Christmas week

Our celebration began this week on Christmas Eve with a ham dinner at Carrie and Spencer's house.  Gabi had requested mussels, so Spencer did a fine job cooking them and Gabi did a fine job eating most of them!  She had Corbin try one, but it wasn't his favorite food item!

 

 After dinner, the kids were tracking Santa on their phones and begging to open a gift.  Gabi was pretty certain that she was getting coal.....hmmmm....wonder why?

 As Santa approached Colorado, the kids got into their jammies, while the adults got into their wine! Spencer came up with the electronic mistletoe!

 Soon there was dancing and game playing and Spencer explaining the naughty/nice theory to Corbin, who clearly didn't want to hear it!

Soon the children were nestled all snug in their beds with the wine-drinking adults followed shortly in preparation for The Big Day. (By the way, the lack of Taylor pictures was because they were doing their own Christmas Eve thing, dinner and watching a movie).
Christmas morning dawned and Gramma slept in while Brad and I went to Curt and Amie's to scope out what Sophie and Grayson had gotten.  Grayson got plenty of bulldozers and cars and airplanes, while Sophie's dream came true- tickets to Taylor Swift!

After picking Gramma up, we went to see what Corbin and Gabi had gotten- Gabi got "Isabella", the American Girl doll she had wanted and Santa surprised her with a real sewing machine.  Corbin got a huge remote control car and had fun chasing everyone with it, even knocking himself over with it.

 

 At the Taylor house, pictures came to me looking like they got plenty from Santa as well.

Brad and I then returned home to start dinner, a ginormous prime rib, along with twice-baked potatoes (thanks Amie), creamed spinach, rolls, baked pears and some lucious desserts (thanks, Mer).

 

 Elijah brought along the most entertaining gift of the day,  jelly beans that were flavored as they should be, or flavored with something gross.  I got a black (licorice?) one that ended up being skunk flavored, Corbin got a (chocolate?) one that was canned dog food and Gabi got a (peach?) one that was snot flavored.

 

 We opened gifts and Rory landed a favorite, a three foot box of twix (candy bars)

"He went to Jareds" she said

Gabi got a certificate for a sewing lesson from Aunt Mer

 It was a great Christmas,especially having the whole family together!

Brad and I played bridge on Saturday (getting a bit more challenging all of the time), then had dinner with our friends from Ft. Collins, Beth and Fred.  Sunday we celebrated Elijah's 12th birthday with breakfast out for 16!

Elijah brought his friend, J.J.

Following breakfast, Brad and I went to Denver to have Christmas with Mom, Pam and John and Nick in Denver.  Mom made dinner and we enjoyed the company while watching the Broncos game.

Today I spent the first day of my vacation (???) filling out forms for disability for Brad, followed by dismantling the dryer following Youtube directions. Good times.....