Saturday, December 29, 2012

Merry Christmas!

Whew, the holiday has passed and slowly but surely life is slowing down in preparation for the new year. I have not posted in a while, so I am going to do a recap of all the Christmas celebrations and happenings to date!

It's kind of a shame when your husband looks at you on Christmas Eve and says he is ready for Christmas to be here so we can relax and enjoy the company of our family because we have run ourselves to death in preparation for the holiday! Maybe next year we will do better! But, this year Brian had Christmas Eve off from work and it was so nice to be together all day! Of course we took the opportunity to finish up some last minute shopping but we also hit the gym on Christmas Eve which my body is thankful for after all that I indulged this holiday. (sidenote: I managed to only gain 2 pounds over Thanksgiving and Christmas and have already dropped 'em!)...

On the eve of Christmas Eve we baked Christmas Cookies at Brian's parents' house and decorated them with my niece. She loved rolling out the cookie dough but didnt care too much for decoarting the cookies... We ended the evening with a carriage ride through Starry Nights!



Christmas Eve we went to my Aunt's house for dinner and some present exchanges.This was an exceptional Christmas and we can't wait to take our family vacation this year to the Bahamas!!!

Christmas morning, Brian's parents, Katherine and Mike came over for breakfast and gift exchanges. We ended the morning by playing a very strategic board game that i can't remember the name of... but it was fun!



Then we cleaned house and headed over to my mom and dads for more gift exchanging and dinner. I crafted a few gifts this year but didnt get a picture of everything... my favorite was getting my niece's handprints on some tiles with quotes to give to my parents (hayden's grandparents) and my sister and Ray.

This Christmas Brian and I decided to seriously scale back our gift giving to one another in hopes of starting some more house projects soon (i'll keep you posted on what we do... but i'm dreaming of new kitchen counters :)



Even with all of the holiday excitement, it was hard to forget those that we were missing this Christmas... more than a few tears were shed as we remembered my grandmother who passed this February; our sweet companion, Jake who we lost this October and my Great Aunt Sylvia who died on Christmas Eve. her funeral will be Monday in Chicago. I am so grateful for the wonderfu family that I have and those that we were able to celebrate with and we were blessed beyond measure this year. Prayers out to my family in Chicago who were missing a very special lady this holiday.

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and spent it with loved ones!