Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve at dad's this year. He and Dani made a wonderful meal of ham and scalloped potatoes. Grandma brought delicious baked beans and fudge and I brought Green Bean Casserole and cookies: Buckeyes, Peanut Butter Blossoms and Snickerdoodles to be exact. The cookies were a big hit! I have to give a shout out to mom for the buckeye and blossom recipe and Shannon for the Snickerdoodle recipe. (P.S. Jackson's favorite cookie is Shannon's Snickerdoodle and that's saying A LOT cause that boy is PIIIIIICKY!)

Most of the cousins were there and Charlie managed to capture a picture of Pearl holding Delaney with her family. The kids really enjoyed playing with her kids, Claire and Owen. Claire kept trying to hug Baby (Charlie) and it was hilarious. He's not the affectionate type!

Overall, we had a great time visiting with family that we rarely see and enjoyed watching all of our kids play together and form little relationships.

After dad's we headed to the Pratt's. We were planning on going to the Candlelight Service at Redeemer at 10pm, but were enjoying spending time with everyone so much that we decided to skip it this year, which was a hard decision for me to make. However, Dr. Pratt read from scripture about Jesus' birth and talked about how Christmas is supposed to be spent in fellowship, not routines and rituals although they make the holiday feel special to us too. So we decided to stick around and enjoy the fellowship. The kids had a really great time with Amy's kids and Josiah.