Our Cookie Jar Runneth Over

I guess I haven't summoned the courage to go through all of the pictures and then post them, hence waiting so long to get to it. Even now, I'm just proud of myself for doing this much. Since I spend my whole work week on a computer (or two, or three) at a time, when I think about vacation time I think about spending considerably less time staring at a computer monitor. Not that I spent my whole Christmas vacation without the internet, I just thought doing more than Quicken, checking email, and a little Facebook fun was much more computer time than necessary. Anyways, here are some pictures from Christmas.

This year we decided to stay home instead of visiting family. We both missed seeing our families during the holidays, but it was SOOOOOO nice not to have to worry about traveling in the horrible weather that came at Christmas time. I'm not sure that we would have made it if we had tried, to be completely honest. With just the two of us and Teddy it was a really quiet Christmas.

Christmas Eve we prepped for Christmas day then made a Christmas Eve roast. We had a lot of fun making an assortment of traditional Holiday goodies from each of our childhood Christmases. Knowing that there is only two of us we tried to limit how much we made. We even halved recipes and picked a couple of our favorites out of the plethora of things we would have like to have. Even still, we had WAY too much food!!!! It was fun though!

Nate getting ready to read the Chirstmas story.
(The lamp is crooked and I'm REALLY excited to get it back in the corner where the Christmas tree is sitting. It's not as noticeable in that corner. And you don't want to know how many times I've tried to straighten it since we put it there.)


Teddy has found a new favorite spot to sleep. Right next to the warm ovens.

Nate with his stocking Christmas morning.


Teddy really enjoyed the wrapping paper, boxes, and his new ball rope.

Teddy in a box :)

Santa brought us a nice tilt head 5 qt Kitchen Aid for Christmas. He must have thought we lived in Europe though. When we took it out of the box to make Christmas dinner we discovered a European plug (The kind with the two huge grounder prongs). A little confused, we looked for a converter then turned to the mixer handbook. With only help numbers for people in the U.K. and Australia/New Zealand, we decided to take it back to an obliging store the day after Christmas. We ended up getting a nice profesisonal Kitchen Aid (the kind with the arms) for $50 cheaper than the smaller motored mixer. Oh happy day!!

For Christmas Nate got me a pair of pretty earrings, I got him tickets to see Celtic Woman when they come in the spring. I love my husband and how he enjoys stuff like that!!! From our families we got clothes, a trip to Disney World, a knife set, a marble rolling pin, a dutch oven we can use on our glass top stove, and lots of other fun stuff.

It was a wonderful Christmas. Nice and quiet and fun to start establishing our own traditions. I'm already getting excited for next year!