Christmas

I've been busy enjoying my family this week so I'm just getting around to posting about Christmas.  We had a wonderful holiday with both of our families.  We started the weekend off by going to church on Friday night. Here is a picture of Jonathan and Adalyn before the Christmas service.

On Christmas Eve day, we headed into Louisville to spend the day with Jonathan mom, sister and nephews. We exchanged gifts and enjoyed the kids.  In the afternoon we went to Jonathan's cousin's house for a party with the extended family. We had a great time!  Jonathan's cousin has small kids, so she had a great idea to do the Christmas Eve party early in the evening so that the kids could get home at an early time. We were very thankful for that! 

By the time we drove home, it was past Adalyn's bedtime but we let her stay up late enough to read 'Twas The Night Before Christmas and also the Real Christmas Story. After she went to bed Jonathan and I got to work wrapping her presents and getting stockings ready.

Christmas morning we set the tripod up to get a picture on the stairs. One of my family's traditions was that the furthest we could go downstairs on Christmas morning was that we could only go as far as the stairs. And when my parents were finally ready for us to open presents they would take a picture of us in our pj's half asleep on the stairs. So we did that picture and even though it's against my better judgement, I'm going to post a picture. Please don't notice the lack of make-up. (Can you believe we got everyone to look at the camera at the same time??)

We video taped Adalyn opening gifts and never even thought to get the regular camera out! OOPS! Adalyn was so much fun opening her gifts. We got her mostly books and just a couple small toys.  Santa got her a baby doll and a stroller (the stroller was $7 at a consignment sale last August and I hid it that entire time!) and she loved it. She keeps trying to climb in the stroller herself. So cute!

Christmas afternoon we headed to Toledo to visit my family.  My mom is home from the hospital but is unable to leave her house. She has a nurse coming to attend to her wound every other day but she has been getting stronger so we are very thankful.  Her friends, family and church have surrounded her with delicious meals! We even had someone bring us a full Christmas dinner. It was quite wonderful!  After dinner with my parents, my brother and his family we opened gifts with my parents. My parents were so sweet with Adalyn's gift even with my mom in the hospital. Thankfully my parents had the Internet at the hospital and my dad is a good gift wrapper! But we were truly reminded about what Christmas is really about this year.

We stayed with my parents for a couple days and were able to see my aunts and uncles.  One of my cousins lives in China and was home for Christmas. She had never met Adalyn and we were so excited for them to finally meet. She had brought the absolute sweetest gift from China for Adalyn. A Qi-Pao (sounds like Chee-Pow and is like a Kimono) and a panda bear wearing a Kimono. Of course we had to try it on Adalyn! She was so cute in it!

My dad has tons of bird feeders and squirrel feeders so when we are at their house, it is like being at a nature preserve. He has some beautiful birds! It's like the squirrels know they are nice because they aren't afraid of people. They come right up to the door. Dakota likes to bark his head off at the squirrels as they play in the yard. The day we were leaving one of the squirrels came right up to the door. Dakota was barking his head off but the squirrel just came closer. He actually had his front paws up on the window and Dakota had his paw on the inside of the window. We watched Happy Feet the night before. I've seen too many kid movies about animals because I just pictured what the two animals were saying back and forth. And what that squirrel thought of the loud furry thing that was allowed to be inside when he was out in the cold! HA!

All in all we had a wonderful Christmas! We don't have many pictures to show, but I'll just say it was because we were so enjoying the moment that we never got the camera out! We're home now and going to spend the rest of our vacation working around the house, cleaning and organizing and spending time together! I'm looking forward to some "down time"! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!