellie the elephant replacing the flat old pig pillow pet she has), a princess castle she can color from her aunt julie. a few books from Aunt bonnie and a few other things. The best thing was matching wooden rocking chairs grandma got for both D and cousin Ayla - they are awesome!

Then grandma and D started to make chrismtas cookies for Santa (and carrots for rudolph) - this lasted for 3 days in a row. she didnt get that christmas was over.




we had such a fun night that night and stayed and hung out. Then decided we better get D home to go to bed so Santa could come to our house. Despite going to sleep around 9 D woke up wide awake at 5 (right after tom got up)... i dont know if she knew or what?! Anywho, she came down and saw presents and got really excited (see videos in before post) and i sadly didnt get any pictures...

she did get lots of puzzles, movies and books from gramps and gram (my parents) and 2 stockings! from us she got a little chalkboard/dry erase board which she's obsessed with, books, and the simba and nemo.

overall it was a pretty great christmas!! i did miss my family though. earlier this month marks a year since ive seen them but thank goodness for skype!!

Hope everyone was able to have a very merry Christmas.

now its time to figure out what to do for New Years!