Our First Married Christmas

... was a total success! Christmas Eve I spent the whole day baking up a storm and picking up the house. I made dozens of Christmas cookies and an apple pie, so by the end of the day I was throughly covered in flour haha. After all that time in the kitchen Keith and I were definitely in no mood for making dinner so we started a new family tradition of grabbing burgers and fries at a favorite local spot. We had a really fun night watching The Santa Clause, and opening a couple presents just the two of us.

Saturday morning Keith and I opened up our stockings and the rest of the presents before our visitors arrived. Theo LOVED Christmas presents haha. When we put his stocking down on the floor he was so interested in what was inside and nearly ripped the thing apart to get at his treats haha.

After all our presenting, my favorite aunt arrived! We were so thrilled when Kathleen, Jack and Renee asked if it would be cool for them to come visit us for Christmas because I was a little bit bummed we wouldn't be seeing family for the holidays because of Keith's schedule. They got in and Jack immediately set up his XBOX Kinect so that we could have a dance off. I'm not a huge video game person, but it was such a blast and it's probably the only game that I could beat my 12 year old cousin at haha. Kathleen and Keith spent most of the afternoon slaving away in the kitchen for our Christmas dinner. We had so much yummy food! Keith cooked his first turkey and it came out so well! The stuffing was a hit as well, and Kathleen made us her famous creamed corn. After dinner we just relaxed and got to bed pretty early.

Our faithful turkey carver!

Renee, Kathleen and Jack with their puppy Maycee. Her and Theo are best friends now haha

Renee's nephew and his wife live in Louisville so the day after Christmas we left Keith behind and headed north to hang out with Dan and Micah for a couple days. They are expecting a little baby soon and just bought a new house, and we had a great time catching up on what's going on in their world. We spent LOTS of time down in the basement playing a new sports game for the XBOX and my legs are still sore from all the "downhill skiing" we did haha. I spent our two days there trying to recover from a yucky cold so I was pretty snotty the whole time. It was really nice to have time to sleep in and not be responsible for anything. On Tuesday morning, Kathleen, Renee and I went to Lynn's Paradise Cafe to meet friends Tink and Alisha who also happened to be in Louisville. It was SUCH a yummy breakfast and was even featured in an episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay (you know how much I love the Food Network!). Later that day we headed back to Nashville to continue our lazy vacation together.

Renee!

We played lots and lots of Sequence, which is a card/board game. Here is Jack and Micah.

My award winning french toast at Lynn's

For Christmas, Keith's BFF Jonathan bought him tickets to the Zac Brown Band so Jonathan came to town Tuesday evening with his brother Christopher and girlfriend Erin so they could all go together. The concert wasn't until Wednesday night so we spent Tuesday night playing Apples to Apples and laughing a whole lot. We had a blast and were all pretty wiped out by the end of the night. Wednesday morning we got up and got in line at the Pancake Pantry for an unforgettable breakfast and then spent the afternoon walking around the mall. While half of our group headed off to the concert Kathleen, Renee, Jack and I watched Inception and ate popcorn until we fell asleep. I liked it, but you definitely needed to think about it which is hard to do when you're dozing off on the couch haha.

Keith, Jonathan, Erin and Christopher waiting outside at Pancake Pantry... it was pretty dang cold!

Today we're soaking up our last day together before our visitors ship out in the morning. We've been watching the second season of Jack's favorite show Castle and I'm kind of hooked. I just really love any kind of crime drama haha SVU is still my one and only favorite :)

It's been a wonderful winter break for me but I'm still looking forward to getting back to work and hanging out with my kiddies! Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas too!