Our Boy and His Cricket

WOW!  I'm still in shock that Christmas is over and we are slowly cleaning up the mehem and being lazy as we let the last 72 hours of food settle.  It has been an incredible holiday for us!  Filled with so many blessings and the most amazing memories made!  

We began our Christmas celebrations by baking another round of Christmas cookies (for Santa this time) on Thursday afternoon and once again the fun was over the top!  It was wonderful having Big J help with the fun and experience the joy with his little cricket.  With our cookies prepped for Santa we then cleaned up and headed off to church for the candlelight service.  It was such an emotional experience for me as I was thinking about all the blessings from the year and just remembering where our daughter was last year at this time.   This year I was holding her in my arms singing Silent Night with big ole tears rolling down my face.  

The next day we got all dressed up (well mostly the cricket) for our families Christmas Eve celebration.  Each year our family does a big charity donation instead of exchanging gifts and this year the Santa Cruz SPCA was the charity chosen from the hat!  Of course the newest member of the family got to draw the name.  :)  She was so very serious!

For all of our various Christmas activities I had outfits that I'd saved over the years for my girl to wear for her first Christmas with us.  This outfit was extra special as it was mine on my second Christmas and it was a dream come true to see my daughter wearing these special threads.

Our little cricket was so into all the gifts and opening them up.  She was so excited and very serious about her play kitchen and her first bike and of course hasn't stopped playing with them since.   We've had many a tea already!  

Then it was time for Big J to open his gift...I was SO excited!!!

And as you can see...So was he!  I can not wait to see what magic comes out of his camera!  I'm trying to convince him to start a photography blog so he can share, learn and see other photographers works.  Oh and yes, he did get a lens with that camera body....we'd wrapped everything in separate boxes to throw him off and of course I'm so sleep deprived that I'd forgotten what box to start with...oh well the end result was still perfect!

The morning soon came to an end and Big J headed to his dads for more celebrating.  After a quick nap we played the afternoon away before the cricket, her daddy and I headed out for a wonderful Christmas dinner with my family although we were a bit tired!  Dinner was fabulous and the perfect way to end a beautiful first Christmas together!