Christmas Tree 2013

Picture Update: December 29th to December 23rd

Helping us in the kitchen

He loved riding is uncle's motorcycle

Bad picture of a gorgeous sunrise

This guy loves helping me make and eat hummus

Darcy came to stay the night and then we took her to the airport the next day!

Baby Blessing

My little sister had her baby boy blessed today. It was so fun to be with family and to have a fun get-together afterwards at my sister's house. I loved seeing my Oma, especially and watching her interact with Harrison! :)

Christmas 2013

This year Christmas was even more fun with Harrison! I loved seeing him excited to open presents and the traditions that we have! We only got him one present, but, as you can see, he loved it right away... play doh! :)

He also loved playing with his cousin's toy too!

Except when his cousin wanted it back...

Love this action shot...

Our (ONE!) family photo... Christmas 2013!

My sister gave Harrison his first Disney movies

At Evan's parent's house...

He loved this toy giraffe and knew right away what he wanted to do with it!

When Emily brought out her violin to play, Harrison was SO enthralled! He loves music!

Looking at the tree with grandma

Christmas Eve 2013

Just like anyone else, Christmas time is SO busy with family. Busy in wonderful way! We are blessed to live close to most of our siblings and family members. How lucky! Because of this, we end up celebrating at five houses in the 24 hours that is Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!

Thankfully, it all starts at my Oma's house. My entire life, we have honored my German heritage by celebrating Christmas Eve with my mom's side of the family. Even after my parents' deaths, we continued the tradition. It is honestly one of my favorite parts about our Christmas celebrations!

There are a few traditions we do to make it special:

• Gather for appetizers/dinner... snack and eat while everything is getting prepared
• Eat, talk, have fun!
• Once we are all done eating (including usually a special dessert like cheesecake or Russian red raspberry cream) and semi-cleaned up, we gather around the tree to sing carols in both English and German together.
• The kids anxiously await for the singing to stop so they can tear into presents!

This year, it was so fun to watch Harrison interact with the cousins and to open presents. He didn't quite understand what the hullabaloo was all about and even that the presents were his (that is, until we got them home and he understood he could play with them there), but enjoyed ripping into presents.

My favorite part of the night was sitting next to Oma, holding her hand, and singing carols together. My second favorite part was watching her interact with Harrison. They love each other and that makes me so happy!