My 1st Christmas

I took a ton of pictures of Miriam over the past few days.  I think I was afraid of forgetting little bits of her first Christmas. She's wearing lots of super cute Christmas outfits thanks to her Auntie Cindy and cousins; hand-me-downs are the best!  We bummed around the house, ate food, skyped with family, played, and watched silly Christmas movies.

Skyping with Grandma and Grandpa Hemmer. 

Wearing her first Christmas Cracker party hat. Christmas Crackers are an English Christmas tradition. You crack them at Christmas Eve and Christmas day dinner and all have to wear the silly party hats.  These are synonymous with Christmas to me.

Waking up Christmas Day; Santa Came!!

Doing some Jane Fonda crunches in her cute reindeer top and Hanukkah slippers. And one, and two...

My how a year changes things!  Christmas breakfast with mimosas and a sippy cup.

Christmas breakfast.  Finished my oatmeal, now on to the finger chewing!

Miriam's 1st Christmas haul...not too bad for a 5 month old. Thank you mom & dad, my Kitty Madeline, Grandma and Grandpa Bailey, Auntie Cindy & Uncle Erik & Emelie & Juliette for my gifts!! She also has some more books and a Pottery Barn book rack coming from her Grandma and Grandpa Hemmer, some Amazon money to spend from Uncle Kurt, and a few surprises coming from her Uncles Tim & Richard.  She is one lucky little girl to have such wonderful family!

Whew, what a day! 

Posing with her stocking and the cookies and scotch we left out for Santa before going to bed Christmas Eve.  What can I say, Santa likes his scotch!


This was a different Christmas for Jason and I this year not being with family, but we didn't want to travel with Miriam at Christmas and think it's important to start establishing our own traditions for Miriam to have the type of Christmases we grew up with.  There is nothing like sleeping in your own bed waiting for Santa and waking in the morning to see the tree full of presents!  Obviously she doesn't remember this year, and won't really know what's going on a awhile, but it feels really nice to enjoy Christmas in our home together.  We missed our family a lot, but thanks to the wonders of Skype we can still see them whenever we want.   

Miriam is absolutely the best present we received this year.  She brings so much more meaning to not only Christmas, but everyday of the year.  I'm not sure if it's hormones, recent tragedies in our country, or the simple joys my daughter shows me everyday; it's likely a combination of the three, but I find myself more reflective than usual, and I am so abundantly thankful for our health, family, and each other.  We hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas season and look forward to new joys and adventures in 2013.