Our Holiday Whirlwind!

Hello again, Blogland! Can you believe 2010 is upon us? I absolutely can't, and truly can't begin to fathom where all the time has gone this year, and in particular these past few weeks.

Happy New Year to all of you, and a belated Merry Christmas too!

It seems a little bittersweet to me to be saying farewell to 2009, since it was such a momentous year for our family. There are so many joyful moments that I will never forget, it's hard for me to believe they are now part of last year! A fellow blogger, Patti put it very well with the following quote:

"It's actually kinda sad to leave 2009 behind ... the year our prayers were answered and we became...the most blessed parents ever!!!!!"

Christmas and the surrounding celebrations and festivities have been a joyful whirlwind around our house and with our family! We've had two big Christmas celebrations, our 13th wedding anniversary, a big New Year's celebration, and somewhere in there, we also celebrated three birthdays including Michael's! Oh, and little Charlie turned eight months old too!



























I've had a great time through and through, don't get me wrong. Charlie's first Christmas has been very special for all of us, but still, I had such good intentions for this much-needed respite from school! Here we are almost at the end of the break and my to-do list still remains glaringly full. I meant to catch up on all your blogs, write more blogs of my own, clean my house, help my parents around their house, cook more dinners, start scrapbooking Charlie's first year, make more baby food, on and on. Instead, it seems every day I've been consumed by getting only the essential items completed with no time left for all the other things I want to do. There are still a few days left, and we all know a lot can happen in a few days but I'm left feeling a little shocked by how very quickly this holiday season has come and gone.

Our first Christmas with our baby boy was full of such joy. Waking up to the sight of our beautiful tree complete with gifts from Santa and stockings stuffed was momentous. Watching Charlie experience so many firsts, including his first Christmas Eve candle light service, his first stuffed stocking, and opening his first gifts was really special for me.






























We just got home from our joint Christmas and New Year's Eve celebration with my family a few hours ago, and it was also full of joy and special memories for me. In order to accommodate everyone's work and travel schedules this year, we had to plan a late celebration. We also made a lot of changes to our normal traditions this year, the biggest of which was our collective decision to have dinner at a restaurant rather than spending a majority of the day cooking and cleaning our typical big meal.

I had a great time tonight, and as usual, there was an abundance of generosity on the part of my family.


Our bunch is beginning to get big to the point that celebrations are joyfully busy and messy. Chaotic is too strong of a word, but it's not entirely off the mark. I love knowing that Michael and I are part of this beautiful, growing group of people. I hope the coming years bring even more joy, laughter, and new faces into our crowd!

Where Charlie is concerned, he's getting so big! He has quite the litter personality these days...starting to play games, gesture, and be very specific about what he likes--or doesn't! The one thing that really gets on his nerves is having his face wiped. He flips a switch the moment he sees the towel coming, and he screams and fights like you're trying to hurt him! But the best part of it is that his outbursts end as quickly as they begin, then he's right back to his fulfillment of the title, "Happiest baby on our block!" He's on the verge of crawling any day now, which is so cool to watch. At the moment, he can scoot backwards about two or three feet, and he gets up on all fours and rocks back and forth pretty regularly.


He clearly wants to go, and one of these days he's going to figure it all out, then it will be watch out, World! He's also (at long last) gotten his first two teeth. They came in on the bottom first, and they definitely change the way his face looks. I know they've been hurting him quite a bit these past few weeks so I'm glad to see some progress being made. He is still babbling all the time, and definitely starting to piece together sounds of words he hears all the time. He still consistently says "Hi" and "DaDa," but other words have yet to emerge, even though I can see him trying to figure it all out when he watches me talk. He is such a happy little baby, so full of joy and wonder at the simplest things in life. We are truly blessed to have such a content little man with whom to spend our time.

In other big news, he spent his first night away from home this past Tuesday. I mentioned earlier in this post that Michael and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary. Charlie spent the night at Auntie Holly's house as part of that event.

Not having him here was very strange for both of us, but overall the experience was a good one. To be honest, we both seriously thought about going to pick him up at one point, but we decided it was better to leave him be since that moment occurred at around 1:00 a.m. You'd think we would have slept soundly knowing we didn't have to wake up for him, but (even though we are so thankful to have family members we can trust with our son,) his absence was unsettling to both of us. It's peculiar how you can get used to something so quickly. We spent 12 + years sleeping in this house sans baby, and now that he's here, one night without him was just plain weird.

All in all though, we did have a great time celebrating our anniversary. We went to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie, which was quite good. Sometimes I really can't believe we've been married as long as we have. Somehow in my mind I tend to hover around the eight year mark, and then I think about it and realize we've been together much longer. I'd do it all again though, even the ugly parts. I've learned and grown so much as a person, and as a woman in these past years, with Michael by my side. I truly do feel blessed to have such a strong, supportive, and charismatic man as my partner in life. He definitely brightens my days considerably!






Okay...I think I've managed to cram about enough photos and discussion of major events into this one post, so I'll stop for now. I do apologize for falling so behind on so many of your blogs lately. I've been trying to stay abreast of any major events by scanning post titles and doing a lot of skimming, but I honestly haven't had the time I need to read and really stay up-to-date. Hopefully the coming days will afford me some time to get back to the top of my reader list!

Peace and love to you and yours for 2010, here's to another great year!