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Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning

We've had Jason's parents and grandmother staying with us this week and it's been really nice! I still have one more day off, which will make 5 in a row. It's been so nice! We went to my mom and dad's for a little while on Christmas Eve. This was the first Christmas I've spent away from my family, which was a little hard to get used to. But we did manage to get together on Christmas Eve, even for a few hours.

This year was also the first year I made almost all my Christmas presents!! Here are the ones I made...

This one was for my mother in law. It's a favorite verse for her.



This one was for my sister. She travels alot and just moved into a new apartment, so I asked her what states she's been to so we could make some art for her apartment. There is one flaw in this picture that I didn't notice until later, can you find it?


These two things turned out so good. It was my first time to use Modge Podge (made my own for 74 cents!) and it was alot of fun. I will do one for my house and give a tutorial!

This one was for my parents. I just love it. The clothes pins are to hold pictures of kids as they get older.


I really enjoyed doing these! I think it's a trend I will continue!!

I didn't do a great job of taking pictures on my phone. But between Jason and me, we got some good ones. These are the ones I got on my phone.




This is the best one we could get of Avery in this peppermint box!


Here are some of Christmas Eve night of Nawnie and the kids.



And Jason's Grandma Brown and the kids.


And here is Christmas Morning! Jason and Poppie stayed up until about midnight putting together a trampoline in the back for the kids. I stayed up helping Santa with some presents as well. Surprisingly, the kids didn't wake up until about 7:00 or so. Actually, I believe they might have woken up at 4 or so, but Nawnie told them to go back to bed (thankfully).

Santa brought Jordan a Harry Potter wand (that is actually pretty cool!)


He brought Sophie a Spongebob air hockey table, that plugs in and has air flow and everything. Santa must have found this on sale somewhere. :-)


Santa brought Avery a new pull toy because she loves to drag things around. We didn't buy Avery a whole lot of toys this year because we honestly didn't think she'd play with them. And we were right. Every chance she got to play with her brother and sister's toys, she took it. Or a sock on the ground. Or any old thing besides the toys she got.


We had all 14 of Jason's family over for lunch. We bought a 22 pound turkey and got a smoker and smoked it for the occasion. This was Jason's job and BOY did he do a good job! That turkey was amazing! He brined it for 24 hours beforehand then we cooked it at a low temperature in the oven the night before. It smoked for about 4 hours to perfection! Here is our feast. I finally get to cross off another thing from my list of making a holiday meal for my family. We made it all from scratch, except for the rolls!




Here are some pictures of the kids...



Here are the kids against the trampoline..

What a great holiday - I am very sad to see it over. And I don't want to work tomorrow!
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