I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! We certainly did! We decided to do our own thing this year, just the three of us. It was really a great feeling to focus on the true meaning of Christmas and celebrate our wonderful little family instead of all the hustle and bustle, traveling, extended family drama, and the over-commercialization of it all. Jack really couldn’t care less about any of the gifts he received (though he received
plenty, trust me! Ha!)

Photo of Jack on Christmas Eve

As usual, we spent Christmas Eve doing some last-minute wrapping, sipping eggnog, and watching 24 hours of A Christmas Story. I baked some apricot jam-filled cookies, ginger cookies, and a yummy apple cake with a brown sugar glaze (something new).

As happens every year, Brian panicked that he didn’t get me any stocking stuffers, so he ran out to the local mom and pop stores and found some stuff. Snicker.

On Christmas morning, the baby let us sleep in a little (halle-lu-jah!) I made some breakfast burritos and we lazed around for an hour or two before opening our gifts. Jack still has some wrapped gifts sitting under the tree (here it is three days later!) but one a day is plenty! He gets a kick out of ripping the wrapping paper off. His favorite gift so far has to be his Dora the Explorer backpack (video of this hysterical little gem will be posted later). Every time he sees Dora’s face or hears her voice, he lights up like a Christmas tree. It’s the cutest thing.

I bought Brian one of the new 16 GB iPhone 3Gs. Lawrence just got 3G earlier this month, so it was great timing. He was thrilled that the touch sensor across the top row works again, heh! He bought me a Nintendo Wii. Which really should be renamed wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, because they’re so much fun. I kicked his ass at tennis and he kicked my ass at baseball.

We watched a couple holiday movies and that was pretty much it! So relaxing!

For Christmas dinner, I decided to make filet mignon, which is going to be a new tradition with us, I think. We didn’t want turkey again so close to Thanksgiving, and I don’t eat ham, so what else is left? I’ll tell you what—STEAK! But not just ANY steak—THE.BEST.STEAK. Yummmmmmmeh! I also made roasted red-skinned garlic mashed potatoes, cheesy broccoli and rice casserole and brown and serve dinner rolls. It was all soooo good. Brian said it was so yummy that if he was sitting on death row requesting his last meal, he’d want all of that again. Bwah! He’s a dork, but he knows how to make a wife feel good, that’s for sure.

I hope you all had a happy holiday and a Merry Christmas, too! Thank you all for the Christmas cards. I’m sorry you didn’t get one from us (we didn’t have time to send any out this year!) We’ll do better next year, though, I promise.

On Saturday, my sister and nephews came over for an after-Christmas party, so I could give the boys the gifts I bought them. I made peanut butter blossoms for my sister (one of her favorites) and lunch for everyone while the boys played on the Wii with Brian. It was a lot different than how we usually celebrate, and in some ways it felt a little weird, but it was still a really great holiday season.

But enough jabbering. You know all you really want are Christmas photos of Jack, right?

Santa's Little Helper

Ho, Ho, Ho!

I really can't believe you guys are making me do this.

BEST.PRESENT.EVER!

Santa Baby, the day after Christmas

Tons more photos added to the Photo Gallery… start here.  Jack’s photo gallery was getting a little unwieldy, so I reorganized it into months (Jack at 7 months, 8 months, etc.)  Should be easier to find what you’re looking for now, I hope (as well as easier for me to update!)