Christmas!

Christmas this year was great. We celebrated it three times actually since Hank has two sides to his family, and I have my one. It's pretty neat to have so many people to enjoy holidays with, although to be honest it can be a little bit overwhelming at times trying to fit it all into two days! I'm sure some of you can relate. I mean I absolutely cannot complain but I feel stressed sometimes wanting to make sure everyone gets "their" time. Overall though it was so much fun this year and I think Henry is a pretty lucky kid to have so many loving people in his life!

Hank and I exchanged gifts quietly after everyone had gone to bed Christmas Eve, and we both got each other a couple of wonderful things that were nice surprises, including a new scarf and some cold-weather running gear for me. I got him a couple of shirts and a book on coffee. Simple but great. We naturally focus more on Henry during the holidays now, and it was so much fun to watch him open his presents that next morning.

I hope whatever you did, you had a great day filled with love. I know we sure did. There so many times I kind of took a step back in awe of how wonderful the day was.

Christmas Eve- (these are just photos from my parents' visit- we actually spent the evening at Hank's Mom's and it was a ton of fun too.)

Could I be anymore festive? ;)







Christmas day (feel free to make fun of our matching pajamas!)-

Hello, Santa!

A year has come and gone, and my baby isn't a little tiny baby anymore. Just take a look at this photo! Tonight we went to visit Santa and Henry just loved him. We've been reading Christmas books and looking at photos of Santa Claus so I think that helped- and wouldn't you agree that our Santa is pretty great? He just looks so jolly to me, and he's super sweet too.

Growing up my parents had my sister and me take photos with Santa from our first Christmas until we finally refused to continue a few years ago. I can still remember the mortification of being 15 years old and having to sit on Santa's lap for my Mom's yearly photo. I made the biggest fuss, but in the end I always did it, because I knew how much it meant to her. Now at 29 I can look at Santa photos from when I was 1, all the way up to age 26. Impressive, right? That would make for an awesome blog post- especially seeing all of my hair and fashion choices over the years; I was an 80s child don't forget! And now that I don't actually have to be in the photos, it's so much more fun to take our little guy. I can't wait to display all of his holiday pictures just like my parents did (amidst much protesting of course)...but now I totally get why my Mom loved them so much. And the longer I'm a parent, the more and more I say things like that. I think at one point in my teen years I may have even said something along the lines of "when I'm a mom I will NEVER make my kids do this!" while stomping angrily away I'm sure.  And now take a look at me!

Merry almost-Christmas, everyone!

Light Parade 2011

Everything is so much more fun with Henry around, and that goes double for the holidays.  Even though we still have a month until Christmas, we've been having a great time adopting new traditions, and making old ones our own. Every year our town has a light parade, and it's a lot of fun to get bundled up, get some hot chocolate, and watch all the floats go by. One of the things I love most about living in a small town is all of the tradition and fun the holidays bring, and our town really seems to come even more alive this time of the year. We had a great time at the parade, and I think Henry did too (minus the fire engines' sirens- he HATED those). It was a fun night though- cold but not too cold, crowded downtown but not too bad- and a good time was had by all!

Happy almost-December, everyone!

Our Town's Halloween Festival

This weekend was full of family time and Autumn fun! Saturday we headed downtown to our town's Halloween Festival and checked out all of the fun costumes, fall holiday booths, and spooky games. It's so small town and so, so cute. Henry was wide-eyed the entire time and we had a great time looking at all of the older kids and all of the super creative outfits everyone had on. I can't wait until next year when Henry will be walking and talking with the best of 'em. Exciting.

This year Henry is a monster, and he pretty much hates wearing the hat of his costume (as shown below!). Tomorrow we are going trick-or-treating, so I'm going to attempt to somehow grab a photo of his whole outfit, but if yesterday was an indication the odds are not in our favor. We shall see though!

Here are some photos of our fun day: