We celebrated with my parents tonight. They were kind enough to give us the option of the day and location. After considering our options we decided that today, Sunday, was easiest and that we would rather have it at our house so that we would have more time (instead of having to leave by 6:30 to get home for Gavin's bath and to get him into bed). That also meant that I needed to figure out what in the world to make for dinner and dessert. Scott offered to help by grilling something, since I did not want to make something traditional like a ham or turkey. I ended up taking him up on that because between everything else I needed to do for the dinner, getting the house ready and grocery shopping for the last few days we would be in town (and a few things for the trip), one less thing to worry about was really nice.
So, after considering a lot of options for our dinner, Scott grilled steak. I made my stuffed mushrooms (the way Scott and I love them). My Mom made my Grandma's recipe for potatoes and some crescent rolls. It was all delicious! Although I do love to do most or all of the cooking, it was really nice to not have that level of stress in getting it all done with Gavin wanting and needing things as well. I made red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for dessert and we had some vanilla ice cream with them. A very delicious end to our meal!
After some visiting, we decided to open up presents. Gavin was running around like the crazy little boy that he is, so it was hard to get him to sit still to rip the paper, but he did help a little. Once we got the paper off of his first present, he was very excited because there was a car! Not just any car, his first remote control car! He was so excited for the car to be out of the box, I felt bad that it needed batteries that we didn't have. So, we have to run out and get batteries tomorrow so that we can get it up and running. He loves it already so I can imagine he will be really excited once it is moving around when he presses the buttons!
Since Gavin had his new car, he wasn't really interested or all that helpful in opening anything else. We helped him open a really awesome book of The Night Before Christmas that has a recording of Grandma's voice at the beginning and then you can either read the book or it will read it to you. My parents made us two really awesome photo books, one of Gavin's first year and one of the family reunion we had in August. We have already enjoyed looking at them several times. I am sure we will spend a lot of time looking through them, especially considering how often we just look through photos on our computers. I opened a couple of things for me, two great Christmas CD's (both of which are on the Christmas Pandora station we created, so I am really excited to listen to the CD's now! I also opened a beautiful new sweater (I can't wait to wear it!) and a few new Christmas movies. Scott opened a new shirt, sweater, some fancy socks and a leaf collector thing. I couldn't believe how many things they gave us! It seemed like the presents just kept coming. They are so thoughtful and generous.
We gave my parents a gift certificate to a local Italian restaurant that we love and they had not been to yet. It is a really nice restaurant and since my parents enjoy going out to dinner, we thought they would like to check out a new place. I can't wait for them to try it, I hope they love it too!
It was a really wonderful evening with my parents. We had a lot of really good food, conversation and fun. We are so grateful that we were able to spend that time with them and celebrate Christmas (even though it was a week early because we will be in Pittsburgh for Christmas day). We are so fortunate to have them and to be able to be able to spend so much time with them! It was a great way to start our week of Christmas celebrations!
No comments:
Post a Comment