Not Impressed

My apologies for it taking a week to get to this post.

Christmas was fun yet exhausting therefore a week later I feel like I am still recovering from a massive post Christmas hangover.

Steve and I woke up Christmas morning to open presents with Lauren and Tonka. The two of them were not exactly impressed. It was fun though!

Of course, the morning was not going to pass without us remembering Megan Grace. I took the picture below of the sisters spending their first Christmas "together".

This is Lauren trying out the Bumbo. She was being lazy because she can actually sit up in it a lot better than this.

At our next stop this is what she did the entire time we opened presents. Apparently she thinks Christmas is exhausting too.

Her in one of her many Christmas outfits complete with Santa socks.



And what a memory it will always be to think back on her first Christmas being a white one! It was amazing to see all that snow. The area we were in got about 6 inches. It was a winter wonderland!

She was clearly not impressed with her marshmallow outfit.

Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!

Elders

What a whirlwind weekend! There are tons of posts being drafted in my head right now however for the moment I must go catch up on some much needed sleep.

In in the interim I wanted to share a few special moments from the weekend.

Lauren was able to meet the oldest living members of 3 of her 4 family tree branches. Yea, don't ask what the actual terminology should be because 1) I do not know 2) I am too tired to figure it out right now.

So here goes........

Lauren and my great grandmother. This is my father's grandmother which makes her Lauren's great great grandmother. How cool is that?!? She will be a young 98 years old in May.





This is the oldest living member from my father in law's side of the family. She is a young 85. Good thing none of these ladies know what the internet is because I would be in trouble huh?

Finally, this is Lauren along with her cousins sitting with the oldest living relative on my mother in law's side of the family. I lost count of how long it took to get this picture after I snapped shot number 100 something. We never did get a good picture but this one is the closest so here it is!

It was a really great weekend filled with lots of family. I can't wait to share more pictures. For the moment I am off to bed. Goodnight!

Snow Day

It is icy outside today so we are all home for an unexpected snow day. Lauren and I are camped out in our Christmas pajamas together. Next year I vow to find us matching ones :)

Gratitude

When I reflect back on last Christmas I barely remember the majority of it. I was simply going through the motions. After suffering the two greatest losses of my entire life in less than 5 months, I felt like a hollow shell of my normal self.

This year is a quite the opposite. We are overjoyed to have this wonderful little girl in our life. At the same time, we take time to remember her sister during this Christmas season. As a way to include her in our family traditions going forward, we decided that each year we will get an angel ornament in her honor. So without further adieu, I bring you the ornament for this year.

This year our tree has also gained 3 new ornaments that belong to Lauren.

We love all of the ornaments especially this one. This ornament is identical to an ornament we were given in honor of Megan Grace last year. They hang beside each other on the tree just as we hold each of them close in our hearts.

This one is a gift I received this year as part of an ornament swap. I love that it is personalized with her name.

Finally, a gift from a friend in honor of one of my other loves. Go Pirates!

Each year as I put up my tree, each of the ornaments serves as some sort of reminder. A person, a trip, or a some other special memory. Decorating our tree each year is such a special time because it never fails to make me smile when I think of what each ornament represents.

Another thing we look forward to each year is the Christmas Cards we receive from friends and family both near and far. This year it seems that all of the cards are flat picture cards so this weekend after I realized this refrigerator doors were full I decided to move them to the french doors of the office. Aren't they pretty?

This year I am just so grateful to finally be joyful again after battling such a difficult year last year. We could not have done it without all of you as we trudged through what was in many ways the worst year of our lives to date.

Merry Christmas to all of you,

The Lavinders

Santa Baby

Christmas would not be complete without the token picture with Santa.

She did not cry but did not smile for the camera. This actually appears to be a trend. When she sees the camera all smiling stops immediately. Already.

She certainly learned this from her father.

Merry Christmas!