We started off our Christmas celebrations on Friday. Shawn and I had the day off work. Friday morning I went with my Mom and got a manicure and pedicure. Such a great way to start off the Christmas vacation! When I got home Nancy, Shannon, and Blair came over and we all spent the afternoon together. Shawn and I always host the Wright family on Christmas Eve, so we got all of our food together Friday afternoon for that too. By the time early Friday evening rolled around the house was clean and the food was prepared for our Christmas Eve with the Wright's on Saturday. Friday night Shawn, myself, Shannon, Carrie, Blair, and Nancy all went to Branson for the evening. We went to the Branson Landing and ate at Texas Landing Cattle. This is a great steakhouse on the landing. Shawn and I had never been before, and we definitely plan on going back, it was great! After dinner, we drove through the Trail of Lights in Branson. Blair loved looking at all the different lights!
On Saturday Nancy, Shannon, Carrie, and Blair all came over and we spent the entire day and night together. Our Wright Christmas was so much fun this year! I was even more excited than usual because Blair is at such a fun age, I knew we'd have so much fun with her, and we did! We ate enough food on Saturday alone to last us all a while, played games, and of course told lots of great stories. A few weeks ago at our baby shower my Gran got our baby a rocking horse. It's something that our baby won't be able to use until they're at least a year old, but Blair is the perfect age for it. She absolutely loves playing with the horse. We decided to name our horse, Hank. Blair spent most of her day playing on Hank and of course playing with Zoey. Zoey and Blair have become best buds! We waited until it got dark outside to open all of the gifts. Before we opened gifts, Shawn read the Christmas story from the bible, followed by 'The Night Before Christmas' book that Vaughn and Nancy recorded for us, and played some Christmas songs on the guitar and we all sang along. Listing to the book that Vaughn recorded was a great way to keep his memory alive and a part of our Christmas celebration. A great tradition that we started this year! After we did all of this we opened all of our presents! We had so much fun! The best part was definitely watching Blair. Shawn and I got Blair a Little Tikes basketball goal, Elmo pajama's, and a Camelback water bottle. We got her the water bottle because I always have mine like that with me and she loves it. Let's just say the Camelback water bottle was a huge hit! Blair got a lot of great stuff, but the biggest gift was from MiMi! MiMi got blair a big bouncing horse, Lucky!
Blair riding Hank.
Morgan, Nancy, Carrie, Shawn and Shannon.
Nancy and her boys!
Shannon and Carrie.
Beautiful Blair.
Shawn reading us the Christmas story.
Shawn, Morgan, Carrie and Shannon - ready to open presents!
Shawn and Morgan being goofy with the diaper bin Shannon and Carrie got us.
MiMi and Blair.
Blair riding Lucky.
Blair was having a hard time not getting into Santa's cookies!
On Sunday, Christmas morning, Shawn and I picked my cousin Brandy up from the airport first thing and headed home to Pennsboro to be with my family! As soon as we dropped Brandy off at her parents we went straight to my parents house. Mom, Dad, and Travis were just getting home from church and Gran had just arrived too. Mom made her famous Christmas breakfast, oh my gosh, it's my favorite! We had egg casserole, biscuits and gravy, and hash browns - delicious! When Shawn and I first got home, we saw that Santa had came! It wasn't easy cooking breakfast and waiting a few hours to open presents, but we did it! By 'we' I really mean 'I' because I'm the one that struggles with just looking at all those amazing presents and not opening them lol. Once we all finished eating we headed straight to the Christmas tree. We moved all of the presents into the living room so there was more room for everyone to open. The big item for Shawn and I this year: a new Canon camera! Not just any camera, a big one! I have always loved taking pictures with my mom's big, nice camera, and since we're having the baby in a few months they thought we'd definitely get a lot of use out of it. Now I definitely feel like a Mom! :) I'm so excited about this camera, it's going to be great! The big item for Mom and Dad: a new couch! This is more exciting than some of you might think because Mom and Dad have had the same couch since they've been married, and it wasn't brand new then. So I think it's safe to say that it was about time. Dad, Travis, Shawn and I totally surprised Mom with it too, she had no idea! The baby made out just fine this year too! This baby is so spoiled and he/she hasn't even arrived yet! Shawn and I got a flip video from Nancy this year, so don't worry we got a lot of video footage of everything!
Shawn and Morgan by the tree.
Shawn was excited lol.
The note Santa left on one of Mom's couch cushions.
Santa came!
Travis and Shawn going to burn all the trash.
Christmas night we always get together with my Dad's entire side of the family - the McDowell/Walters clan. We always go up to my grandma's house and have a big dinner and just hang out. We had a really great time on Christmas night with everyone, it's always great to see some family members that we don't get to see all the time. Having Brandy home for the Holidays is great because she lives in Seattle so we don't get to see each other as often as we'd like. We love getting to catch up with her! Baby Maddox was there and everyone got to love on him, he's getting so big! The only downside was that I didn't get to partake in any of Aunt Susan's famous bourbon slush, but I figure I can make up for that next year :).
Travis, Morgan and Shawn.
Cousins - Morgan, Brandy, Taylor, Meghan and Kelsey.
Shawn and I stayed the night at my parents on Christmas night and then we had our last Christmas celebration on Monday - McDowell Christmas. All of the McDowell's get together and we have our gift exchange. This is something that we always do the day after Christmas. There's so many of us that we draw names, which is nice. After McDowell Christmas we all stayed together and watch the Mizzou bowl game. That concluded our 2011 Christmas!
Morgan and Brandy.
Morgan and Mom.
McAwesome McDowell family! Dad, Mom, Travis, Morgan and Shawn.
McDowell cousins.
Every year it feels like it goes by way too fast. It's hard to believe that next year at Christmas our baby will be about ten months old! We've got the best family in the entire world, and we're so thankful!I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas with their families and friends. Let's not forget to thank the good Lord above for the birth of his son and all of the sacrifices that he's made for us! HE is the reason for the season! God Bless!
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