Christmas Recap

I have been looking forward to this post ever since I got pregnant!! As I mentioned in my last post I am a freak for the holidays - seriously - as soon as fall hits I'm already thinking Jingle Bell Rock and Christmas cookies. And this year was the most amazing year yet being able to celebrate with our sweet miracle. We had such a great holiday season - it was all I imagined and so much more.

My brother arrived on Tuesday night and I picked him up from the airport. One thing about my family - I'm not sure if it's growing up in the country or what - but we literally have never met a stranger. So it was no surprise when my brother said he made friends at the airport and on the plane. We kicked off Christmas with a warm glass of Gluwein and some great conversation. My brother and I are 7 years apart and while we love each other dearly we've never been super close because he's always been my annoying little brother. With every year that passes we are getting closer and closer and I just love it. I just wish he wasn't so far away.

The next morning - Christmas Eve my baby bro and I went to the local market - Gene's Sausage shop to pick up the Christmas beef tenderloin roast. Going to Gene's is quite the excursion at Christmas. Lots of people pick up their special holiday meats and it's always a loooong line. When we got there they were serving number 75 and we were number 98. Good thing they have a fun liquor section so we shopped around there until our number got close. With a mini keg, a few bottles of gluwein and some Christmas ale we waited. I sat my shopping bag down and we heard a crack - Coe says - "Sounds like something just broke" I said "Nah it's fine". Cue deliciously sweet smelling gluwein gushing from my favorite shopping bag all over the small aisle of the very crowded store. Embarassed is not even the right word. We helped clean it up, offered to pay for it, grabbed our meat and went along on our way. My parents were here when we got back - yay!! The family was all together again! This year we decided to meld Christmas Eve traditions - we did heavy appetizers in the afternoon followed by a full nice, meal at night. It worked perfectly!

 A little bit of everything - my favorite being the cheeseball. Cream cheese, green onions, budding ham, accent, Worcestershire, and walnuts - deelish!

 Yay Gran and Grandpa are finally here!

 Picking Gran's nose!

 Best Christmas present EVER!

 Helping Uncle Coe with the traditional Christmas gingerbread house!

 Uncle Coe tapping the Christmas keg!

 Casey's first letter to Santa!

 Now that's a hunk of beef!

A new Christmas tradition - putting together Ceej's toys!

We had so much fun on Christmas Eve enjoying some drinks, eating deelish food and of course watching Christmas Vacation. I was so excited for Casey to wake up Christmas morning and see all of his things! He woke up around 6 and we all got up and got ready to open presents. I know some may think that we went overboard - especially with him being so little - but Christmas has always been a huge deal in my family and we (Gran and I) just couldn't help but spoil him! He was a bit overwhelmed at first but he had a blast opening and playing with his new toys!

 They see me rollin'...they hatin'...

 Could we be any luckier?

 Mom I got this!

 Beep beep!

 Wrigs has to be in the middle of everything!

 One lucky little nugget!

 First legos!

 Wrigs was exhausted!

 Uncle Coe and Auntie Ash got Casey a cowboy hat straight from Nashville!

My heart literally explodes when I look at this pic...

We opened one round of presents - put Case down for his morning nap - then we adults opened ours and when he woke we had a second round of presents! Then we headed to Grandma and Mamps (Chris' parents) for a beautiful and delicious Christmas dinner.

 Christmas with our cousins - we missed you Miss Savannah!

I literally have dreamed for years of having a little one to share the magic of Christmas with. The saying really is that you think Christmas is amazing when you are a kid but it's even more amazing when you have a child of your own. Even though Case is only 8.5 months old you could tell that he enjoyed the day and had a blast. I cannot wait to continue to build our Christmas traditions - and hopefully our family - and have many many more magical Christmases!

XOXO

K