Christmas 2011

We were blessed enough to get to enjoy Christmas celebrations with friends, the Kittle family, the Kammer family and just the two of us! Here is the breakdown of our whirlwind Christmas! Matt worked until 7pm on Friday the 23rd so our festivities didn't really start until that night!


Friends
 Our holiday weekend began with Game Night! A tradition that Matt, Milea, Caitlin, and Rachel have shared for SEVERAL years now! This year Andrew (Caitlin's husband), Kyle (Rachel's boyfriend) and another couple, Erica and Drew, joined in the fun! Each couple brought an appetizer and two bottles of wine (one to drink and one to send home with someone). We brought this amazing baked brie recipe that I cannot recommend enough, here is the link.


http://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/apple-cherry-brie-appetizer/1a5e19ec-6f6f-4140-bd4d-6caffb8575ed/


After having some wine and good food we started playing games! The night started off with Whoonu, a great get-to-know-you game. The goal of Whoonu is to submit the card that the IT person will rank as their favorite! After a few rounds of Whoonu we went on to Telestrations. Telestrations is similar to the game telephone that we all played as children but instead of whispering words in eachothers ears you write a phase, draw a picture, write a phrase, etc. As the night went on these turned out to be quite hilarious! One rounded even ended with "Sloths dancing in McDonalds!". Needless to say Game Night was a BLAST this year!


Kittle Family

Christmas eve day was a great time with the Kittle family! It is tradition in the Kittle house to have beef tenderloin and mashed potatoes on Christmas Eve and this year we added LIVE dungeness crabs flown in from the west coast! Cooking up the crabs was quite an experience, between boiling and cleaning them I think Miles (Milea's nephew) had 1,000,000 questions! The kids couldn't get enough of "helping" with the cooking! While the crab was delicious Dad Kittle definitely over ordered (8 live crabs for 6 adults!) so we took the extra ones to make something delicious with! (More on this later) 

After dinner the little ones took part in their tradition at Grandma and Grandpas, watching The Grinch and eating ice cream on a bed made of blankets in the living room! Once the movie was over Miles left out cookies and milk for Santa, and even some carrots for the reindeer. After the little ones went to bed it was time for the adults to open gifts!! Brittany and Nick (Milea's little sister and her fiance) Skyped with everyone while we opened gifts in true Kittle fashion, one at a time, and in order of age! Once gifts were all opened it was time to get to bed so that Santa would come! Christmas morning was all about the kids! Miles and Marlowe were drowning in gifts from all the relatives and Santa! I think the best quote was from Mr. Miles "Santa brought me everything I wanted!" In the end we had an AMAZING time with the Kittle family. Once Miles and Marlowe were done opening gifts we got changed, packed up the car and headed down to Christamas with the Kammers!

Some of the Kittle Decorations.... 

The Snowman Tree in the Sunroom

Christmas Eve Dinner Place-Setting

Kammer Family
In our tacky Christmas sweaters we headed out on the 2 hour drive to the Kammers! Our Christmas visit started with opening gifts! We had a blast opening gifts (they went a little overboard) and watching Mom Kammer open the metal arch trelace we got her was priceless! After opening gifts we spent some time in the kitchen cleaning the meat out of all the left-over crab from Christmas eve! After cleaning we ended up with almost 3.5lbs of meat!!! Once cleaning was done it was time to head down the road to Grandma and Grandpa Kammers for good food and family! We had a great time eating turkery, drinking home-made wine and giving everyone their packages of Scentsy supplies and home made turtles. The turtles are relatively easy to make and insanely delicious. You can find the recipe at this link.

http://www.deepsouthdish.com/2009/12/rolo-pretzel-turtles-super-easy-turtle.html

Matt's collection of work gloves that he asked for!

Two black and white trays, a date trip to an amazing restaurant and some awesome tumbler glasses

Wine chiller and cheese tray!

The next morning we woke up and hit the grocery store to gather all the supplies we needed to make crab cakes out of the 3.5 lbs of leftover crab meat! We had a blast making up the 23 crab cakes we could get out of all the meat! Once we were done mixing them up it was time to head home. Matt and I made a quick stop to pick up our Christmas present to eachother, a 5 year old West Highland Terrier! We then went to say goodbye to Ed and MJ (Kammer family friends and AMAZING people) and hit the road back to Lafayette! We had an amazing Christmas with the Kammers and were able to see all the local aunts and uncles and even some of he cousins!










MJK Christmas

The car ride home with the puppy was quite the adventure. You could tell he was pretty nervous. We stopped in Carmel to pick up Matts car, our gifts, and any leftover holiday food since Mom and Dad Kittle were already in Arizona. The day ended with our first night at home with the new addition to our family! Overall, we had an amazing Christmas with both families and feel so blessed! Puppy is adjusting well to the his new home and family and we cannot wait to post more about him soon!


We hope you all had a wonderful holiday season with your family and friends! God Bless!
Love,

The Boilers MJK