Christmas

I am inspired by some of the blogs I read posting their Christmas (eve) day activities already. So here I go....

Christmas Eve we went to the Christmas Eve service at church, which is always really good. We were able to go to the early service because Russ was able to get off early. I was really happy about it because the later service would have made it difficult to have dinner but get Penelope to bed at a good time. The church service, surprisingly, was standing room only! Isn't that amazing! Russ and I still had pretty good seats in the back on the floor. We decided to then have dinner with Russ' family at CPK (California Pizza Kitchen) and then we went home to prepare for Christmas morning. When we got home we watched The Nativity Story (the movie). It was the first time Russ or I had ever seen it and it was amazing. I highly recommend it. I think I'm going to buy it and make it a tradition every year to watch.

Christmas morning I had all my family coming over to celebrate Christmas with a Christmas brunch and opening presents. I wanted to get as much done the night before as possible so I stayed up pretty late. But I was able to relax and enjoy Christmas morning. My mom brought over a huge hunny baked ham and cranberry sauce. My sister brought an apple pastery and apple cider and sparkling apple cider. Then I had an egg and sausage casserole, an egg/ tomato/ basil quiche, cinnamon rolls, strawberry chesse pastery, donuts, muffins, white chocolate peppermint bark, fresh fruit, and biscotti. And then we also had coffee, tropical fruit ice tea, mimosa, poinsettias, juice, and baileys. In any case we had a FEAST for 7 adults and 1 toddler and an infant. LOL. It was really nice and relaxing.





After brunch we were due at Russ' parents at 3 pm. It turned out that Penelope hadn't settled down enough with all the Christmas excitement to take a nap so when we showed up at their house both kids had crashed out. We showed up just in time for another Christmas feast. There was prime rib, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, Watergate salad and for desert Lindsey's version of Jesus' birthday cake (a white cake with green/ red gelatin and cool whip frosting with sprinkles). After dinner Penelope woke up and we did another set of presents. I felt so sorry for Penelope after each present she opened she kept asking to play with the toy. But we kept keeping her going to open other presents. I have heard of families that get together and let the kids open and play with one gift at a time. And that sounds so much better then the rush that usually happens. I just don't think it is doable within the time restraints of visiting multiple placing on Christmas.

Here are the pictures of the kids crashed out at Russ' parents.




We are still trying to recuperate around here. Our living room is finally looking back to normal. We also ended up getting some money for the holidays and combined that with a bonus Russ got at work for being a top seller, we bought a Wii with the Wii fit plus so that we can loose weight. I defiantly have to work on losing this baby weight now that the holidays are over. And with some other money that we got for the kids we got Austyn his own piggy bank (Penelope has several so we had to make sure Austyn has one too). And Penelope her own Camelbak water bottle, she absolutely loves using the adult ones when they are around. Overall we were abundantly blessed this holiday season.