{ Christmas with family }

The best part about celebrating Christmas, aside from the obvious reason to celebrate the birth of Christ, is that we are blessed to spend it with family.

After many years of being alone, and spending the holidays just the 4 of us, the past 3 years we've been so lucky to be able to share the holidays with a multitude of loved ones.

My beautiful family, my rocks, everything that I live for.  My children have grown into such beautiful human beings.





Christmas Eve table was filled with delicious goodies, as always.  It brings back memories of years gone by, and my childhood.

Grandma and Grandpa with the kiddos.

My husband and I.  I look at this photo and it really brings home the fact that we've been through so much, and have grown older but have made a beautiful home for our kids and family.

My Jasmine.  I can't believe she's already 18.

My brother and sister in law.

The cousins, Colby, Jasmine and Nicholas.

This boy of mine, he's only 14 and he towers over everyone.  It's completely insane just how tall he already is.

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve with some of the family, and then Christmas day we had more family come in to spend the day with us.  Cousin Cindy and Aunt Carol :)

It was a really good Christmas.  I will say that hubby and I decided not to give each other gifts, and to rather wait until January to buy something.  Finances have been kind of tight, we've paying off a lot of things and working very hard at being debt free, and really we just love giving and seeing everyone else happy and smiling, instead of worrying about ourselves.

I will say though that we ended up giving each other two little gifts, or at least I thought it was supposed to be small gifts.  I gifted him some cologne and a Under Armor shirt and he surprised me with a new memory card for my camera (mine was so old and on it's way out), and new cookware from Paula Deen, which I needed badly.

Some people hate getting gifts for the house, but I love it, and since I really enjoy cooking and taking photos, the gifts were just perfect.

I did however get two other really cool gifts from my brother and sister in law.  Let me show you real quick:

So I've wanted the Outlander Kitchen for quite a while, and I was ecstatic to see it pop up in my presents.  And then if that wasn't enough, I also received the newest Philippa Gregory "The Last Tudor".  Oh my word!!!

Overall, a really good Christmas.

But I will say that I'm happy the holidays are over, and sometime within the next few days, the tree will come down, the decorations will be packed away and my house will be set back in order.

I have a lot of things I want to accomplish and do this year, mainly blog and crochet related.

There are quite a few reviews coming up, more blog posts, I'm setting myself an actual schedule and routine so that I stick to uploading, because as the years go by and my children grow and get closer to leaving home, I find that I have but very few moments left to treasure having them young and at home.  I need to record these memories for years to come.

With that said, I've also been talking back and forth with my husband, about possible opportunities or ideas for me start putting my talents to good use and making some extra money for us.  Money that will be used to help get us out of debt faster.

I don't know exactly what I'm going to do or how, but it's in the works for sure.

I sure hope you all had a beautiful Christmas.  I'll still be here posting here and there until the New Year (which is not that far away, is it?)

Anyway, I am still in pajamas and it's after 10AM, so I need to get dressed (kids want to go use their gift cards at Walmart, Target and GameStop), and I also need to get some cleaning done, dishes and figure out what I'm making for dinner.

Have a wonderful day everyone and once again, Merry Christmas :)