We spent Christmas Eve with Mike’s side of the family. The normal tradition is Mass, followed by presents at Grandma’s, then presents at his parents. This year was a little bit different – we had some snow and a county-wide power outage, so Mass ended up being cancelled. We headed over to Grandma’s for the traditional hors d’oeuvres and presents. Here’s Grandma’s beautiful tree:

And of course, some of my favorite Blankenheims:

Then we headed over to Mike’s parents house for more presents and one of my favorite traditions, wrapping paper wars. Everyone opens, balls up their wrapping paper, and then it’s all out war!

Christmas morning is always fun for me… Shadow has always known what’s up and absolutely loves opening his presents. This year was no different, however, now we’ve added Brady to the mix. He’s not as enthusiastic about opening presents the way Shadow is, but he sure did love playing with his tennis balls once we helped him get them open!

We spent Christmas Day with my side of the family.

Our gift to the kids (along with Mama and Daddy) was a playhouse… the kids loved it!

Kati and Nate hosted this year and made some delicious prime rib (and even better au jus Nate!). Chloe even got to have some quality story time with Oma and Grandpa:

And, of course, no Christmas is complete without a visit with your horse. He’s already torn two holes in his blanket (which was his Christmas present), so I’d say it’s a hit.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

This year Christmas seemed to fly by. Part of that was because I missed half of it… Monday night I came down with the dreaded stomach flu. It was a pretty miserable night, but I was fortunate to only have the 24 hour version of the bug. It left me exhausted and I skipped Christmas with the Blankenheim side of the family because I didn’t want to share the sickness with anyone, especially with Mike’s grandma.

Since my gift from Mike this year is a horse, I didn’t have a lot of presents to open. Most of my gifts were either money or gift cards to the local tractor supply company for tack and such. Which makes me completely happy. I did get some cool stuff that I wasn’t expecting – Mike got me a cool pair of argyle riding gloves, my parents got me the most comprehensive horse care book I’ve ever seen, and Kati & Nate got me cowboy boots!

What I realized the most was how much I love giving gifts. It was so neat to see the excitement in Chloe’s eyes as she opened presents and I realized how much I missed seeing my Blankenheim nieces and nephew open their presents. Chloe got her first Cabbage Patch Kid from us… it was absolutely adorable to watch her give it kisses!

I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas and got to spend time with your family!

For those of you following along at home, my sister is pregnant and due pretty much any day now. I’m beyond excited… I married into a family where I was lucky enough to instantly have two nieces and four nephews, but this will be my first niece that I was here from the start. And the fact that she could be born any minute now drives me nuts… I hate waiting!

To pass the time, I decided to shop and decorate for Christmas early this year. I figure once the baby comes I’ll want to spend time with her and not be Christmas shopping. This weekend I wrapped all my presents, decorated the tree and hung the stockings. As always, Shadow wanted to help and take part in the decorating – and take the credit in the final picture:

Here are our stockings – this is the first year I hung them over the fireplace – normally we have a spot downstairs, but I have wedding pictures hanging there now.

I kept it pretty simple this year, but really like how everything turned out! I’m ready for that baby to come now! Is she here yet?