The morning started with my mom and I being the first awake (like usual) so we let the men sleep in a little longer before anxiously awakening them to open presents. In the meantime, I started making pancakes and waffles. I made pancakes for my dad and brother. They were buttermilk pancakes from Krusteaz.
I love these pancakes because all you need to do is add water and they really fluff up when they cook. But my mom does not eat them because they contain milk and I do not eat them because they contain milk and wheat. So I also made waffles with my new waffle maker! I bought this a few weeks ago. This was only my third time making waffles and I still have not perfected them since I've been doing so much experimenting to make them vegan and gluten free. I love it but it's a pain to clean, when they don't turn out right.
Even though these weren't perfect, they still turned out pretty good, much better than my first try where instead of a whole waffle I had a deconstructed waffle in a bowl. This time they came out whole, but they were starting to come apart when I tried to get them out of the waffle maker. I still want to work on making them taste better too. My mom had chocolate chip waffles and I had peanut butter protein waffles. For the peanut butter protein "syrup" I followed Laura's recipe.
After preparing the pancakes and waffles, we woke up my dad and brother. They weren't hungry right when they woke up so we decided to open presents first. So I grabbed some fruit and a coffee and we took turns opening presents. My dog's also were loving the Christmas gifts!
Our greyhound, Smitty! He's such a crazy dog for a greyhound and makes me laugh.
How cute is he!? Boomer couldn't keep himself out of all the presents!
I didn't get a picture of all my gifts, I totally forgot, but I got some clothes, cookbooks, games, and giftcards. My parents big gift was to themselves, getting their kitchen remodeled!
This is only a part of it, the whole thing is beautiful. I still need to do before/after pictures for them.
After presents, we ate breakfast. Then, we decided as a family to help my mom with her volunteer day at the cat shelter. This is a wonderful cat shelter. It is a cage-free shelter where the cats basically have their own house. This kind lady has a basement with a kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom and basically gave up that part of her house to shelter about 14 cats at a time until they find forever homes and another cat comes in for adoption. Every day there is a volunteer scheduled to come feed the cats, play with them, and clean up any messes. It was a great small family activity.
I'm playing with and petting one of the cats, Sheba!
After we got home from the cat shelter, we all relaxed for a bit before starting dinner. This post has become longer than I anticipated so I'll talk about the food in my next post.
After dinner, we enjoyed a silly family game we received as a gift, Quelf.
After the game we enjoyed one of my favorite desserts, Dark Chocolate Avocado Pudding.
By this time it was late and my dad and brother had work the next morning. Overall, it was a great Christmas with lots of quality family time and fun! So sad it is over already, but thankful for this wonderful holiday.
Have a great Thursday!
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