christmases

christmas eve, we celebrate at our house.  unlike our past years of moose steak and crab dinner, the baby is off seafood and any game meat, so we settled on prime rib.  ugh, prime rib, whatta bummer... oh, it was sooo de-lish.  ben prepped the meat the night before, using an allen & peterson rub recipe - thank you, aunt connie!  i threw together a {pinterest} baked potato salad, and gramma d and mark brought everything else - salad, dinner rolls, cherry pie, more cookies and lots of presents and love!  auntie lory ann and nana lynn drove out, and we all watched as jb and dyl tore into their gifts, at lightning speed.  perfect way to spend a holiday.

 loved doing this gift for lory ann - her own pot of gold - fun!

 Christmas Eve was a success!

after we said our good byes and our good nights, the kids opened a few presents from us - their matching jammies and a new movie, cinderella.  and then, after the kids were nestled all snug in their beds, ben went to work on putting together their new wheels.  we then spent a few minutes playing santa, placing the rest of their presents from us under the tree.

when jack woke me up at 7:45 Christmas morning, he whispered ever so quietly,

mama, santa came.  he brought me a new red bike, and duey a scooter yike mine.  come yook.  hurry.   

sure enough, that's exactly what santa brought.
 

Christmas Day, we drove into anchorage and spent the morning with the miebs family.  {great} grandma shirley put together quite the spread for "dinner."  more presents, more smiles and plenty of yummy desserts were had by all.  i never take enough pictures; it's so nice to take it all in.

after the miebs, we went to {great} grandma millie's where there were more goodies to devour, more presents and even more laughs and smiles.  hearing the kiddos run around with their second cousins, running up and down the same halls that ben and his cousins trampled up and down - it has to be so neat for ben to watch.  they all play so nice together.  i can practically hear the giggling.

the highlight of my Christmas was a gift from grandma millie.  although, she made it clear this was not in place of my Christmas present.  silly her.  she pulled out this long brown box and displayed a bracelet that was once given to her by my husband, when he was 10 or 11 years old.  oh.  my.  gosh.  this dainty gold bracelet with open and closed etched hearts.  it's beautiful.  i cried, naturally.  to think of little ben, a mere 5 years older than our jack, picking out this gift for his grandma.  kinda gets you, right?!

when we returned home, the kids changed back into their matching jammies and opened their presents from the flanagan's.  i'm pretty sure these rascals will not need any more gifts until they're in their double-digits.  goodness.  

bedtime stories by dada

swoon.