Merry Christmas

Christmas Eve Dinner turned out quite nice. On the menu this year was our traditional roast but I decided to try three new dishes (scared... and I may have freaked out once): roasted garlic and Gorgonzola mashed potatoes, roasted butternut squash and croissants. The roast was very good.... the potatoes were decent... the squash was heavenly and the croissants were good but I think I need to cook them 2 or 3 minutes longer because they weren't as fluffy as I would have liked.

After dinner we donned our gay apparel... more commonly known as our Christmas eve jammie's!

This year we played Sequence, it was a really fun game and I would definitely recommend it. We played on teams, me and Liv against Nate and Lex. First game went to me and Liv and the second game Nate and Lex won. Liv was bored of it by then because it was taking to long to get to her turn!

The girls got busy making some cookies for Santa... this year they went with peanut butter cookies.... maybe we will dip the extras in some melted milk chocolate tomorrow... yum!

This year the Christmas book I chose for our reading was "Matchless" by Gregory Maguire. It is an adaptation of "The little match girl" by Hans Christian Andersen but slightly more heartwarming and not as grim!

Christmas morning started at quarter past 5 this year. Santa brought Liv some sleigh bells from his sleigh and Barbie's all doll'd up nails. Lex got the new ipod nano and an ihome.

I think everyone made out pretty good this year and hopefully nobody was disappointed! Here are some pictures from our Christmas morning.

Everyone needed to meet the orangutan... some of us think it is a little bit creepy!

I made our traditional breakfast of scones, buttermilk biscuits, sausage gravy, hash brown casserole and scrambled eggs... we are on our way to gaining 10 lbs this Christmas!

The kitchen is barely surviving the onslaught... really dreading cleaning up this morning!

While we ate we watched the Christmas Story and at some point we will break out the one and only Christmas classic, Elf! Liv is also dying to watch season one of The Muppet Show (me too!) which was a present picked out by yours truly.

Liv gave us a private Christmas concert... she is getting pretty good. We begged Lex to play her guitar but she isn't interested in showing off her talent and we aren't interested in pissing off the teen!

We are thinking maybe later we will go see Alvin and the Chipmunks the squeakuel. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, we sure do miss everyone and love you all tons!!!

Getting ready for the Holidays and stuff

I can't believe how fast the time has gone since Thanksgiving. I just finished up my semester on Thursday, it is such a relief! Next semester is going to be brutal, I need to start studying for our first Board Exam, so I guess that means I need to quit screwing around and do a better job with my time management! I have been making a mad dash to get my Christmas shopping started and finished... I think I am about done.

Nate got stuck in Buffalo for a couple of days during one of our last big storms, they closed down the thruway... I think 100 people got stuck overnight on the road so at least he was in the city and not on the road! He is still enjoying work and is looking forward to some new opportunities this coming year. I got the chance to meet some of his coworkers a couple of weeks ago at a hockey game, his company owns one of the suites and invited us. It was a fun date night so hopefully we'll get invited again!

The girls are keeping us busy as usual with their activities. They are both looking forward to their winter break, I can't wait to find out what they have in store for me!