Weeks 5 and 6: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Sheesh, at this rate I'll be recapping his first birthday about a year late :) Oh well, as long as it gets done!

First off, look at this cute bottom.



There are just few things that I think are cuter than babies sleeping on their tummies all curled up. LOVE IT.



*he is always monitored when I let him sleep on his tummy!



Since we were going to be gone for Christmas Day, Ben and I decided that we need to have some family traditions of our own, which is kind of hard to decide. I don't know if other people struggle with this, but since both our families live out of town, we will pretty much never be home for Christmas, which kind of stinks, in my opinion. I grew up waking up in my own bed, at my own house on Christmas Day and seeing what Santa left me under OUR tree and the thought of my kids not doing the same is a little sad to me. Ben grew up the opposite- never waking up in his own bed in his own house Christmas Day. So this makes Santa a little tricky. We decided to, no matter what, have our private family Christmas seperate from our families. As for Santa, he will bring stockings Christmas Day to wherever we are, but Santa will leave presents either before or after Christmas, depending on how big they are. It's not my ideal situation, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. Traditions aren't made in a year- they take time to get fun, right???



Obviously, Noah is too little to really understand, so we gave him his Santa presents and presents from us before we left for SA Christmas Eve. We didn't want to go overboard with gifts this year because he is so little, but we got him a few things...

The Laugh-n-Learn puppy is from Santa, along with some books- doesn't Noah look soo excited?!

Hallie is by far the best at holding Noah- Emmie and Jackson lose interest after about 1 minute.

The little cousins on Christmas Eve before opening all the gifts. Check out Emmie's cool princess cape :)

Handsome little guy.

One of my absolute favorite Christmas things are our stockings. My Granny made mine, mom made Ben's and she also made Noah's. One day I'll have to learn how to make them too...or maybe I'll pay someone to make them for my grandkids.

Grammar's handiwork

Christmas morning!

Since Ben had to go back to work, we headed back home to Houston the day after Christmas so that he could enjoy a couple days of vacation relaxing at home before Ben's family Christmas at our house. I so wanted Noah smiling by Christmas, but it just wasn't happening. Smiles were few and far between even though we worked and worked on them. This is the look I got instead:

Obviously cute, but so stinkin' serious. He is making up for lost time now, though!

The next week, Ben's brother, Aaron, and his family were all in town and we had family Christmas lunch at our house. Micah and Chad (newly engaged!!) came down, along with Candace. Ben's mom (Grammy) and Jim were supposed to be here too, but looooong story, they didn't make it. It was so sad not seeing them, but good to see everyone else!

Aaron and Noah's cousins, Hope and Emma

Siblings- Ben, Micah, Candace and Aaron

We have spent every New Year's with our good friends, the Ksiondas, for the last 5 (or 6?) years. Well, I guess techincally we didn't ring in the New Year with them on our wedding day, but we definitely did see them! This year we both had babies to celebrate New Years with too. It's just so crazy to think how much has changed in the last 5 years. We've gone from being in college and dating to married with kids with them. I hope we carry on the tradition and our kids are great friends and always have fun on New Year's together!

This year we spent NYE out at Stacey's family lake house and our other good friends, the Andersons, joined in on the fun. We hope that shoving our babies in their face makes them want to have their own sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, Noah cried more than normal that night, so I think my plan may have backfired ;)

Noah and Abby