Christmas 2011

Happy New Year! This Christmas was one of my favorites, I think. It was a very different celebration, since this was the first Christmas of my life that I didn't go to Utah. While I missed my family, it was so nice to be here with my own little family! On Christmas Adam, we went out to dinner and went to the DC temple to see the lights. It was gorgeous!

Christmas Eve we had clam chowder for dinner (I made it myself-- it was delicious!!!!) We went to a Julbord celebration with our friends Thad and Erika (delicious swedish food!) and then came home and opened our Christmas Eve books.

I gave Neal "As a Man Thinketh" (watch out, he judges you if you haven't heard of it) He gave me a gorgeous picture book called "Wherever you are, my love will find you," and we got Gideon this book: ( it's a personalized childrens book-- so cute!)

Christmas morning we had a DELICIOUS breakfast-- homemade cinnamon rolls and egg casserole, and opened presents.

Now, I told myself "Gideon is 7 months old, he's not going to be excited about his presents" so I was prepared for total indifference. However, he was EXCITED about them!

It was the cutest thing I've ever seen! He would triumphantly remove the toy from the giftbag, and then smile really big and show his new toy to Neal. It was DARLING!!!! I was pretty surprised.

Then again, I guess it goes to show what a good Mom I am, and what great toys I picked out. (uh huh...) We attended about 20 minutes of Sacrament Meeting, but left early to hang out with this guy for a few minutes:

I felt kind of bad leaving early on Christmas Day, but I really, REALLY wanted to make sure I got to Skype with Matthias. It was so good to talk to him and see him and have him see Gideon. In the afternoon, we had a delicious Christmas dinner with Cali, Josh, Bastian and Piper. It was a little sad because poor Bastian was quarantined away from us since he had RSV, but it was so nice to be with family on Christmas.

Plus Bastian didn't seem to mind:

The food was delicious, the company delightful, and our first Christmas alone was a huge success!