BIrthday, cookies and Christmas Eve

This year was a great birthday - I was a little sick but there was no traveling, finals, or moving. We went to the PCC to eat at the Gateway Buffet for dinner, then went on the Holiday Lagoon canoe ride to see the Christmas lights. On Sunday everyone came over and Ryan made me a delicious chocolate cake with homemade frosting. Ryan gave me an ice cream maker for my birthday-it's a really nice one and I'm so excited! I've been collecting recipes online. It's perfect for living in Hawaii - it's never cool enough here to want hot chocolate, but always the right temperature for ice cream!

I think this picture is awesome because in the background on our computer slideshow is a pic of Ryan's birthday!On the 23rd we had a sugar cookie extravaganza. Heidi and I each made dough and then we got together to roll, cut, bake, frost and decorate! Ryan, Heidi, Jordan and I each took a turn at the rolling - combined we had 6 batches of sugar cookies so it took all afternoon/evening! The kids had fun - but burnt out quickly. After that it became more of a factory job. It was a fun and delicious time though - one of my favorite holiday traditions for sure. After, Heidi let us go on a date for our anniversary which was the day before (7 years!) and watched Cora for us. She would've watched Elijah too but we decided to take him with us since it was going to be a while. On Christmas Eve we all got together for Spam fried rice and I tried out my new ice cream maker! Uncle Johnny quickly became Elijah's favorite person as he let Elijah sample his ice cream.
We started a new (to me) tradition this year of opening one gift on Christmas Eve- homemade pajamas! More pics in the PJs in the next post.