Christmas in Tennessee!

Saturday before Christmas, we headed back to to Tennessee to meet Steve and Sarra at our house who were driving from Indiana. Mom R. came with us and it made the drive go by so much faster having annother person there to talk with and help with Ivy. Steve and Sarra came down from Notre Dame, where Steve has been working on his MBA. They actually had a baby just 2.5 weeks before they came down! So brave! It was so fun to see them and their girls, who we haven't seen in over a year. Ivy was just a couple months old last time we saw them. She had so much fun with her cousins!

Making cookies on Christmas Eve with Grandma:

Right pic, Ivy was pretty fascinated by Baby Lucas. She thought it was so fun to say "hello baby" and look for him whenever we asked her where the baby was. 

 Christmas Eve. We just love early bedtime in our house! Santa had plenty of time to wrap and set up gifts, hehe:

Christmas morning! Please excuse the lame phone pics.. I could not seem to get my hands on my better camera for any of these moments! In fact, for the entire Holiday break for some reason.. At least I have these.. Here is Ivy enjoying her new (to us) rocking chair and ball popper toys. She loved the chair, even though I don't have a very good pic to show, lol..

Left pic- Ivy and her cousins, Stephanie and Lizzy, were showing off some of their Christmas goodies. Those two girls were so funny! I can't believe how much they've grown up since we've seen them last:

My Christmas goodies! The long awaited new OBB cookbook and some good running clothes for wintertime. yeah!  (Not pictured, Sam got me a nice new puffy white coat and I love it! And Sam got an external hardrive for all our media. Fun stuff):

Brothers. This was their Christmas "card" to the other brothers in Colorado, lol:

 These two sat like this and kept making funny noises and laughing at each other for a good 30 mins. It was hilarious:

 A day or two later we finally got our first little snowfall! Hooray! (Little did we know we'd get a heck of a lot more where that came from! The other day we had a major snowstorm blow through. It was awesome):

I've never actually hosted Christmas at my own house before and I'd have to say it was a success. It was so nice and relaxing to just sit and chill every day without having to be anywhere in particular. It was also so fun to have family here to celebrate with. Steve, Sarra, Mom R, Sam and I (and baby lucas, hehe) stayed up late and played games together every single night. If any of you are looking for some fun new games, these are our new favorites: "Pass the Popcorn,"and "Wits and Wagers." Both were so fun!! We miss having our live-in game buddies. ;)