Baking, Folding Laundry, Vacuuming, and Blogging

Today is Christmas Eve.

Sampling the pretzels for our turtles

If we were in Louisiana, we'd be at my parents for the day, eating good food, visiting with family and friends, and opening family gifts.
But, we aren't. We went "home" our first year in Nebraska and though we had a nice time, found it was just too much, driving between my parents town and Bart's family's town (2 hours).  So, we've stayed in NE during the holidays and have overall enjoyed ourselves, even if we do miss our family...and the massive amounts of GOOD food.

All three boys made the turtles by themselves, from opening ALL those rolo wrappers to placing the pecans on top.  I just put them in and out of the oven.

 So, today, we filled it with things to do:  Delivering a cake to Sarah's house (had to set it up); shopping at Target (not too crowded...Target does a great job of managing the check out lines, which makes life a lot easier), cleaning, baking for tomorrow (hot milk cake {Bart's aunt's recipe}, a cheesecake using this recipe, and "turtles" with rolos), and then tonight we will watch Christmas Vacation and tackle the mountain of laundry that was put off all week because I was working on the cake order. 
While at Target, I bought a new vacuum on sale for less then $12!  How awesome is that?!?!  We need a light weight vacuum to tote up and down 3 sets of stairs, so this stick vacuum by Dirt Devil was perfect!  It sucks great, too!
Tomorrow we will open our presents (Brennan keep making our wake up call earlier and earlier...I told him that I am VETOing his suggestions and saying 8 a.m.), finish cooking Christmas lunch, then enjoy the afternoon with our friends, the Peter's.

Brennan is such a great helper and leader, too.

I think as long as you remember what matters at Christmas:  Christ, it doesn't matter where you are (I'd say or who you are with, but I sure would miss my kids if they weren't with me, and Bart's wrapping skills are so outstanding that there is no way I could miss that), as long as you try to enjoy your day and thank Heavenly Father for sending his only begotten as the greatest gift to mankind.

MERRY CHRISTMAS Y'ALL!