Merry Christmas to All and to All a Goodnight

In my last post, we didn't think Helen was going to make it back for Christmas. Her mom did well in the surgery but Helen was concerned about being there when she had to meet with the oncologist the day after Christmas. At the last minute she was able to work it out so that she would be included in a conference call during the doctor visit. With her medical background, that was important so that her Mom asked all the right questions and got all the info to make the right decisions about any other treatment. She got the last available seat before Christmas Tuesday night arriving at 12:30AM Wednesday morning. We didn't tell the kids so I went over to their house after the kids went to bed to help Steve finish wrapping the Christmas packages. Then I stayed while Steve went to the airport to pick Helen up. It was a short night on sleep for all of us. The next morning, Helen was busy making spiced nuts when I came over to help bake cookies.

I bought all the ingredients ahead of time as she really wanted to do this even though it was already Christmas Eve. She has a lot of patience with the kids.

Morgan loves to cook with her and Helen has taught her a lot already.

I got Cameron into the act by having him unwrap all the hershey kisses and make all the balls for the peanut butter kiss cookies.

He did a great job too!

Helen and Morgan were busy mixing up several other kinds of cookies.

I had to leave before all the baking was done because I had dinner cooking at our house. We decided to have our big meal on Christmas Eve so that we could relax and just have leftovers on Christmas Day.

I made a crockpot breakfast casserole and cinnamon rolls after they went home. The next morning we went to their house and opened presents and had brunch. The rest of the day we relaxed at home and they came over for some more turkey that night. Hope you all had a great Christmas too!