Christmas 2011

It was a change to go to church on Christmas morning before opening our presents, but in the end, I was happy about it. It really forced us to think about the real reason for celebrating and certainly brought in the spirit. Before church, we ate our yummy french toast casserole...you eat it with syrup on it. We're keeping that recipe.

Just before we left for church, we figured out how to make the camera take automatic pictures of us. My mom had requested a current family picture, and we hadn't sent one, so we attempted to take some. Here's what we came up with:

After church, we came home, got back into our pajamas and opened presents! Everyone seemed happy with their gifts. Emma's favorite gift was her Ipod Nano, Lauren's favorite gift was her peace sign bedding and real DC skater shoes, Landon's was his size 14 slippers, and mine was my Adele CD. We all received so much from family and friends and we have so much to be grateful for. We received several restaurant gift cards from various family members, so we'll be eating out a lot in the next few weeks!

The girls playing Family Game Night (Wii game) and Just Dance 3:

Emma got an Aeropostale, heavy-duty lined hoodie sweatshirt as one of her bigger gifts. She loves it.

We bought a game called "Sorry Spin," which we played together:

Dinner was on Uncle Alex. He sent us money, which we used to buy a delicious prime rib roast for dinner. Landon cooked it perfectly, and we ate baked potatoes, a big salad, and garlic french bread. I made buttermilk pie with strawberry sauce for dessert. I liked this meal better than Thanksgiving. It was amazing!Fun fact: Lauren is put off by fatty meat, so she had mac and cheese instead of prime rib. Crazy kid.

It was a great Christmas and the girls were sad it was over last night at bedtime. Landon and I really enjoyed the close family time and relaxed pace of the whole day.