'Twas the night of Christmas

The children are nestled all snug in their bed and I am typing this post with my feet up and nice glass of red. And I gotta say, it's been wonderful, but boy am I glad that I can now kick back and relax!


Gotta give a shout out to Nana Yenna for the adorable and festive {and hand sewn} new apron!

On Christmas Eve, I spent the better part of the day in the kitchen acting as sous chef - chopping and prepping for dinner. We went to the family church service at 5 pm and after that, my parents came over to join us for a Louisiana-style Christmas Eve {thanks Williams-Sonoma and Junior League of New Orleans cookbooks for the delicious recipes}.



On the menu; for starters, oyster stew and shrimp remoulade Napoleon (basically shrimp with fried green tomatoes); for the main course, crab cakes, salad and sweet potato biscuits; for dessert white chocolate bread pudding. If you want recipes, post a comment and I'll gladly pass it along.

My dear, sweet, hubby helped me cook dinner {although he really acted more like a head chef - swooping in for the easy part at the end}. But nevertheless, it was help and I gladly accepted it.


After opening a few gifts with the grandparents, we tucked the kiddies in to bed and got to work as Santa's little helpers.

Christmas with little children takes the meaning of Christmas to a whole new level. I get such a joy reliving childhood through my own children. Exposing them to the traditions and experiences that I remember so fondly. This is truly what life is all about!

Santa's been here!


Santa brought Paige a comfy chair, chamois crib sheet, building blocks, pots and pans, dishes, a soft baby doll and stroller.







Santa brought Jack a chair, new backpack, Zoobie, Spiderman pop-up book, Toy Story toys and Leapster Explorer.






Mom and Dad, grandparents, aunts and uncles were also pretty good to Jack and Paige.



Some of Jack's favorite toys were his Zurg Nerf gun, Zerg action figure and cape (which ironically looked like the Evil Emporer Zurg). He looked like this most of the day today.


He also liked his shaving cream, fake razor and mirror that Santa left in his stocking.


Actually, he told me several times today that he liked EVERYTHING he got for Christmas and that he REALLY loved Santa.

Before bed I tried to capture a similar photo to this one from Christmas 2009, but to no avail.


Paige was just as unwilling of a participant this year, as she was last year.



But she is still really darn cute.



And so is my Jack-monster.


What a joyous holiday. And each year just gets better and better! Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Sidenote: In my last post I mentioned the gifts for Ben's office staff. In all of the holiday hustle and bustle, I never did my post about what the gifts were {sadly, I have a few cute photos, too}. I made homemade hot chocolate and homemade marshmellows. I'm gladly posting a link here as to were I ripped the idea off. I put my marshmellows in a plastic bag, filled a 16 oz. ball jar 1/2 full with the cocoa powder, then put the marshmellows in the top and sealed the lid. I covered the lid with a scrap of Christmas fabric and tied a gift tag with the cocoa instructions on with cooking twine. They were cute and delicious. I also learned that homemade marshmellows are easy and fun to make {and they taste better than Jet Puffed}.

If you are a blog reader/follower you should definitely bookmark Darby Stickler's, Fly Through Our Window blog. She is who I try to emulate {and realize I never come close} with my blog. However, she always has really cute ideas for homemade gifts for the crafty and not-so-crafty folks {such as myself}. Here are several other ideas that she also recently posted for holiday gifts. And if you click on her recipes section, I've made several and everything I've made thus far is wonderful!