Nathan and his parents going to church on Christmas Eve

 Nathan and me on our way to church

 Nathan's mom and me with the stocking she made for me

 Nathan's Dad, cousin Emily, Nathan, me and his mom on Christmas

Bella and me getting ready to watch the Longhorns play in the Holiday Bowl

CHRISTMAS WITH THE COOKSEYS

On Wednesday, the 21st of December, Nathan's parents flew into town to spend a week with all of us for Christmas.   We had been very much looking forward to their visit especially since we had not seen them since August.   Nathan really misses having his parents around so he really loves every minute that they are here visiting.   I also love having them visit because I am lucky enough to have wonderful in-laws.   

They spent the first half of their visit at Nathan's sister Celeste's house which is only about 5 minutes from us...we both live in Highland Village.   We went out to dinner to Mi Cocina the first night and then had dinner at Celeste's house the next couple of nights.   It was fun for all of us to hang out together!   Even though Celeste only lives a few minutes away from us, we don't see her that often--with three kids all involved in different activities, they are always busy with something--and Nathan's schedule is crazy busy with school, internship, and work.   We enjoyed being able to have the time to relax and catch up with everyone.   

On Christmas Eve, Ben and Janet (Nathan's parents) came to our house to stay for the rest of their trip.   Nathan played the trumpet at a church in Richardson that night so we ate dinner at our house and then made our way to church to both take in the service and watch Nathan play.   Christmas morning, Nathan and I made homemade cinnamon rolls courtesy of Pioneer Woman to take over to his sister's house so we could watch the kids open their gifts.    I think we are going to make it a tradition to make those rolls for every Christmas morning...they are so good!   We got to watch the kids get excited over gifts from Santa and gifts from everyone else....it's fun to see how happy they get over the smallest things.  :)   We came back to our house so we could exchange gifts with his parents and then get ready to go back to his sister's for Christmas dinner.

Nathan's mom made me a stocking that she literally worked on for the past year.   It is so pretty and I can tell how hard she must have worked on it.   It meant a lot to me that she took the time to make something that I will keep forever.   Nathan had asked them for a regular Kindle so he was excited about that....and he seriously has not put it down since he got it.  :)   They also gave us a more than generous gift that we will use to buy a recliner for our master bedroom...with the leftovers going to savings.   We gave his parents a gift basked like we did for my parents...we filled it with different things that we thought they would like:  cast iron skillet, a cookbook, golf ball stamper, hat, and popcorn from our favorite place around here.

I did more cooking this year than I ever have before for the holidays and while it was a lot of work, I really enjoyed it.   For the first time ever, I made my family's dressing recipe all by myself from scratch.   I boiled the chicken, I made all of the cornbread and biscuits, and I used homemade chicken broth.  I was pretty impressed with the way it turned out but I think it will be one of those things that I get better at as I make it more and more over the years.   I also made a pumpkin pie and chocolate cake while Janet made the mashed potatoes.    Celeste bought a smoked beef tenderloin from a friend of hers that she cooked in the oven and it was delicious.   Janet's sister and her daughter came over with the rolls and Celeste's in-laws brought green bean casserole and cookies.   It was a really good Christmas dinner!   

Nathan's parents left yesterday around lunchtime and we were sad to say goodbye.   For the rest of the day, Nathan was a little down, understandably, and I reminded him that we will be going to South Carolina to visit them in March.   Fortunately, we had plans for some of his high school friends to come over to our house to watch the Texas Longhorns play in the Holiday Bowl so that helped cheer him up a bit.   Thank goodness Texas won!!!