A Busy but Joyful Saturday Before Christmas.........

................a day to do what I wanted to since my shopping is done and my cookies are made.My husband Frank and Michael went to the mall while I had my girlfriends over for a Christmas Brunch. A few years ago a group of us from our church starting hanging around together and having parties for each other on our birthdays. We realized that our stories were all the same....none of us had ever had a group of  women friends like this that we did things with, felt so connected with and had a blast with. Each of us had longed for and at one time or another prayed for that, even though we all had other friends. We decided that it was God's mercy and grace and love that put us all together and so we give Him all the glory. We have so much fun together and enjoy our time together, that it has become a tradition now to get together all year for all the birthdays and Christmas. We named ourselves the Mercy Sisters. We are there for each other and love each other and sometimes we need to have a little mercy with each other! Here is a picture of my beautiful sisters............

We had a scrumptious brunch of Frittata, Broccoli Cheese Casserole, Belgian waffles with cherry jam sauce, Fruit salad, Banana bread, Pumpkin bread and Monkey bread. For dessert we had Peppermint bark candy and peanut butter cup cookies.....yum!!!! We always play the gift game where everyone brings a gift, gets a gift and can steal someone elses' gift. Just as they were all leaving for the day my daughter Jena, my son-in-law Britt and my granddaughter Chloe stopped over. Jena is big sister to my 13 year old son Michael and she always finds time to spend with him. He wanted to make a gingerbread house this year so she bought a kit and they worked on it together....

While the rest of us were in the living room, we could hear the two of them laughing and talking about how they were going to decorate the house. They came up with The Mic J Outback Shack as a name and each decorated one side of it. Jena is handy with a cake decorating bag of frosting as she used to have a job doing that. She put each of their names on a side, the name of the house on one end and Merry Christmas on the other. It came out cute!

It will be Santas first stop Christmas Eve......

I got to spend time with Chloe while Frank and Britt relaxed (actually snoozed, is more like it!) She likes playing with her feet!

I am exhausted and so there will be brunch leftovers for dinner and then after that, the couch! Hope you had a restful and joyful Saturday ! Did you do anything fun?