{Life} Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

Christmas was great to us this year - time with family, getting to see friends. As we slide into the new year, here a few photos to share with you from our celebrations:

We started out the morning on the 24th going to get Christmas donuts -

Then we started getting ready for the day, starting with going to see Santa and get our annual family Santa pic. Here we are getting ready to go -

And here is the picture - this is my fourth Santa picture with the Jaspers but they have many many more spanning from when they are very little. Jake's mom puts them out every Christmas all together.

Then it was time for the Jasper cousins and Grandma Jane to come over -

There was a lot of great food including our favorite jalapeno bacon bites 

and our newly named "redneck sushi," which made an appearance at several family events this year - this is my favorite appetizer.

After some family time with Jake's side of the family, we headed over to my parents house to be with them. We watched Home Alone (my favorite holiday movie) -

Then we ate dinner and went to the midnight service at church:

Then it was Christmas morning! We put all our gifts under the tree for the morning and had our little Christmas celebration just the two of us first thing after waking up.

Then it was time to go over to my parents house again to open presents with them -

We got lots of great things from my family - including a grill for Jake. We were very excited and it was fun to give them their gifts!

Ezra's dog Oscar got a waterproof jacket for Knoxville walks.

Then it was time for breakfast #1, waffles and country ham with eggs:

(Jacob is wearing his t-shirt I got him from Hoop City Memphis)

Then we went over to Jake's parents' house for more presents and another breakfast, then came home and took a nap before going out to his aunt and uncles house.

The next morning we woke up to a white Christmas!

We lounged around the house all morning (I came down with a cold during all of the Christmas mania) and I caught Tyson hanging out in this box - either he wants to be a Christmas present or he wants us to ship him off somewhere:

The dogs had to inspect and see what was going on -

Then that night we continued the family time with Jake's family - we went bowling for his mom's birthday.

His family friends came too and we all went over to their house after the bowling for pizza and watching the Grizz game.

And that was the end of a 4 day streak of family time - and it was time to rest!

In family and friends,