We had a beautiful Christmas Eve service at church. (Well, that's what I hear. It's a (very) long story, but the kids and I got there about 45 min late to a 1 hour service. The few min we were there Jackson had tears running down his cheeks from the candle wax burning his hand. It was one of those "why did we even try" experiences. Oh well.)
After church, we hosted Christmas Eve dinner at our house. We have a tradition of eating soup on Christmas Eve...mostly b/c it's something that can be cooked ahead of time and will be ready after church. So, I made Paula Deen's taco soup and Giada's sweet potato soup. For the kids, I made candy cane pb & j sandwiches and rudolph cookies. Pops brought some yummy cheese for an appetizer. I made a tres leche cake for dessert. It was so fun to make everything so festive...hot soup, fire in the fireplace, Christmas music.
Fam Pic of Ryan, Kaki, & James @ church
rudolph cookies & candy cane sandwiches (use a cookie cutter to make the candy cane shape and wrap fruit rollup strips around the bread- thank you Southern Living!)
The kids table. I wrapped Christmas wrapping paper over their cowboy table. Ghetto-fabulous? Maybe. Festive & Fun? Absolutely!
The deliciousness that is Tres Leches Cake. I will do a post on how to make it soon.
After dinner, the fam opened their gifts from us.
James loved his Sesame Street paper!
Cute brothers watching their cousin
We gave GranMartha the new Barefoot Contessa cookbook.
(We like to give her cookbooks, b/c she tries all her new recipes on us!)
(We like to give her cookbooks, b/c she tries all her new recipes on us!)
All 3 boys made a special present for their grandparents.
They loved it!
We let our kids open some gifts too.
Sittin by the fire, enjoying a snack
Jackson & Ben gave James some new puzzles. (It's the teacher in me.)
and an Elmo shirt! James has a serious passion for Elmo.
You can read Kathryn's post on Christmas Eve here.
