La Navidad

Christmas was a really good day.

It started out with an incredible breakfast of Cinnamon-Pecan Pancakes, Sausage and Scrambled Eggs made by my Mother and Sister-In-Law.  SO GOOD.

We then made our way to church for a really nice Christmas service, in the which we sang a lot of Christmas hymns and heard the Christmas story read from Luke 2. It was a nice hour long meeting and really helped me start off Christmas day in the right way. 

Not long after we got home from church Derek and Linzy and their ADORABLE little girl Claire showed up. She has such a beautiful smile and smiles at EVERYONE.

Then on to the gifts...

Darin opening up his running pants and gloves and me my pretty green scarf

Making his best Shawn Spencer face

Chess set and cardigans!

Darin's brother Devin is a firefighter and just about everything he got was fireman related, it was pretty fun to watch him open his presents.

Fireman Santa

Fireman Monopoly

Mom with her Kindle! She was pretty excited :)

The living room AFTER opening gifts

More fun with Claire:

 Darin's future with children. Holding on to them while quickly checking his email and facebook. haha. That's my Darin. Love it.

After taking some time to play around with gifts, take a little siesta and talk to my family, we had an incredible Christmas dinner. My Mother-In-Law picked all the recipes out of the Lion House Cookbook and what a good decision that was! The food was fantastic. Darin and I were in charge of the appetizer (we made a Pineapple Cheeseball) and also the drink (a lemon-lime, sherbet smoothie type drink). Amelia made a yummy Poppy Seed Spinach Salad and Derek and Linzy made a creamy Almond Celery Casserole. Put together with the ham, mashed potatoes, gravy and rolls and we had a meal.

Getting the drink on the table

YUM!!

 We finished off the evening with a little Fireman Monopoly. I didn't realize what a fun game that was. I think growing up I never wanted to play it because it is such a long game. Even though we were all creamed by Amelia, I think it's going to become my new game addiction. I already called my parents and asked them to send me mine... :)

I'm sad that I wasn't able to be with my direct family on Christmas and miss them a lot, but I am really grateful that Darin's family is so close to us and that we all got to be together this special day.