Christmas Week - A Few Family Photos

I am so excited it is Christmas week! What is even more exciting is my mom is coming into town on Christmas Eve. Getting through these next 3 work days is going to be tough, but then I am off for 6 days!! WHAT??? Yes 6 days! I am so stoked!

My mom hasn't visited for awhile. It is coming up on a year I think. Being so far away is hard. Luckily we have been back to Colorado and she has seen Kinley but even the last time we were there was 6 months ago. Kinley has changed so much in the last 6 months. We can't wait for Thursday!

She comes in on Thursday morning and we will probably run some last minute errands and then let Kinley nap. I will be putting her to work on the pile of presents I have to wrap. Does anyone else hate wrapping presents? I really am not a fan. Luckily for me my mom is and loves wrapping, little does she know that I have saved all the wrapping for when she comes :). I am hoping wrapping with her will make it a little more enjoyable since I can't be wrapping while drinking wine :). We Matt also has an easel to put together for Kinley. We never had our "big" gifts wrapped when I was younger and I loved waking up and seeing that with all of the wrapped presents under the tree, so that is the tradition we have started for Kinley. Last year Matt put together a kitchen and we of course didn't wrap that. She was a little too young to understand last year but I think this year she is going to be soooooo excited when she wakes up.

Thursday afternoon we are going to go over to Matt's parents to open presents and celebrate Christmas because we are going to have Christmas at our house this year. I am very excited about that! My mom loves to cook so we are planning on a full menu with many yummy dishes.

Of course Christmas will start bright and early with opening presents and a yummy crock pot casserole we are going to try. Lets hope it turns out. At first Matt wanted to cook a casserole in the morning, though it takes 3 hours. So I asked him if he was getting up at 3AM to start breakfast :). He declined.

We want to go check out the lights at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens at some point while my mom is here. Have any local readers been? Is it worth it? Please tell me it is! I am kind of kicking myself for not getting Christmas Town tickets when they were $14! There is always next year right! Plus Kinley will enjoy it even more then and we will have little man with us too. Did you see news on us having a boy! We are still shocked!

Other than enjoy the time together we don't have any other plans. We actually might make these amazing sugar cookies again! If you haven't checked out the recipe go do that! It is worth it. Hopefully your dog won't eat all of them like ours did and you will get to enjoy them. Hence why we might make them again.

Cheers to hoping these next few days fly by for everyone and your holiday is blessed! I know ours will be. Merry Christmas from our family to yours.

I love our Christmas pictures so much! Lori Woodhouse does it again! Thank you!