I LOVE this time of year!

Christmas is here! I can feel it in the air! I can see it in everyone's happy faces! I love this time of year! Today after church Steph and I planned our Christmas Breakfast and Dinner for Dec. 27, when Andy's parents and sister will be here staying with us. After naps, my family headed over to her house. We left Danny and Andy in charge of the kids and we braved it over to Wal-Mart. We did our grocery shopping together which was quite fun! Then we put our groceries away at our houses and met back at my sister's house for appetizers and games. Cara had all kinds of yummy appetizers: meatballs (her sauce is so good), nachos, veggie tray, chicken fingers, cheese ball, and my maw-maw's famous cucumber dip with pita chips. Sooo good! I had made a Truffle Trove pie (which was like a chocolate brownie pie) with cool-whip topping last night so I brought that over. The kids ate and played and had a lot of fun. They even put on a music show for us! Funny! I played Cranium and Catch Phrase. Another group played Apples to Apples. It was fun to have Danny and Steph over with the rest of my family. It was all of our in-town family together at once! That was really nice! We were having so much fun with Catch Phrase that Andy and I lost track of time. We left their house around 9:45. But the kids are in bed and fast asleep! I love Christmas break. I'm reading a good book and am wanting to go finish it! Look down at my checklist from a few days ago and you can find the title. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve! Our plans are:
1. Make trash (Do you know about trash? AKA puppy chow?)
2. Finish cleaning (living room and kitchen!)
3. Wrap last 2 gifts
4. Make breakfast casserole for Tuesday
5. Make the best pumpkin dessert ever for Tuesday - Thanks for the recipe Brenda!
6. Write Andy's annual stocking note- This idea I got from my Maw and Paw. Every year (I think every year) she has written him a note and put it in the toe of his stocking. I always thought that was so neat. He has all of them in there. I started that for Andy the Christmas before we got married (5 days before the wedding!) and all of his 7 letters are in there. We love getting them out and reading them. I highlight the big things from the year and fond memories/sad times too. It is definitely a tradition we will keep up!

Tomorrow night we'll go to Cara's for dinner before we go to our Christmas Eve service at church. It starts at 7pm, feel free to join us! Then we're going downtown to a house of a special group of people that our church reaches out to. We'll be delivering the trash there and throwing a Christmas party for them. We won't stay too long because we'll need to get home for the boys to open 1 gift each, read the Christmas story, set out cookies for Santa, etc. Then Andy and I will exchange stockings, stuff the boys' stockings and set out Santa gifts! It is so much fun being Santa!!