In His Steps: Christmas Wrap-Up

Has it really been a week and a half since my last post? Sorry my faithful followers. Christmas break has been an absolute blur. We just returned home yesterday from a 9 day stay at my parents' house and I am proud to say that by noon today we had all our Christmas stuff cleaned up and put away. We began our stay a day early due to a looming storm. We were planning to leave the day of Christmas Eve, but in a quick decision chose to leave when Casey got off work at 10:30 pm the day before. We left in a rush and didn't get a great night's sleep, but we did beat the storm....and some storm it was.

We arrived at Grandma Moore's on Christmas Eve just as the snow was beginning to pick up speed. Here are a couple of snapshots from the evening.

One happy family.

Intense concentration...that means he likes it.

Really, the furrow is a good thing.

Paper ripping!

And, my favorite thing about Christmas Eve....

...this lady.

She's an amazing mother, grandmother, and great grandmother.

And, she's rockin' an awesome Christmas sweater.

Driving home from Grandma Moore's on the evening of Christmas Eve was basically a white out. And, if I hadn't been so darn concerned about Casey not recognizing ANY of the turns we had to make, I would have pulled out my camera and taken some cool pictures.

We did make it to mom and dad's without incident. And, everyone else made it home safely too, the next evening's driving would prove to be a little more treacherous. After everyone was dressed for bed Gabe got to participate in a long time tradition of Mom reading The Night Before Christmas.

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house...

Christmas morning we began by opening presents by ourselves. Just Casey, Gabe, and I. By this point in the game Gabe had figured out he was much less interested in the presents and more interested in the bows placed atop the gifts. Here are some snapshots from Christmas morning.

Ohhhhh.....Mommy....looook at all the pressssents!

For me, this expression sums up what every infant is probably thinking at Christmas time. Major stimulation overload.

Hope the hat fits by summer.

Notice the clutching of the bows...

Still clutching the bows, but at least checking out the new stuff too.

As soon as we opened gifts I moved on to the kitchen to help prepare a Christmas day noon dinner. I volunteered to do the cooking since my Grandma Shively decided to stay at her winter home in Texas where it was warm enough to swim instead of traveling back to Kansas for a couple of days at Christmas. Can't blame her for that, it was definitely not swimming weather here! The dinner ended up being prepared by several hands and surprisingly we got everything made that we wanted and on time. Here's a look at the spread just before we dug in.

On the left, we have Grandma Shively's scalloped potatoes prepared by moi. Delicious I must say. And, on the right past the dirt cake, peanut brittle, and fudge is my most favorite dessert in the whole entire world. It's Grandma Shively's butterscotch candy, which isn't really candy at all. More like a butterscotch/peanut butter cornflake top with a sugar cookie bottom. Oh, deliciousness and I made it myself. Other items on the menu included turkey, ham, broccoli salad, mac and cheese, creamed peas, cheesy corn, pumpkin roll, deviled eggs, vegetable pizza, and puppy chow. Apparently we waaaayyyy overestimated the amount of food we would need. We feasted that day and for the next three days on the meal because Mom got sick the day after Christmas and we had to *GASP* fend for ourselves! Then, she got sick again on New Year's Eve...kind of a rough break for her.

Here are a couple of other photos highlighting the gift opening portion of Christmas Day Shively style.