Twenty Two Photo Blog: 2009

Chris & I started off our Christmas the Friday before we went home to Rocky Mount. We saw our first snow fall, but sadly it did not last long in our area. We kept our gift giving very simple, but thoughtful. We really did enjoy our very first Christmas together as a married couple!

I snapped a few shots of the Church we live in. You can barley see the snow falling in the background, but it was still pretty!

My "big" gift to Chris are these cute owl book stands. He doesn't remember taking notice of them in 10,000 Villages, but I recalled that he liked them. I thought they would be great since he has quite a large book collection!

I also bought him these boxers and this coke ornament. The ornament is kind of a joke. Chris was trying to avoid regular coke by only drinking diet and if he drank regular he had to clean the shower. It has been nice not having to clean the shower the last few times :)

Chris bought me a 4gb memory card, which I can definitely use!

He also bought me this very pretty necklace! I don't wear much jewelry so I was very impressed! I believe I have worn it every day since we opened gifts!

Don't ask why, but I had been wanting to go to CiCi's for along time! I haven't been to one since the one in Rocky Mount closed quite a few years ago. I'll admit that it's a pretty cheap thrill... it's not the best pizza ever :)

We drove home the following Tuesday. It was kind of an errand day. Our first stop was by WinCare. It was nice seeing all of my friends and former co-workers! We eventually made it over to Mom's house to unload as much as we could out of the Malibu. I really did enjoy the Malibu and will miss driving it! It has been a good car! We do really like our new car though!

After we packed the Kia as full as we could we dropped by Mema's before we headed to Chris' parents house. Once we got there we realized that we didn't have the house key with us. We tried the backdoor to see if it was unlocked, but it wasn't. Chris noticed the window being unlocked so he thought he would try to push it open and I could crawl in. As you can see below this did not work out to well for us!

Chris called his mom and she happened to be only 5 minutes away from the house! If only we had a little more patients!

That evening I spent a little more quality time with my girl friends. We had a potluck and Christmas movie night at Kay's house. We had baked spaghetti, mac & cheese, green bean casserole, garlic cheese bread, and chocolate chip pound cake. It was all great!

Nico is becoming so brave these days!

Here are the rest of the animals...Tabor (in background), Miles, & Anna Belle.

Group shot of the girls! We ended up watching "Home Alone" that night. Good times!

The next day Chris & I spent time with Mom and Kevin. We decided to go ahead and open gifts a day early, because we knew Christmas Eve would be busy.

Kevin's gift to mom.

Kevin seems more excited about not tearing this paper then the gift that was in it!

How could you not like the gift that was in the box?!?!?!

Matching flashlights!

Kevin loves spicy food!

Kevin bought me a UNC snuggie. Mom bought Kevin these penguin boxers, which has been a tradition for the past 6 years.

I got this cool braille learning tool.

Here are a few other gifts I received. I didn't take pictures of everything, but I was happy with all of the gifts!

After we opened gifts we ate dinner with Mema. Chris & I stayed over and watched a movie with her before we headed back to the in-laws house.

The next day was Christmas Eve and we spent all day at Mema's.

My family played Clue & Scrabble...

I baked right up until supper time! I made this spicy cheese ball and mom made this casserole dish along with many other dishes.

Mom also made potato salad and Grace made the deviled eggs.

I made these homemade rolls, which I believe turned out pretty good!

This Apple Butter Cake turned out great! Grace helped me with the icing.

Mom made this cake and Grace & I made the red velvet cookies. Sadly the red velvet cookies did not turn out too good! I guess that's part of trying new recipes!

All of the food was really good! I wish I would have brought more home!

Mom lit this candle in memory of our family members that we have lost recently. It is strange not having them around. We really miss them all!

Chris read a few passages from the Bible before Mema opened her gift and we played "white elephant."

Mema was very surprised to find out that we did a Family photo shoot for her and we also bought her this cool digital frame with most of the pictures on it from our shoot! She loved it!

We didn't know we were playing white elephant, because mom actually bought all of these gifts. I thought that was pretty funny, but we really did have a good time with it!