Christmas Day 2013

Christmas Day morning is always spent at Mom's house. Second year without dad and it is still so hard to not see his sweet face sitting around the table and being around all his grandkids and great grandkids. He loved them so much. There have been 3 born since he has left us and I know he would have loved on them just as much as the others. 

 Mom, still does most of the breakfast, but the last 2 years me & Buddy have helped with a few things to free up some of her time. Still miss Dad's beautiful fruit tray he would make every year. It is getting hard to fit everyone around the tables, but as long as she is able we will continue to keep up this tradition. I know it is hard on the little ones to have to leave their house after Santa has come, but we did it with our kids and now our kids are bringing their little ones. I hope to have my mom for many, many more years, and as long as she is here we will keep filling the house with these memories. 

Christmas Eve 2013

We had a great Christmas Eve, although it started off a bit rocky. I don't have any picks of us eating, because we had a little scare with Nolen. We had salad, roasted mixed veggies, garlic bread and lasagna. Since me & mom were doing gluten-free I fixed us lasagna with gluten free noodles, I fixed Trevor a dairy free lasagna and then for the rest of the family a normal lasagna. Trying to be extra careful with Nolen's egg allergy I tried to make sure no eggs were involved in anything he would eat. Somehow something went wrong and he had a pretty bad reaction. Throat started itching, face swelling and then he got sick. (threw up) They gave him some benadryl and he was super sleepy after that so I don't think he enjoyed much of the rest of the night. 

While we were cleaning up from dinner the kids were making gingerbread men.

                             Then it was time for family pics.

This is Grayson with Buddy's Santa that he had when he was a little boy. Just love this pic. Then there is always the pic with….

 my Mom and her Great Grands

 The Family

 The Grandkids

 The Carey's

 The Sanford's not sure why this pic loaded blurry, not like that on my other pics.

 Time to open presents.

 Finished gingerbread men & women

I know I didn't get the best of pics this year, but just got started off on the wrong foot. I'll do better next year, but we did have a great Christmas with the family.