Merry Christmas!

The festivities have begun!

How enlightening and inspiring to see this holiday through the eyes of our child. Put aside the shopping and the cooking and the cleaning and the stress and the endless preparations... We've been focusing on the things that matter to our family... and figuring out the Christmas traditions we want to set and install in our brand new little family. And the discussions continue, we're trying to blend the traditions of two different upbringings into one family. Fortunately we have time on our side. Kayla is still to young too understand and remember everything about Christmas this year, but we did our best to expose her to the Nativity (Mama!, Dada! Beebee!), Baby Jesus' birthday (Blow out the candles!) and Santa (Ho, ho!).

We looked forward to celebrating Christmas with her this year; as Aaron put it, "her first conscienous Christmas", meaning the first Christmas she can participate in. Last year as a 6-month old Kayla was more into - I hate to say it - eating the wrapping paper - so this year we were looking forward to seeing her exuberant expressions over discovering the simplest of items behind the paper. That's one thing we took notice and pleasure in this year - her appreciation for the simplest of gifts - a hat or bracelet for dress-up, a puzzle, a new book, a princess figurine, a baby doll - we know it doesn't take much now.... and we also know that won't be the case forever.

Kayla was definately into opening presents this year, that was an easy part for her to grasp. In fact, we had to keep hiding and re-hiding the presents from her because she kept opening them. Many presents I had to wrap and re-wrap after Kayla got her hands on them. When it came time for opening presents on Christmas Day, she got a little overwhelmed. She was pretty much done after two presents, but then we'd wait a little while and she's be ready for a few more. Overall, it took her about 3 days to open all her presents... nothing wrong with that!

The next several entries will try to capture all that has happened over the course of a few days. There are many celebrations that occur in our family - the arrival of far-traveled family members from Chicago, Atlanta, GA and East Jordan; Christmas's with all of them over the course of many days, generous gifts, many parties and lots and lots of big dinners, good food and conversation. Hopefully the pictures will tell the stories. We had a VERY merry Christmas!


We tried to spontaneously get a family photo... emphasis on "tried".


Grandma, Kayla and Kayla's favorite (and most tolerant and loving) buddies, Princess and Tasha.



These are pre-Christmas and pre-gift opening day photos... just hanging out and reading some of Kayla's favorite books at Grandma's house. (Of course its only fitting that Amy and Kristi are reading one of her favorite books - the Cheerios book!)