Christmas! Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas again this year!  On Friday, we went to my aunt's house for our annual Christmas dinner/gift exchange/party!  It was a blast.  We ate delicious food, had a white elephant exchange (I got an awesome ring that was stolen... and then stolen again... and I ended up with a Santa piggy bank!), exchanged real gifts and played bingo!  I won the big prize of the night in bingo--$12 worth of scratch-off lotto tickets!  Out of that, I won $4.  Not too shabby... I also won $5 on another scratch-off.  So, $9 in my pocket.  It was a great night and it was fun to be with my aunts, uncles and cousins!

Oh, and I also made these cookies as gifts for my aunts and uncles:

Red Velvet White Chocolate Chip cookies.  Be jealous.  They melt in your mouth.  I found this recipe on Pinterest.  It was easy-peasy, but in the event that you make it, I want to give you some advice:  After every ingredient is in the bowl, you're going to think:  "There's not enough moisture here.  I'm just going to end up with a clumpy powder mix!"  Just keep mixing!  It takes a little elbow grease to blend!  I sure do love Pinterest.  I made so many things that I found there this Christmas!

On Saturday night, Steve had to work, so George and I went to In n Out with some of our friends and then to go see Christmas lights!  While we were driving through the park with the lights, we let George out of the car seat so that he could see--his head was on a swivel!  He absolutely loved all of the lights!

We've officially discovered that Christmas Eve is exhausting when you're a parent--which is funny because Santa was good to us, but certainly didn't go crazy.  I don't know what took so long, but I was up until about 2am--and then rudely awakened by our terrible upstairs neighbor at 3am.  Her mom parked beneath our windows and left her big diesel truck idling for about 25 minutes while they said their (loud and enthusiastic) hellos.  I was seriously ready to explode.  The day only got worse and worse with her, but we won't dwell on that.

Christmas morning was great!  We had church at 8:30.  It was a spectacular way to start our Christmas!  It was entirely musical numbers.  They were beautiful and George loved them.  Even if he's being crazy during church, he always sits and watches musical numbers.  I think it's neat how the Spirit is so strong during the musical numbers that it even calms our crazy boy!

After church, we opened presents!  George was more interested in presents that he could already see.  I figured as much, so Santa brought him one toy... and then he brought bibs and socks and mitten clips.  The big present of the day was a small box of goldfish.

After presents, Steve made a delicious breakfast (Eggs Benedict with potatoes):

The boys relaxed while I got dinner ready (it was cold in our apartment, so I put G back in his jammies):

Dinner was delicious (if I may say so myself).  We had Cornish Game Hens with Apple Stuffing, Sweet Potato Casserole, Green Beans and rolls.  I also made a pecan pie, but I forgot to take a picture before it was sliced.  Rest assured, this was the best pecan pie I've ever made.  Thanks to Pinterest, I really brought my A game for Christmas.  This was my first time cooking for a holiday... and it was a lot of work!  I started right after breakfast, prepared everything and then relaxed for exactly 1 hour before I had to start cooking everything.  It was worth it, because it rocked:

We relaxed and talked to family after George went to bed.  It was a nice, relaxing holiday with my little family.  We missed spending Christmas day with our families... but there's something so nice about not having any obligations and getting to just spend the entire day with my two loves.  We almost never get a day with almost zero things to do (no work, no studying, no errands)!

We are so grateful for this day that we had to celebrate the birth of our Savior!!  We were saying that we wish we had church on Christmas every year!  It was so nice to start off the day with a reminder of what we are celebrating!

We hope that you had a great holiday and are looking forward to reading about everyone's day (so keep them coming)!!! XOXO