A First Christmas

Its the first week of January and my tree is still up, decorated and the lights are on.  I just can't bring myself to put it away yet. Its hard to believe that my girl's first Christmas is over! (cue weepy sentimental momma).  It was a wonderful Christmas.  We had Brendan to ourselves for a full 11 days!  Ok, so we shared him with family and hunting, but it was so wonderful for our family to be together.

We traveled to Oklahoma to spend Christmas with my family for 6 days.  All of my sisters were able to be home and it was so fun having everyone together.  My dad bought a puzzle to have just sitting out and hoped some would enjoy putting it together.  Well I learned that my husband LOVES doing puzzles. We had to make a run to the store to get a second puzzle. I didn't participate in the puzzle making, but I was cracking up at them because they were high-fiving and giving each other updates on the puzzle.

All the MEN in the family

Whenever we are in Oklahoma we try to go to our old Church, Heritage Baptist, to see our friends, but really they are like family. We went to our friends', the Williams, house for breakfast before church. No there is no relation by blood, just brothers and sisters in Christ. We had fun seeing their handsome boys and having all the Williams' kiddos together.

Mathias, Silas, Isaiah, Ezra and Eliana

On Christmas Eve we went bowling with the whole fam, minus one brother-in-law who works retail and had to work :(.  Its pretty fun and sad....sad because half of us were complaining we were sore the next day from bowling...very sad.  Brendan and I were playing with my sister Natalie and her husband Evan. Check out our scores! After bowling we all attended the Christmas Eve service at Henderson Hills Baptist Church and then went to my brother-in-law's parents house for dinner.

The boys scores were identical and so were the girls!

L to R: Aunt E (Eithel), Dad (Max), Mom (Diane), Mary (sister#4), Emily (sister#2), Evan, Natalie (sister#3), Me (with my eyes closed), Brendan and Ellie

Of course the center of attention was Eliana. Being the first grandbaby/niece has its perks. Like a mound of gifts and more clothes than this girl will ever be able to wear.

In front of ALL her presents

See, I wasn't kidding, a MOUND of gifts

She was sooo tired. We opened her gifts first so she could go down for a nap.
I'm sure she was so glad she got to see all those gifts. :)

She was the star of the show the entire week.  Every time I walked into the room with her an aunt or grandparent had their arms out waiting to hold her. She did so good with all the attention and surprisingly I didn't have too much "de-programming" to do. She traveled relatively good, I mean how much can you ask of a 3 month old when you stick her in a carseat for over 3 hours.

Just a few more pictures....

Pretty sure she won Uncle Evan over and I'm pretty sure there is
some camo and cowgirl boots in her future.

Aunt Mary and Ellie's mid-morning nap

 I told my husband that I honestly didn't need anything for Christmas.  I have everything I need and want...ok, well I would take a dishwasher if someone just had to get me something. But seriously, there were so many times over the holidays that I would look at my hubby and daughter and choke back tears because I feel so overwhelmingly blessed.  Last December was bittersweet because it was the month we would have had a baby had we not miscarried, but it turned out to be the month we found out we were expecting our Eliana.  The Lord is so good and I am constantly reminded of that every time I look at my daughter and husband.

Happy New Year from the Williams!

{and yes we like flannel}