Hanson Crew

from our crew to yours!

This year marked our fourth year being home together on Christmas Day. We loved it! We slept in, opened gifts while we enjoyed homemade cinnamon rolls, and took our time. Then we all made our traditional Christmas brunch together. After breakfast, we played with some new toys and played some board games. Then we tried making a new tradition that John's family always did on Christmas Day - homemade chicken and dumplings. They turned out great! And we had fun talking to our family in AZ who was making them at the same time as us. After that meal, we enjoyed a new movie and used our theatre popcorn machine we got from Papa Phil and Gramma Velma. It was a great day. Here are a few pics...

Ashlyn and I spent some time this year making a few Christmas gifts together. We didn't get pictures of each one, but we took a few. Here are some of the things we made...

We celebrated Christmas Eve with my mom and her boyfriend Larry.  It was small and intimate.  We finished cooking dinner together and then opened presents.  They stayed a little while after while we played with a few favorite toys and then headed back home.  It was a relaxing, nice way to celebrate Christmas Eve.  We enjoyed ham, baked potatoes, green bean casserole, corn, salad, and dinner rolls. I remembered my camera this time so I have a few pictures to share of the fun...

Today was our first family celebration for Christmas this year.  We celebrated with Grandma Sue and Grandpa Gary today.  The main reason for the early celebration is because our family has enjoyed Christmas Eve with my mom the past 3 years (while they were in the Philippines with Carol and Rylee).  And we really enjoy Christmas morning with just our crew.  So I asked her to celebrate Christmas with them Christmas evening, but she was afraid the kids would be too tired and not excited about her presents.  So we moved it to the Sunday before.  We started the day with a Christmas service and then headed over to their house for dinner, gifts, and games. Because the Cordovas planned on going to their house all of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, they did not come to our celebration.  So it was just our crew and the grandparents. We enjoyed marinated Pork chops, baked potatoes, green bean casserole, dinner rolls, strawberry casserole, and Oreo pie. ...