Christmas 2016

I'm going to give fair warning, this is going to be a long post. Even though it's already 4 days past Christmas, I waited too long to blog about Thanksgiving and never got around to it so I definitely don't want that happening for Christmas.

Every year we alternate families for Thanksgiving and Christmas; this year, it was Stephen's family for Christmas. Since we're with family during actual Christmas, Stephen and I always do our "own" Christmas before leaving town. Wednesday was my last day off work (Stephen had the whole week off) so we made Christmas cookies, I cooked Christmas dinner and watched It's a Wonderful Life before going to bed. Thursday, we deemed as our Christmas - we woke up, opened presents, made breakfast, watched Four Christmases and enjoyed our new gifts.

I got Stephen a MAGA hat and he wore it for pretty much 2 days straight lol!

Friday, we headed over to Okeechobee and met up with Stephen's family. We decided to grab lunch at the local, tiny airport in town which is known for painting planes. It was fun seeing all of the small planes flying in and out and my FIL even got us a tour of the Miami Dolphins owner's wife's plane! It was so cool to see and we even tried to convince our families we were skipping town for a Christmas trip; it didn't work too well ;) Afterwards, we went to see Stephen's grandpa in the nursing home and then we headed out to Christmas Eve rehearsal. (Stephen's dad is a pastor and every year that we're there, we have to help with the Christmas Eve service. This was the last year that I'd be able to be the director)

Saturday, we woke up and after a delicious breakfast, we got to work on our cornholes. Everyone thought it'd be fun to make our own cornhole sets - it was a great project that kept our attention all day and wasn't too hard. We used these instructions which were pretty easy to follow. That evening, it was time to head to the church for the Christmas Eve service. The service went really well and afterwards we exhaustively headed home to watch a Christmas movie and head to bed. 

We gave Siena a Christmas book early - it was so much fun watching her open it and "read" it

Hanging our in the sound booth waiting for the service to start

Sunday morning, we were all up bright and early for presents, except for the most important person, Siena ;) Of all the days she chooses to sleep in... lol! Thankfully, she work up with enough time for us to all open presents before going to church. It was so much fun getting to spend this Christmas with our niece, Siena. We loved seeing her open presents and we know it'll just keep getting better with her age :) After church, we relaxed around the house, took a few walks, played basketball, played badminton and then had dinner. That night, we laughed until we cried playing Utter Nonsense.

I got the girls matching jammies and monogrammed the shirts and Siena's onsie. They turned out so adorable and everyone loved them! I even had a request for matching boys jammies next time ;)

This picture is too dark but it was too funny not to share

Uncle Stephen really wanted a picture of him and Siena in front of the Christmas tree... he's going to be the best dad!

Monday morning, John, Lauren and Siena headed back home while we decided to stay one more night so we could see my BIL, Tim's, girlfriend. After they left, Stephen and I made the hour trek over to the mall area so we could get some after Christmas sale goodies. We were shocked at how much was already picked through! We did get some great items, mainly from Kirklands, so I'm really excited about that :) That evening, Tim's girlfriend arrived in town and we had dinner before heading to bed. 

Tuesday, we headed home after waking up and then I ran some errands while Stephen mowed the lawn. Later that evening, my family came to town on their way down to Ft Lauderdale for the Orange Bowl. We spent Wednesday with them and took them over to the port for lunch. Stephen grilled out a delicious dinner that night and we wrapped things up with ice cream and card games. 

I'm so thankful that we were both able to see so much of our families the past few days but I am grateful for some peace and quiet at home to finally catch up on things like blogging, doing our annual yearbook and watching The Crown (which is fantastic so far!). Tomorrow, we have plans to go to Sea World thanks to my friend from work who had some tickets. I've also been saying I want to leave our Christmas decorations up for another week or so but I have a feeling it'll start coming down this weekend.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and enjoy your last few days of 2016!