Christmas & New Years 2010

Merry Christmas Everyone! We hope you had a glorious time with family and friends. We certainly had a wonderful first Christmas as a new family. As always we celebrated by enjoying quality family time together: playing games, reminiscing, making snowmen, cooking, crafting, and baking. Munchkin soaked up every minute with those big brown eyes, seeing his nieces and nephews, aunts, uncles, and grandparents! Here are some pictures of the highlights of our time together, as always there's more in the online photo albums on the left hand side of the page.

My niece Maria and I (and the nephews too) made a snowman!

Actually, she had the idea of decorating BOTH sides, so he was a human snowman on

this side and an alien snowman on the other (hence the alien horns and ears!)

So cute! Thanks Ben and Jake for finding the arms and teeth!

My 2 beautiful sisters!

We were all in Christmas colors so I said "Hey, sit down and we'll take a picture!"

Jess had strep throat and you can't even tell!

This is his great-grandmother! She loves his "black eyes,"

which was actually my mom's nickname for me when I was a little girl.

Aunt Bonnie calls Munchkin her "Chocolate Marshmallow"

Aunt Jessie wasn't allowed to hold him since she was sick :-(

And while we know presents and cookies certainly aren't the focus of the season, they are both a whole lot of fun, and my Christmas post wouldn't be complete without pics of the handmade items I've been working on in secret.  I crocheted a set of soft wool animals for him to play with, a fleece blankie, and a silky tag blanket for nighttime. His gift to me was homemade: the sweet sound of "Mama!!" Many of the gifts we gave this season were handmade: wool sweater snakes (sewn), quirky monsters (crocheted), a monkey (crocheted), and a special wool hat, mittens, and scarf set (sewn). Next year I plan on doing even more handmade items, but will need to start MUCH earlier since December is a blur for me now! On the cookie menu were: 12 dzn peanut butter blossoms, 7 dzn crescent cookies (total flop!), 5 dzn cut-out sugar cookies, and 7 dzn peanut butter cookies. My favorite to bake (and eat) are the blossoms -- only 4 ingredients andanyone can make them. The cut-outs are beautiful and tasty, but they are SO much work, so next year I'll change how I do the sugar cookies. I'll make up the dough after Thanksgiving, bake them in early December, and then finally decorating them close to Christmas.

No, Munchkin isn't as fascinated by these as I thought he would be right now.

He seems to like toys he can tap, bang, shake, etc,

but someday he will love these! Right!?!

This set was for Maria (she's wearing them in the snowman pic!)

And she's so perceptive. She actually noticed on her own how wool doesn't absorb moisture from the snow like cotton does. She's so smart!

Ahhh...and these are the scary monsters for my youngest nephews Ben and Dan!

What a great idea for them, and they seemed to really enjoy them!

Ben, especially, seemed to enjoy playing with the monkey in back (the front one was Munchkin's).

The mouth-watering Christmas delights that are... "Peanut Butter Blossoms."

These are so easy to make I taught Maria how to make them quite easily!

And last but not least are the classic sugar cookies!

I just thawed some out today and they are just as good as the day I made them!

All in all, 2009 has been quite a full year to say the least. We have:

* celebrated our 5th anniversary (although we weren't able to get away for it)

* had a baby (AND I survived postpartum somehow!)

* traveled countless times to my mom's, dad's, sister's, cousin's, and grandparent's

* (I've) learned that Hubby is a better daddy to Munchkin than I could ever have drempt!

* met lots of new mom and baby friends. Munchkin and I thoroughly enjoy playdates/storytimes

* (I've) fallen in love with my house all over again -- for how it's accommodated a baby, all his stuff, my craft and sewing projects, and my growing fabric stash!

Our New Year, however, has been bittersweet. Some of you are aware that my brother-in-law, Mark, passed away early January 3rd quite unexpectedly. He was so young. Please keep my step-sister Debbie in your prayers as well as their young son David. (Here is a link to their blog.)

Thanks for reading. Thanks for caring. And thanks for being a part of each of our lives! Even if we can't travel to see all of you in person, it's nice to know we're able share bits of our life with you through our blog. And keep in touch -- we LOVE to hear from you!