To start, looking back on the past few days I really wish I had taken more pictures, but I was so busy ENJOYING the Christmas season with family and friends, I didn’t think to pick up the camera but a few times. Oh well. Live and learn. Even without the pictures, I’ll have my memories to look back on!
Our Christmas has actually been spread over a few days. We got started on Friday when we celebrated Christmas with Kevin’s family at Kevin’s brother’s house. We had lots of fun, and Kate even got to meet 3 of her cousins that she hadn’t gotten a chance to meet yet. Here are a few cute pictures from Friday.
Friday was just the beginning of Kate getting “spoiled”. Over the past few days, she’s been constantly held and rocked, has stayed up late, and honestly hasn’t even had to cry because she’s gotten everything she wanted when she wanted. I’m thinking the next few days will be an adjustment for her as we get back into our normal routine. Needless to say, Kate had a great Christmas, without any of the gifts. I don’t feel bad about any of the “spoiling” though. You only get one first Christmas with your first child. 🙂
We had church on Sunday morning, so we planned to stay at our house on Saturday (Christmas Eve) and then go to my parent’s house on Sunday right after church. BUT, we decided to surprise my parents on Saturday and just show up. They always have an oyster roast on Christmas Eve that starts mid-afternoon and lasts until the last person leaves. So when we got to their house about 12 and pulled into the driveway, they were busy getting things ready for the party and didn’t see us pull up. We knocked on the door and heard my mom say “come on in”. When we walked around the doorway and went into the kitchen her reaction was priceless! It almost looked like we scared her! My dad was in the back yard getting things ready so we had to surprise him next. He was pretty happy about us being there too! My mom said that was the best Christmas present ever, and my dad had actually been telling her earlier in the day that this would be the first Christmas eve that I wasn’t at home. I think we could say it was a nice surprise for them… and for us!
We brought the “boys” with us and actually stopped by the lake house on our way to my parent’s. We had to let Max and Cooper get in the lake. This was the first time we’d been able to bring them since the 4th of July. Normally we take them to the lake pretty often during the summer months, but because of Kate we didn’t get the chance to bring them as often as we wanted. It wasn’t exactly cold outside, but they didn’t seem to mind that it wasn’t 100 degrees outside either.
We were able to stay at the party until about 5:30 before we had to drive back to our house. We got to see Jillian and Jonathan, and their baby boy Bennett. Bennett is about 6 weeks younger than Kate and is a cutie. And of course, Kate got to spend some time with her Gigi, Papa Rick and Aunt Kristi. Here are a couple of pictures from the oyster roast…
We left my parent’s house at 5:30 and then went to celebrate our 3rd Christmas in 2 days, again at Kevin’s brother’s house. We were so exhausted that we didn’t stay a long time but again we had fun.
We finished celebrating Christmas today, December 26th. I’ll post Part 2 tomorrow to recap Christmas day and today, but for now I’m heading to bed. Traveling is exhausting! 🙂
