Merry Christmas!

Last year was so crazy spending 24 hours at each side of the family (they both live 4-5 hours away), and especially having a child of our own, we decided we wanted to begin our own family traditions this year...so we stayed home and enjoyed Christmas as a family...and LOVED it!!!

Some of the traditions that we have decided to start begin with a special Christmas Eve dinner. We had sparkling grape juice, steak, cheesy green beans, rice, and strawberry cream pie...Yum!!

Titus even enjoyed the pie... :)

Then we took a family picture...which is harder to do than you think when you are by yourself! I had to tickle Titus' feet just to get him to smile...thankfully it worked this time (AND with him looking at the camera!!). Even though Stephen is making a funny face, we decided we should just go with it.

It was SO nice out...sunny and 50 degrees...so we got out the tractor and Stephen drove Titus and I down to the park in the wagon :) This is probably not a tradition we can do every year, but hopefully we can at least do something fun outside as a family...

Titus in his adorable dog hat and gloves having fun on his favorite thing at the park...the swings :)

That night we opened our stockings...which were filled with little fun toys for Titus and goodies for Stephen and I (junk food)...but also practical things like socks :) :)


We decided to just get Titus one nice gift this year...and are thinking about doing this as a family tradition...because he gets lots of other little things from everyone else. Plus we would still give him fun things in his stocking every year...

He LOVED his gift, and played with it all morning! The nice thing is that we can put the cover on and he can color or play with playdough on top of it if he doesn't want to play with his cars.

Stephen and I had a great time relaxing, playing a Lord of the Rings video game together, and putting together a wooden model kit of an aircraft carrier that I got for Stephen for Christmas. I think this was the most relaxing time off from work I have ever had!!!

Then yesterday we were able to see our good friends Jonathan and Amanda, who we hadn't seen in a long time. Thanks for stopping in guys!!!

Hope the rest of you had a wonderful time with family and friends as well!!! Have a Happy New Year!

(House update: We have an accepted offer!!!!!!!! Now the house just has to pass all the inspections...we will keep you posted.)