Christmas Celebrated Three Times

This was our second Christmas in Texas. Last year, when we were living in Wisconsin, Jon, Sawyer and I braved the northern winter roads and drove down here to spend Christmas with Jon's family. And now, obviously, we live here. I'm really hoping to make it to Minnesota next year to spend Christmas with my family. My parents haven't spent a Christmas with their Fuller grandkiddo's yet!

Christmas Celebration #1 ~ Jon has a pretty big family, so that means Christmas gets celebrated for a good week! The first of our celebrations was with the extended Fuller family at Ron and Jan's. The boys grilled (yeap, grilled outside in the winter!) chicken and steak and everyone brought nummy sides to share. (I brought the Red Velvet Cheesecake!)

The kiddo's got to open presents, which is always fun to watch! They all get so excited! Ruby got a really cute blankie with an owl pattern on it (of course!). I'm not sure what the exact name of the blanket is, but it's one of the ones where you knot the two pieces of material together. It's super cute and I'd like to learn how to make them myself because it is a really great DIY gift idea! She also got her first dolly :-) And, a really cute purple jumper with a matching bow. It's size 6 months, but I'm going to put it on her soon because Ruby's a growin' girl! All these gifts were great first Christmas gifts for our Little Lady :-)

This was Sawyer's second Christmas and I thought he'd rip into the presents more, but he was still a little cautious... So maybe by next year he'll have the hang of it! Sawyer got BIG cars and a farm with animals!

After all the great gifts, we had sharing and worship time. Ron played the guitar and we sang Christmas carols. This made for good video time with the camera my family got us! (My mom had asked us a while ago what we all wanted and instead of getting gifts for the kiddos (and I'm sure some for Jon and me!) we asked them to pool all the $ from them, grandparents and aunts and uncles to get us a video camera; something Jon and I have really been wanting for a long, long time!!!) It was a nice evening!

Christmas Celebration #2 ~ Christmas Eve was spent with the immediate Fuller family at Ron and Jan's. It was great because it actually snowed that day :-) We had a White Christmas in Texas!!!

We went over to Ron and Jan's in the evening and made pizza's. The adult Fuller kid's drew names for presents, so we exchanged our gifts.

Jon and I and the kiddo's came back over to our little house to chat on Skype with my family in Minnesota. Skype is great! :-) It was SO nice to see them all (really wishing I could be in MN too!!!). Liz and Kellen came over and we watched the movie UP (which we got Kellen for Christmas and now need to go buy for ourselves!).

It was a nice and relaxing Christmas Eve.

Christmas Celebration #3 ~ Christmas Day we headed to MiMa & PawPaw's house for lunch (Jan's parents). Laurie made a bunch of really great food. Jon said I have to get the recipes from her and recreate the meal for all the Christmas's to follow :-) It was really good!

The kiddo's opened more presents. Sawyer LOVES to hammer and he got a fun hammer toy. MiMa and PawPaw were very generous with their gifts to us, and so was Uncle Charles :-)

The Northern Fuller Family headed home a bit early to spend the rest of the day with each other!

(The following three posts are pictures from each day. It's hard to get good pictures while holding a 3 month old... So, the pics aren't great, but you get the idea.)