Good morning, my friends! We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas weekend, filled to the brim with hugs and love and happy squeals. And food, because well, that’s how WE do the holidays, and we think it’s a pretty great combo. 🙂

We won’t have any new work to share on the blog this week, but still… we’ll be sharing! Today I’m posting some pictures of our family Christmas, tomorrow will be a “Cooking With McG” post, Thursday will be a little special somethin-somethin, and Friday will be a mobile blog! That’s right, we’re traveling again. This time it’s the complete opposite of beachy and bright, though… can’t wait to share!

This year, Christmas was a little different than usual because it fell on a Sunday. No complaints, though. What better way to celebrate our Savior’s birthday than going to church? So we just rearranged our schedule, and had a grand old time. Christmas Even lunch at my Aunt & Uncle’s house with my dad’s family, then the Christmas Eve service at church, then Christmas at my mom’s parents house until the littles had to go to bed. Christmas morning we had all to ourselves, just our little family of four, and we LOVED it. 🙂 Then after church, we headed up to my parents’ house for the rest of the day. Whew! I’m looking forward to our travels, for Christmas next weekend with Mack’s family, and to getting back to work. But also, mostly, SO thankful for this time with those I love the best.

Jack made such a haul this year…. I guess that’s because he’s such a great kid. 🙂 He got a ripstick from his Aunt & Uncle, a Pogo stick from his great-grandparents, and a bicycle from Santa! Who wants to place bets on what month we’ll be getting a broken bone?

We went out to breakfast on Monday morning, and as we were leaving the restaurant, Mack was tossing Dottie in the air. I saw the sun behind her, and quick as a flash, pulled out my iPhone and sat down in the parking lot to get this image below. I only had one shot at it, and I was so excited with how it turned out, I cried. Nothing Christmasy about it, I suppose, but it’s still one of my favorite pictures of the week.

Hope you’ll come back tomorrow to copy down Mack’s famous and fabulous chicken pasta recipe. It’s face-melting yummolicious, and you don’t want to miss it. 🙂