Family, More Precious Than Gold

   Today we celebrated Christmas with Tim's side of the family. Ben and Rachel hosted it. This was the first time they've hosted a holiday.  It was a fun time. 

I love how Rachel has decorated the house. This is my grandfather's buffet with a typewriter he used to repair in the 30's and on. Rachel added garland that was lit and added decorations and candles. I thought it looked so pretty.

 This is there tree. We each had the same sized tree which was pre-lit. We had the white lights and they had a multi-colored light tree. I asked if we could switch and now we're both very happy. It was such fun to look at the ornaments on the tree that we'd given Ben over the years.

 The dining room had a beautiful centerpiece and lights in the window.

 She had lights with the plants at the end of the dining room. I love the built in cupboards and the window seat that's padded.

 This is the living room with their new sectional couch. We had plenty of room for all 13 of us. 5 of his family weren't there. They were moving.

 This is a bookcase in the living room where Rachel put their little nativity with lights and stockings for each of them and the one in the middle is for Harper, their 10 month old dog.

I just love how Ben and Rachel have set up their house. It's a house they are renting from Rachel's sister and brother-in-law. They also have an attic that they've added a large dresser with a tv on top, a couch and chairs to make it a guest room if needed. The couch pulls out. They've added a little heater which warms it up in 10 minutes or so.

There's room at the end for storage. The rest was empty, so they decided to use the furniture they had to make it a guest room. Smart kids.

I went early to help with some of the prep work. I helped mash potatoes which Ben added fresh garlic and chives to. We also are know for adding real butter to potatoes. You can't have too much butter! LOL

   Funny thing about that, When I scooped out potatoes from the bottom of the pan, I found lots of yummy butter!  

Ben made a roast and chicken in crock pots. We used the mixer to shred the chicken very quickly. I love doing that. It was interesting with Ben's mixer too. When you turned it on, the first speed wasn't low, it was high and got higher as you turned it up.  I had chicken whip through the beaters and almost jump the rim of the bowl!

 Everyone brings something so there's always lots of good food. We had the roast, chicken, corn bread, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, sweet potato souffle', and gravy.

For dessert there were chocolate chip cookies, chocolate silk pie with caramel and pecans on the whipped cream and Brianna's eclair cake. Her eclair cake is amazing! I think because it's like pudding with chocolate frosting on top.

This morning as I was driving to his house it was really snowing hard. I don't like driving in snow so it made me nervous. However, everyone was driving slowly so I didn't worry too much. It took me 10 minutes longer to get to his house, but no worries. I got a parking spot in front of his house. YES!

I was going to leave a bit early so I didn't want to have others have to move their cars for me to get out.  Tim's family loves to play cards. They have for years. When I was first married, his mom played cards and played for blood. I didn't like playing like that so I never wanted to play with them.  If we play here at home with the kids I'll play, but not with those who have to win.

Anyway, when the cards come out, I go home. It's nicer for everyone.       

The only thing we didn't do was take the Craig Christmas photo. We'll have to do that another time. We didn't want to do it without the one family that was moving. Oh well.                                       

                                               

Today for the Inspiration Challenge I chose this ornament of the penguin holding a bunch of balloons. I used my Penguin Garden stamp from Whimsy Stamps. I colored it with SU Watercolor pencils then used a blender pen. I added white liquid applique on the balloons to make it look like snow. I heated the liquid applique to make it puff up to look like snow. I added the balloons with dimensionals then drew strings with a black Sharpie marker.  The challenges on SCS are fun. You never know what stamp you'll use next.

 I love to color. It's so relaxing. This made me laugh when I saw it. I just had to share it.

Verse of the Day: Isaiah 7:14


If You're Missing Someone This Christmas is the song for today. Give it a listen. If you're missing someone, I hope it brings a bit of comfort to you.


Blessing of the Day: Spending time with family.
Thanks for stopping by.
Blessings,