On the Eleventh Day of Christmas

We had our Christmas feast!! But before we could get to that we had a fun filled and busy day, of course ;)

My girlfriend Gina (and bootcamp buddy) had text me to see if I wanted to go running with her this morning so we met up about 7 to run! It was a bit shorter and slower run than my other two this week which was very welcome this morning!!

Steve took my parents into the office this morning for their annual eye exams {I didn't go with to take pics ... sorry} while the rest of us got ready for the day. We got a visit from Sister Davis in our ward with another delivery of goodies. Yes, you read her label right ... 19 different types of candy!!! This woman is an "old school" candy maker and puts together massive packages of candy to deliver to people for the holidays that you can.not.believe. I don't know how we ended up on her list but certainly aren't complaining ;)

This morning we split up and took the kids to shop for each other. We have our kids buy a gift for one other sibling so we try to divide and conquer to get the shopping done. I feel like we have done nothing but shop and bake the past few days ... the kitchen and Disney trip really threw us off our game this year and we are feeling SUPER unprepared and chaotic about things! While we were out we ran into Santa as we were leaving JC Penney, so Cougar took a moment to remind him one more time that he wanted "Life Savers" {aka Light Sabers} for Christmas - let's hope Santa doesn't disappoint!

We met up for lunch at Paradise Bakery (everyone except Paca who was golfing with friends) and Grammy treated us to a delicious meal ... a fave for everyone!! We actually didn't buy cookies this time around because we have so many goodies at our house!

Steve finally picked out our new nutcracker for this year - I can't believe we haven't gotten one before now ... that is usually one of the first things we buy! I guess we should refer back to the "unprepared and chaotic" state of this particular season ;) We are happy to welcome Sherlock Holmes into our family.

I decided that we should have our "traditional" Christmas dinner tonight since my parents are leaving tomorrow to fly to Seattle to spend Christmas with my brother's family. My sister flies out on Christmas afternoon, too, so it seemed to make the most sense to do it tonight so we could all enjoy it together! It was a bit "scaled down" from what we might normally do {think no salad, jello, deviled eggs, etc.}, but we did have ham, funeral potatoes, beans, and Lion House Rolls, so we covered all of the "favorite" dishes! The kids enjoyed more time playing outside while I was busy cooking up a storm inside.

After dinner Steve did the clean up {bless him!} and the kids spent a few minutes "telling scary stories" with Grammy before heading to bed. Grammy and Paca jumped in to help get our painting done in our kitchen so we can feel like things are FINISHED around here and we are so grateful for that!! I had to spend some time catching up on work tonight and Grammy and Kris spent time finishing up some of the cookies that were started yesterday - WHEW! I still have some baking to finish tomorrow so we can take things into Steve's office, but he finished the gifts today which is a huge relief!