At school, I got more presents than ever from my students.  The most popular gift to get Mrs. Webb this year?  A mug!  Whether filled with candy or part of a hot chocolate set, you apparently couldn’t go wrong with a mug.  I suppose that’s why I got 6 of them this year.  My favorite gift from a student was a chocolate pizza with chocolate, peanuts, marshmallows, cherries, and more.  It was fantastic, and I got the recipe too.  They were all very kind, but the most precious gift was lotion from a student whom the other teachers and I purchased clothes for.  One of the other teachers gave her a pack of 4 different kinds of lotions, and she gave each one of us a bottle.  It was so sweet because she didn’t know that we had given her the stuff, and she just wanted to be able to give us a gift.

Our first family Christmas function was the Sunday before at the Webbs’ in Hendersonville.  We got together to eat and play games.  We decided not to get each other gifts, but we got Brody something because he didn’t tell us not to.  Chad picked out a little outfit with little baby Jordans, a jersey, and a cap.   We also, along with Ashley and Brock, got Brad, Peggy, and Laura a calendar of Hawaii pictures of Brad.  It had kind of become a joke when we were on our cruise that Brad was posing for a calendar, so there were a lot of really good pictures for it.  Something fun was getting Chad’s baby book.  It was neat to look through and see all the details of when he was really little.  His mom did a good job of keeping up with all of that stuff.  I thought it was really funny that she had a baby shower on February 13th, the day before Chad was born.  Nothing like the last minute!

One of the greatest gifts to me was that Chad took the entire week of Christmas off so that we could spend it together.  He usually likes to work around that time because there aren’t a lot of other people working and there isn’t much going on.  So, I thought it was very nice that he took the time off while I was off work.  It was great sleeping in together and doing some last minute shopping.

On Monday, we had our small group over for a Christmas party.  We had lots of really good food and Jenny Borders even made a hot chocolate buffet with all kinds of fixings.  We played “dirty Santa,” where each couple brought a board game.  We brought Last Word.  We already have it, but we think it is pretty fun.  The funny thing is 2 other couples brought it too.  We ended up with Bop It.  I think Chad opened it and started playing with it before the “dirty Santa” was even over.

On Wednesday, Chad and I headed to Louisville to spend Christmas with my family.  On Christmas eve, my mom and dad had over my aunt and uncle and my grandma and uncle.  We ate all kinds of wonderful food and opened gifts.  For Christmas, our family decided to get my grandmother a new kitchen floor.  Obviously we couldn’t physically do that, so the plan was to give her a tile of flooring and a gift card to Home Depot.  Well, before Christmas, she decided to go purchase some flooring for her kitchen herself.  So, the plan changed and we decided that we should pay for the labor to have the flooring installed.  On Christmas eve, my sisters and I came up with a cute little poem to recite to her as she opened the tile.  She loved it!  She thought was so cute and sweet.  I don’t think an actual gift was needed at all.  It actually turns out that she had already had her new floor put in anyway, so she really just got a check that she can do whatever she wants with.

On Christmas day, we woke up at my parents’ house and opened presents with the family.  We had a lot of fun.  Chad and I got NFL snuggies for my dad and my sisters’ boyfriends (Brendan and Travis): Raiders for Dad and Bengals for Brendan and Travis.  By the way, don’t ever mention you like a particular sports team or our family will assume you want every type of paraphernalia for that team that was ever made.  Brendan got the family a game called Wits and Wagers, and we played that after eating lunch.  It was pretty fun.  Chad won both times.

Later that evening, my mom, Chad, and I went to see the movie “The Blindside.”  It was really good.  I have found that I get bored during a lot of movies, but I thought this was entertaining.  After the movie, we went over to Jill’s where the guys watched a football game and the girls played dominoes.   Nobody had eaten dinner, and we were getting a little hungry.  With our options few being it was Christmas day, my parents went home, and the rest of us went to Waffle House.  They seemed a little busy, but more so the people working there seemed to be at each others’ throats.  Everybody was really mean to our server.   I felt bad for him.

The next day, Chad and I went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond because he wanted to get a travel cup and we wanted this candle that was on sale.  It smells like peppermint patties.  Yum!  We also headed to the mall so I could make an exchange, and then we met Mom, Dad, Jessie, and Brendan at Olive Garden for lunch.  It had been a while since we had been there, and it was good!  After heading back to the house to get our things, Dad sewed a button on my coat for me and we left to go back to Bowling Green.  I later found a needle in the lining of my coat- my last little Christmas present from Dad.  Thanks again!

When we got home, Chad and I had our own little Christmas celebration.  We started the fire and opened our gifts from each other.  He got me some very nice earrings, but my favorite gift is a photo book he made of our first year of marriage.  We had talked about doing this on our anniversary, but we never got around to doing it.  It is so sweet.  I hope we can keep it up so that each year we will have kind of a memory book of our years of marriage. Chad was happy to receive from me clothes that actually fit him.  He has been giving away clothes that are too big, and his closet was getting very bare.  He was also excited about some new shorts for biking, swimming, and running.  Look forward to upcoming posts about tri-athlete Chad.

I’m still so amazed at how blessed I am to have such a great husband and a wonderful family.  Thank you to everyone for making this another special Christmas.

We had spooky green punch made with lime sherbet and Sprite.  It was topped off with an eerie hand made from freezing tropical colada juice in a rubber glove.  We lost one of the fingers as we took the frozen hand out of the glove.  The pinky went quickly after while stirring the punch.  The juice, as it melted, made the punch extra yummy.

Because it was pretty cold that night, another beverage that we offered was spiced apple cider, made just like Chad’s mom used to make.  It was good, but it was a little warm in our house, so most opted for the sherbet punch.

There were creepy finger foods too.  I made my mom’s delicious cheeseball, but shaped it into a ghost.  I added the almonds for eyes and a mouth.  I made sausage balls and inserted rice noodles to make them spider-like.  Their eyes were just food coloring.  There were also mummies, cocktail wieners wrapped mummy-style with crescents.  Chad added the eyes with mustard.  We also sliced up some full size hotdogs and cooked them to make tasty worms.

It wouldn’t be Halloween without treats.  I made rice krispy treats, colored them with food coloring, and shaped them into balls.  The color was a little pinkish, so I had the idea of shaping them like brains.  However, when I asked Chad how they looked, he thought they were butts.  So, I added M & Ms and chocolate chips to make them look like jack-o-lanterns.  I also found a good Chex mix recipe made with Chex, M & Ms, pretzels, candy corn, and raisins coated in white chocolate.  It’s very addicting.  Along with those treats, we also had trick-or-treat candy, and our friend Jenny brought a ridiculous cookie pizza with peanut butter, nuts, icing, and M & Ms.  It wasn’t just ridiculous because it was good, but it was also the size of a large pizza.

It was a very fun night filled with lots of good eating.  Now, I must prepare for Christmas goodies.

#9 He tucks me in with a kiss EVERY night and answers when I call for my “tucker.”

#8 To appease me, he wears his snowman pajama pants at Christmas time.

#7 He takes his Harry Potter book with him everywhere “just in case” there is a chance he can read it.

#6 When he knows how my sentence is going to end, he mouths along with my words without realizing it.

#5 He throws a little hissy fit when he has to go back to work after lunch.

#4 He gave me this t-square to help with Uppercase Living.

#3 He says, “Look, my socks match my outfit.”

#2 He actually believed that it was me under the covers and told the pillows, “wakey, wakey.”

#1 Just look at that face.

I love you, cutie!

Last year, Chad got me a stocking with my initial on it in rhinestones.  We got it out and hung it up on the mantle. It looked so lovely, but then I realized we won’t have matching stockings.  The big fuzzy red ones are going to look funny next to mine.  Oh well, I thought, we’ll just have to look for something close.  Later, as I was looking through our clearance items, I pulled out another bag and low and behold, there was a stocking that matched mine with a rhinestone “C.”  

We love sitting in our home with no lights on but the lights from the tree. Here are some pictures of our decorations.