my Christmas Eve surprise

This is me and my Uncle Richard. Besides my dad and grandad he was always the #3 man in my life and my favorite uncle. My mom is one of 7 but 6 of the 7 are girls. Her one brother lives far away and her brother in laws don't come around to my grandparents too much since girls WAY out number the boys. He was married to my favorite aunt, Aunt Tresa. My parents thought so much of my Uncle Richard and Aunt Tresa that in their will it stated that if something were to happen to them that Uncle Richard and Aunt Tresa would become our guardians. They started dating in high school and got married after college. Unfortunately, about a year and a half ago they divorced. This was a complete shock to me. I never really had very many friends whose parents went through a divore, and the ones who did we never talked about it. Both my mom and dad have gone through a divorce, but that was before they got married to each other so divorce was very foreign to me. I was heartbroken when I find out about it. I was going to lose my  favorite uncle. I hadn't seen Uncle Richard (because he will forever be known to me as Uncle Richard) in well over a year. Well, my grandmother being who she is (a person who does what she wants regardless of anybody else and their thoughts and feelings) decided to invite him to our family Christmas Eve get together. He is helping them build their new house. Did she ask my Aunt Tresa about this? Nope. Aunt Tresa found out about 5 minutes before he showed up. She didn't seem bothered by it, but more bothered by my grandmother's actions and decision to not tell her. I didn't know anything about what was going on until he walked in my Grandmother's house. I was OVERJOYED. So of course I needed a picture of this moment. He tried some of my red velvet cake. He got the first piece actually. He loved it and said it was wonderful. Oh the joyful sound to my heart! He also told me I looked beautiful. I was grinning from ear to ear :)

This is me and my grandaddy. He is 86 years young. He also loves it when I cook.

my red velvet cake

me and my cake

I followed the recipe from the Pioneer Woman's cookbook.