Christmas and Birthday Celebration with Mark's Mom

We enjoyed a nice evening in with Diane to celebrate Christmas and her upcoming birthday (which is on NYE). She came over around 5pm, just as we were finishing a movie, and supper for that matter.

I had thrown some yummy Cranberry Catalina Chicken in the crockpot earlier in the day and made some mashed potatoes and peas to complete the meal.



We visited throughout the evening, and Diane opened her Christmas gifts (perfume from Daniel, Iryna and Sofie, and some chocolates, deer sticks, and a warm mitten windshield scraper from Mark and I) as well as her Birthday gifts from us.




We had such a nice visit with her, and wish her the Happiest of Birthdays - the big six-oh this year!

Johnson Family Christmas (Worthington)

After a wonderful night of sleep in our very own beds, we met Mark's Dad's side of the family down in Worthington for church, and then lunch at Pizza Ranch. We drove through a Winter Wonderland to get there.



We had quite the crew in tow, and were glad that Uncle Dean and Aunt Barb had gone early to hold down a party room for us!

Food

Family

After lunch, we went over to Dean and Barb's to continue the celebration!

Grandma opened a few gifts, including an ornament from San Diego from us, a picture of her and her kids from Jared and Skyler's wedding from Dave and Chris, and a fun talking photo book from Jared, Skyler, Greg and Lori.


Grandma also had some really great gifts for Skyler and Lori - some gradeschool artwork that Jared and Greg did back in the day lol









Megan brought her keyboard, and she serenaded us all with some Christmas carols for background music.

The Goodies!

Decor

Family

We had 17 Johnsons together for the afternoon! While it was brief, it was fun - and how couldn't it be with a group like this? :)