Merry Christmas!!

We had such a lovely Christmas this year! It is both Andrew's and my families' tradition to decorate the house on Christmas Eve. So we purchased our tree the week before Christmas and kept it in our basement until Christmas Eve. Andrew and I started collecting ornaments from the different places we have been since we have been married. It was so fun decorating the tree with these ornaments, especially the ones Andrew had brought from the various places he had been last year going to and from Afghanistan. Many of them are from different historical places we visited in NC and a few from SC.

This Christmas was especially exciting for us because last year we weren't able to spend Christmas together as a family while Andrew was deployed. We were both reminded of this and are so grateful that we are all together!

We were so happy to be able to Skype with Andrew's family on Christmas morning. We spent the rest of Christmas Day with my family opening gifts and watching the children play with their new games etc.. It was so fun to watch Annette open her gifts and play with them! I think she was a little overwhelmed by all of the excitement and is still recovering :)

Christmas Dinner was amazing as always, Papa's Prime Rib was fabulous! We also had the traditional Bacon and Spinach Stuffed Tomatoes and Cheesy Mashed Potatoes. Andrew asked me to make his family's traditional Date Pudding which thankfully was approved by him...whew :)