Christmas Recap

Another Christmas has came and gone and it was a great weekend of family, friends, and fun. We are Christmas'ed out over here.

Christmas Eve started with breakfast out with the family. We have a daytime cafe down the street called First Watch that is amazing. I had a hard time choosing what to get because everything is so good. If you ever near one you've got to try it.

After breakfast we hung out and started to get ready for dinner while the girls played with our neighbors, cleaning the house and making dessert.

I made a conscious effort to not go overboard with dinner and therefore only had to make mashed potatoes, rolls, and a dessert. See here for my Christmas Eve Menu. I ended up choosing creme brulee for dessert, which I've made a handful of times, but it was a total flop. I tempered the eggs just right but when they came out of the oven it looked very yellow, like scrambled eggs and had shrunk way down into the dish. To make up for the flop, I ended up making chocolate cake balls---equally as good, just not as "fancy".

My family arrived around four and the festivities began. We attempted some family pictures and got a few cute ones.

Dinner was great, the girls played so well with their cousins, and of course the opening of presents was a huge hit.

Christmas morning was amazing. The girls came out of the rooms excited and hopeful. Seeing their excitement was infectious. Being a parent on Christmas morning is way better than being a kid. Seeing the pure joy on their faces makes every bit of effort worth it.

The Owlette Costume, the Frozen Jeep, and the makeup kits have been the biggest hits. Christmas was really great. It one of the few holidays that I love every aspect of---love prepping, love the actualy holiday and love to see it go. 

The last two days have been spent purging and organizing. There really are more toys than we have room for so we have had to donate tons. I refuse to have stuff just to have it so we are donating tons that the girls just don't use. I am working on a post for our organization that I should have up this week. 

I'm really looking forward to 2017 and a fresh, new start. I really enjoy the reset that comes with the new year. I have a few goals and resolutions that I'll be sharing shortly.

I hope your holiday weekend was amazing and hopefully you have a few days off to recover.