Christmas eve ...

We had the best Christmas eve

Early in the day Johnny, Jake and I stayed busy putting

the final touches on the new kitchen.

Then it was shower and dress to go over to our brother-in-laws for

an open house. We stayed there from 4 to 5:00

then home to get ready for our family dinner

Besides our kids coming over, we also had Jacquelyn's in laws, Lynne and Tom

and good friends Joe and Melissa

The menu was.....

London Broil

salad

rolls

roasted potatoes

fresh lima beans

and a dessert we call "Daddys Dessert"

we call it that because Johnny makes it.....haha!

and here's a few pics from our evening......

Lynne and Melissa helping get dinner ready

Gabe and Maddox showing off their new Christmas eve PJ's

Jacquelyn and Melissa waiting to open presents!

and here's Joe and Lynne watching the very

pathetic Dallas game!!

haha....I'm just now noticing how serious we all

look as we load up our dinner plates!

this is "Daddy Dessert"

it has vanilla nabisco cookies, vanilla pudding, butter pecan ice cream,

cool whip, heath candy bars

and it is sooooo wonderful

I think now I need a bigger den!!

here's Jake trying out his new air popcorn popper!

after dinner and presents, we played cards until about midnight!

we sure had a good time.....

later.....

Big Table ...

One of my goals when re-modeling the kitchen

was to be able to seat a lot of people at the table

there are 10 of us

and here's my table getting ready to be

set for breakfast Christmas morning

later.....



Early Christmas ...

We always have Christmas with my family early so that

Christmas day isn't so hectic for everyone

this year everyone had crazy schedules so we had to get together

early on the 17th....for breakfast!

we quit buying gifts for each other a long time ago and started

doing the crazy gift exchange!

My sister has a really big house with a full basement and since

there are 27 of us plus a few friends that come, it's the perfect place

for us to get together!

it's fun and lots of laughs

you know how people always stick their tonques out for pictures...

haha......well check out my mom...she's always in style

here's her and Johnny eating breakfast

here's Nicole and Maddox enjoying their breakfast

Maddox opening a present.....

Looks like Jake likes his gift......but will he get to keep it?? haha...

here's Mallory and Matt explaining to Memaw the correct

way to pronounce faux....it was funny but guess you had to
be there!

We really laugh a lot when we're all together

such fun!

It might have been early but it was still lots of fun!

 

later.....

Chocolate cake ....

One of my many memories of Christmas as a child was

the chocolate cake with fudge icing that my mom always made

I don't remember leaving cookies for Santa....we left

him chocolate cake!

and if we were really lucky, mom let us have a slice while it

was still warm from the oven with the sugary fudge icing.

So this year I decided to make one for our family

But I forgot to buy shortening and instead used butter ....

which is not a good substitute in some recipes!

because this cake just fell apart

really.......fell totally apart!

In all of my years of baking I have never had this happen....or at

least I don't remember this happening! haha....

later.....