CHRISTMAS 2013 - OVERVIEW

This past week we celebrated Christmas (three times), my brother's birthday (once), and went out with my siblings as our "gift" to each other. What a fun week! T's family's Christmas was rescheduled to this weekend due to a few sick family members.. so we got to extend Christmas a few more days as well :) This post is about to be nuts because I am throwing it together tonight after a wedding.. but here we go!

MY FAMILY'S CHRISTMAS
We switched the menu from year's past and started the day with buttermilk pancakes, buttermilk syrup, blueberry syrup, quiche, and bacon (all recipes to follow!). We played a new family game - tape ball! It was declared "the best game we've ever played." I think it's a new staple for Christmas day. We ended the day with spoons.. another huge hit. It was an awesome Christmas.

(I tried making a video recap of all 3 events..)

My gift from T

The spread!

Photobomb from R

T'S FAMILY'S CHRISTMAS

I don't have any recipes to share because I don't do any work for T's family's Christmas - Grams spoils us all! We started the night with the classic chili and oyster stew, had a quick ornament scavenger hunt for the littles, opened another tape ball, then opened packages! T and I were totally spoiled this year! We ended the night with games around the kitchen table and playing with the littles' new toys.

The ornament scavenger hunt

A good little helper

Grams takes such good care of everyone!

T learning the history of each of Grandpa's cars

SIBLING DINNER

This year we hit up Blue Sushi for our sibling dinner. We dropped the ball and left with no group picture - but I have a couple randoms:

R'S BIRTHDAY LUNCH
R's birthday is always hard to schedule because it falls between Christmas and New Years - an already busy time of the year. We opted for an early birthday lunch to celebrate (recipes to come!). My ice cream maker came in the mail just days before so after Mongolian Beef, potstickers, and edamame (two ways!), we dove into some peanut butter + peanut butter cup ice cream. My favorite part of the day was listening to R as a little kiddo (from my favorite Christmas gift! My mom made a CD of some old cassettes from the past. It's amazing! I'll find a way to share some snippets later..)

 

Even though there wasn't cake.. we still gave R an option for a birthday wish:

This week was busy but next week is busier! 7 days left to catch up before it's back to school! Have a great week!

xo,
Krista