Christmas, Christmas time was here...

There was lots of joy and cheer this year. We kicked off our Christmas celebrations earlier in the month by traveling to Raleigh, NC to visit with Jared's family. We followed it with our tradition of spending Christmas Eve Eve with the Corns. We always have a feast of Spaghetti and Meatballs and then exchange our gifts. Wow, how Eli and Atticus are growing. Atticus is all smiles (although Nikki claims that he throws a tantrum every now and then), and Eli is at just the right age to really appreciate and glow in all of the gifts that Christmas has to offer. The hit of the night, for me, was the Chocolate Mint martinis. They left me with a teeny headache Christmas eve morning, but it was SO worth it.

Christmas Eve I trucked down to Warner Robins (sans my hubby who was working) to celebrate Johnson family Christmas. It was a real treat because Crystal and Uncle Butch were able to come. We snapped this family photo.
On Christmas day, Jared came home exhausted! He'd only gotten 3 hours of sleep the night before. He came home and crashed for a couple of hours while I whipped up a breakfast casserole (and played a little pathwords). Once I put it in the oven, I awoke my slumbering husband, and we emptied our stockings and exchanged cards! We'd each gotten our Christmas gifts prior to Christmas (Jared went to a Clemson game, and I got a treadmill).

The true treat of the morning was watching Jasmine. She was SO excited about her new bone and three new stuffed toys. She sashayed around the living room all morning so happy and so proud. She became even happier when she realized we were packing her bag and taking her with us to Eastman. She ran out the back door and sprinted to the Rav4, not stopping until she reached her place in the backseat and happily waited for us.

We jumped in the Rav4 and headed to the Joiner family Christmas. As always, it was a treat. Good food and good times with good family. After lots of coffee throughout the day, we were both ready to crash pretty early that night. We awoke to a delicious seafood quiche that my mom prepared (shrimp, scallops, crab meat on a grits crust...yum!). We exchanged gifts with my mom, brother and his girlfriend that morning. Again Jasmine was the hit of the morning. She stared excitedly at me as I removed each of her toys from the gift bag my mom had placed them in. She sat so pretty and at full attention. Jasmine made out like a bandit this Christmas!

Afterwards, we headed out to my Dad's house to exchange gifts with him. Once we got out to his house and inside of it, Jasmine could not wait to get outside and run around in the wide open. She sat at the door and whined and whined until we finally let her out. She had a blast chasing after the new toys that my mom had given her. When she was all done, Jared had to spend a few minutes picking sand spurs off of her. Once we were all done, we hopped back in the trusty Rav4 and headed home. What a wirlwind of a trip, but what a blast.