Christmas was such a whirlwind this year. It was great, and I enjoyed it, but it flew by so fast. We even had some of the celebrations spread out which was really nice, but I can't believe it is over already. We had our Scribner Christmas last Saturday and spent the rest of the days up to Christmas Eve getting ready for the big day. We finished all the wrapping and cooking and other odds and ends. A lot of trips to the store were made to pick up missing items or things that had run out. I was suppose to work Monday night but ended up getting RTO'd which was nice only because I was able to spend the rest of the next day baking instead of sleeping, but the money would have been nice too! This year Chad and I asked if we could make beef wellington for our Niebuhr Christmas. Everyone agreed so the pressure was on. We have both been huge fans of the dish for a while now and we found a youtube video of Gordon Ramsey making it so we thought we would try it out. We had to make a trip to a specialty grocery store and we used two different recipes and watched the video a million times. On Tuesday I spent the day baking cookies and the cake for the next day but that evening Chad and I spent it making the wellington. It took us about 2 1/2 hours to prep that included a small kitchen fire. We poured olive oil into a hot cast iron skillet and it caught fire. Luckily with Chad's calm demeanor we were able to put it out with a towel. We had it all ready for the next day, and just prayed that it would cook ok. It took longer than expected to cook but turned out great! Everyone said they liked it a lot and we both loved it. It made for nice, different Christmas dinner. We went over to my parents around 10:30 ate lunch around 1 and then let the kids open their gifts. This kept them busy for a little while, while the adults sat around and chatted and ate dessert. We went to 5pm church at Southwood and then back to the Niebuhrs for soup and more chatting. The day went by so fast we didn't have time to play games. We left that evening to get things ready for Santa at our house and make food for the breakfast brunch at Erin's. The kids were up bright and early and we had time to open gifts and play for a little bit before heading over to Brian and Erin's. We got to enjoy an amazing brunch. It is one of my favorite parts of Christmas. The food is always amazing! I made a new croissant-nutella casserole that was so good. I love nutella and it was as good as it looked. Erin had a hot chocolate bar for the kids, and made grinch fruit sticks. Then we headed home to let the kids play with their gifts and I got to sing some karaoke with Chad and take a nap. We are so blessed with our little loud family and I am so glad we got to spend this time together this year.
Christmas baking (i also did sugar cookies)
the preparation of the beef wellington
a family picture with the boys holding their snowmen with their names on them
i love this guy, we are so lucky to call him our husband/dad
Oma
more pictures with Oma
a picture with my parents
cousins messing around
callan loves to follow grace around and I am sure it is so annoying to her, but she is a good sport about it
the niebuhr family
guess who is excited to open presents
but first a cousin picture
building legos and eating dessert
in our christmas church clothes. i dressed it down this year
a quick family pic in our christmas clothes
snacking on the veggie tray
father and son
leaving cookies for santa and a carrot for the reindeer
a selfie
excited about his stocking
hey, what did you get?
the mini helmets the boys really wanted
more helmets
the girls on christmas morning
grandma and grace
the breakfast spread. so good. so so good
kids playing
helping his cousins put together minecraft legos
my rings from my friend sarah
a little battleship before bed
new jammies and slippers for all the boys
