Merry Christmas!

For our first Christmas without our families, we thought and thought and thought some more about traditions we could start for our little family and finally we decided to just stick with the traditions of our families as much as possible. We were sad to be away from them as we always have SO much fun together laughing and enjoying each others company, but we enjoyed our quiet and relaxing Christmas. And I have to admit it was pretty nice to not have to worry about packing everything and everyone up!

A yummy dinner we ate...

Tyson cooked a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner of Prime Rib, mashed potatoes, broccoli and cheese sauce, and rolls. (ok really the rolls didn't get made until the day after Christmas, I braved my MIL's YUMMY roll recipe and broke out my trusty mixer and made some delicious rolls!) But silly us forgot about dessert! I know kinda strange, me, forgetting about dessert, that seriously never happens! So we improvised and ate some of the left over almond puff I had made earlier in the week!

The presents were great...We had a great time laying out [and wrapping for that matter!] all the presents for the kids on Christmas Eve, we shared a wonderful conversation about how great it is to have a changed perspective on Christmas... #1 Who cares about all the "stuff," (although I'll still admit I love giving and receiving presents, with thought of course- it's a special time of year to spoil the ones we love) but seriously the "stuff" just isn't the same not being in the presence of family. and #2 The anticipation of watching Micah and Hallie open presents was great and the actual event itself was even greater- I'm hopeful the fun will increase with each year!

The dishes were done...

The stockings were hung... kinda :) I guess we can say this tradition is taken from Ty's family, his mom has a whopping 21 stockings! So they are hung around the house on the wall before Christmas, and then on Christmas morning they are laid out waiting for you at your "spot." (usually with gifts overflowing and stuffed with goodies of course!)

The smiles were heartwarming...The curiosity was intriguing The joy was apparent... And the fun was non-stop!

And our fun hasn't stopped! Daddy is off for all of next week! We have had great fun exploring and have plans for much more exploring in the week to come!