Christmas in Arkansas

After enjoying Christmas at home together, Chad and I headed off to spend some quality Christmas time with my family. It was a very busy day filled with lots of quality time, eating, and fun. Here is a play by play of how the day progressed.

We spent the lunch hour at Christie and David's house celebrating Aunt Pat's Birthday. Yes, she was a Christmas baby.....but still deserves a birthday cake!! Christie went all out and we had a great lunch....full of non-traditional holiday food that we had pretty much had enough of at that point.

Of course, Pat's favorite part of the day was playing with Hannah!

After lunch at Christie's celebrating Aunt Pat's Christmas birthday, we all returned to respective homes to do what the women in this family love most - take a long winter's nap. We then all gathered at mom's house that night for a delicious dinner of chicken balls (Toby's favorite) and gift opening. On of my mom's big hits this year was a collapsable cart to help her carry in all of her groceries....when you buy as many groceries as she does this is really nothing to laugh at. Only my mom (and the gang from college who would get roped into helping her on Friday nights) could understand this...Thanks David and Christie for helping us find it!!!

One of favorite "Arkansas" gifts this year were coats that my mom bought for both Chad and me. We were both in dire need of a new coat....at least I was. Continuing in the tradition that Becca and I started last year with our new robes, Chad and I felt it was only appropriate to model them for the camera.

Last, but not least, at the end of our long Christmas day, we gathered round the tree with our tripod and posed for a family portrait (from the waist up of course!).