Saturday was Christmas Eve and the day was spent working (for Justin), baking (for me) and running around with a fellow lab mix (for Brody – the other lab mix being my brother PJ’s dog Riley. Still with me? I’m sure anyone who knows anything about grammar is cringing after that gem of a sentence). Riley is a lab/basset hound mix and she’s great. Here is a visual for those of you who are having trouble picturing that combo:

Get a load of those stems!

Later in the day we went to my Aunt’s house to celebrate with some extended family and then came back to the house to meet up with Justin and enjoy some Christmas Eve appetizers (recipes to come!). Brody insisted on wearing his Christmas best:

He sure knows how to work the camera.

There was entirely too much food, but the silver lining there is that we haven’t had to cook since! I wonder how long we can survive on mini chicken pot pies and crudites?

After we had eaten our fill and our guests had gone home to wait for Santa, Justin and I (and Brody) exchanged gifts (an awesome camera for me (which is one of the reasons for starting the blog – an outlet for all of the pictures that I’m taking!), a tent for Justin and a new bone for Brody) and Justin worked on getting his turkey ready for the next days’ competition. If only we knew how that would end…