Merry Christmas from the Schoenthaler's to you!!
I sure hope you and your loved ones have had a lovely Holiday thus far. Many of you have done all the celebrating you can possibly do, but I'm sure a lot of you have more Christmas celebrations to come. Like us! My family comes in town next week, and I can hardly wait!
This year, Jamie and I decided about two months ago to just take it easy this Christmas and stay at home with just the two of us. Since I am now more than 32 weeks pregnant, getting bigger and more uncomfortable each day, we thought a nine hour drive in the car or an expensive flight with a dog would not be ideal. Plus this is our very last Christmas with just the two of us, so we decided to keep it that way...just the two of us. And Leia, of course. Missing our families desperately, but so glad for this time with just me and Jamie. I'm so grateful we have such a good time together, because it's just me and him quite often. I love that man a lot and am glad to call him my best friend.
On Christmas Eve, I actually worked most of the afternoon. It was a very non-Christmasy 75 degrees here in Lafayette, but the shoppers were plentiful at the store! It was mostly men, scrambling to buy gifts for their wives. These ladies ended up getting some really good gifts under the tree. There are benefits to last minute shopping.
That evening, we went to the Christmas Eve service at one of the churches we've been going to quite frequently. I'd like to say it was moving and lovely and Christmasy and fabulous, but I was so wildly distracted by all of the ill behaved Children that I have no idea what the little sermon was about. This church has a giant lobby area with comfy couches and TVs showing the service going on...take your kids there! I know it was a "family friendly service" but when the pastor is stumbling over his words because he is so distracted by the talking kids and families...that gets a little ridiculous. So, after that fail of a service, Jamie and I came home to make a very untraditional Christmas Eve meal of Shrimp Pad Thai :)
Before dinner, I made Jamie take a few family pictures...
We're still working on the self timer function on my new camera.
Take 1:
Thanks for moving, Leia.
Take 2:
Take 3:
The best picture!! Minus the black shadow and me off to the right. But Jamie looks handsome as ever and Leia is looking at the camera. I'll just crop me out, because they look precious.
Take 4:
Jamie looks fabulous again, but he's off to the side. Leia looks nice, but is showing off her lady parts. And my big fat legs are taking up way too much of the picture. Yipes!
Oh well. Merry Christmas Eve anyway!!
Our dinner turned out much better than our pictures, thankfully. Yummy Shrimp Pad Thai:
Jamie LOVES this meal, so it was his idea to eat it for Christmas Eve. Yummy and easy!
We have a little tradition to open one gift on Christmas Eve night, so we picked out which gift we wanted to open that night.
Our little tree with a few gifts:
About 2 weeks ago, Jamie was sad for me that I didn't put up a tree this year (I wasn't about to fish that heavy sucker out of storage and haul it upstairs!), so he went to Hobby Lobby and got us a little Charlie Brown Christmas tree. Thanks, my love!
Jamie opened a small gift from me which was a classic Popeye drinking glass that said Sweet Pea on it:
It was a baby themed drinking glass, and it's been a joke with us that Jamie will dress up as Popeye, I'll be Olive Oil and the baby will be Swee'Pea for Halloween next year. And I do my best to do a good Popeye impression calling her "Swee'Pea", so when I saw this glass at an antique store last week, I knew we had to have it :)
I think he liked it :)
Jamie picked out the gift he wanted me to open, and look what I got:
New Reebok workout shoes with a side of pasty legs! These shoes are from Jamie's parents and I love them! Super comfy and cute! I've already tested them out on my walks with Leia. Thank you so much!
That evening, we drove around Lafayette, looking at Christmas lights. We saw some bahumbug neighborhoods, but some really great ones. Then we came home, made hot chocolate and watched The Polar Express in 3D. That movie is simply magical. I love it! Jamie enjoyed it too :)
We went to bed that evening, ready for Santa to come visit us sometime throughout the evening. And he certainly did!
Jamie and I woke up ready to start the day! I made pancakes for breakfast, we watched Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown, walked Leia, opened presents, and just had a very Merry Christmas!
Our family of 3 (almost 4) taking a walk:
It was about 70 degrees yesterday morning...hello Louisiana weather in December! But it was a nice walk for sure.
Leia and I got in some Christmas cuddles with the heating pad:
Then it was present-opening time.
My gift from Jamie:
Jamie's gift from me:
We both got each other gifts from The Backpacker--this really great outdoorsy store that we both really like.
I got Jamie a new coat:
He's been wearing the same black Columbia jacket for many a year now, and it still looks great, but I thought he needed a nice one, so there ya have it, folks! It's a really nice jacket :)
And Jamie got me a new black fleece:
I've been wearing my Chi Omega fleece since my Freshman year of college, and it gets a bit embarrassing when current Chi O's ask me where I go to school. And then I have to tell them that I've been out for a while now...so it's high time I got me a big girl fleece to wear :) Thank you, baby! I love it!
I also got this fabulous t-shirt from Jamie's family:
It says "Home Sweet Homa", and I couldn't agree more. it's a really soft tee and I can actually wear it over this baby gut of mine! Thank you so much!
Throughout the rest of the afternoon, Jamie and I were pretty successful at piddling around and being lazy. It was glorious. I got a pot roast in the oven and a pie cooling in the fridge and I went on a long walk and watched Christmas movies...and we just had a ball!
Then it was dinner time.
Praise Jesus for dinner time.
This was a really yummy meal if I do say so myself:
We had a Pioneer Woman Christmas meal including:
- Perfect Pot Roast --I've made this a few times, and it truly is the best!
- Restaurant-Style Smashed Potatoes--oo baby! I've never made these before, but they were unreal! So good! If I weren't so wickedly full, I would have had many helpings of this.
- And then cornbread muffins from Fresh Market. I love corn bread. Especially when it's sweet. Yum.
After dinner, we watched the Thunder vs. The Heat basketball game and then took Leia on a good walk. It was a good game and a good walk. A perfect end to the evening before we came home to some sweetness.
And for dessert...
Pioneer Woman's French Silk Pie which I screwed up mightily. If you click on that link and read the first paragraph, it'll tell you that this pie contains raw eggs and that if you are pregnant, you should not eat this pie. Whoops.
Well, when I got the pie out of the fridge--it had been cooling for hours--I was like, "hmm, this crust is awful mushy." Then it occurred to me that I never baked the flippin' pie crust!!!! Who does that?!? Who doesn't bake a daggum pie crust? Fail #1. Then raw eggs in the filling. Fail #2. So I had Cool Whip for dessert. I'm fine with that :)
After the pie fail, we watched a classic--A Christmas Story. Love this movie!
I hope you all had a marvelously fabulous Christmas and got to spend it with someone or many someones that you love :)
I love you guys and send you hugs and kisses on this fun fun Holiday!
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