Christmas 2010

Christmas was a little different for us this year. New house, new town, no extended family, and a baby! We decided that since we wouldn't be with family this year that we'd start our own family traditions with Carter's first Christmas. For Christmas Eve we decided on making and frosting Christmas cookies (cannot wait until next year when Carter will be helping instead of banging toys on his high chair and eating little pieces of cookie) homemade pizza as our dinner and opening family presents.

we're abstract cookie decorators

Carter was in rare form on Christmas Eve. He must have known it was a holiday. It would be an understatement to say he was in a good mood! Dude is usually pretty happy and chill but wow, Joe and I were both blown away by his crazy good mood and excess energy!

Before dinner we started opening some presents. The fedex person had just dropped off a package for Carter from Auntie Jen J so we started with that one. He was super impressed by the bag it came in!

Inside we found the cutest little reindeer pjs! They were so adorable we took off the Christmas Eve outfit we had just put on him, and put the pjs on! They hug his body in the most adorable way. Love them!

I was busy trying to get some decent pictures...which is tough at night, in our super dimly lit house. Needless to say I didn't come up with many keepers. It didn't help that Joe was blowing through Carter opening his presents so I finally said enough with the camera I want to enjoy and watch Carter open his presents. Sorry for the lack of Christmas Eve present opening.

Usually Carter takes a bath and is ready to go to bed right after his bath. This was not the case on Christmas Eve! He was in such a crazy good mood and had so much energy still! We put him in his crib to take pictures in his "Dear Santa, define good" (Although I doubt Carter had much to worry about in the being good department!) Joe was making faces at Carter and he was thoroughly impressed with Joe's crazy ways. Such a happy and smiley kid! Love him to pieces!

you can see one tiny bit of the Christmas lights that Carter was totally fascinated with

Christmas morning we all got up... at 5:30am because that is usually when Carter wakes up.. and had a lazy family breakfast. We decided to wait with presents until after Carter's first nap. We started opening presents like this

And then I said "STOP! He's not wearing his Christmas morning pjs!" Ever since we got these pjs I have said they were the perfect Christmas morning pjs! So up we went to change his pjs and resume the present opening.

Carter had fun opening the presents. He LOVED the wrapping paper! Rip a chunk off, put it in your mouth, rip another chunk off, put it your mouth and repeat, repeat, repeat! Christmas morning we took our time and let Carter open and then play with each and every single toy. Much more relaxed and enjoyable than Joe's open-every-present-at-lightening-speed Christmas Eve!

hmm..cheeks!


Poppin' Pals


boat bath toys










As you may have noticed from the video in the previos post, Carter loves to "drink" out of cups and such

When you're 9 months old and love puppy paws you get easily distracted when you see 4 very touchable dog paws so close to you...

sit, ride, stand train... and the most annoying baby toy ever, but he loves it


we call this the "hey tree" expression




we call this the, yep you guessed it, "hey light" expression

Roughly 829 takes later we got 2 keeper family pictures of us on Christmas day... both complete with Kody's tail.

Christmas Eve


it is hard to tell in a picture this small but Bug has crazy blue eyes. They aren't my green or Joe's blue, they are totally my dad's color blue

All in all we had a really great first Christmas as a family of three (although we did miss our families). Christmas takes on a whole new meaning when you have a kid. Hell, most of life takes on a whole new meaning when you have a kid. Seeing everything through his eyes and creating our own family traditions (although he will be too young to remember them now) was definitely fun for Joe and I. It is fun to think that the traditions we start now will be the memories of the holidays that Carter has growing up. I'm sure there will be many more traditions added as Carter gets older and can really participate in the holiday and Santa.

Going to bed on Christmas Eve I said to Joe "just think in a few years we'll be woken up by the sound of little feet walking to our room and a little munchkin crawling in bed with us begging us to get up and open presents" Don't get me wrong I am in no way wanting Carter to grow up too fast (I swear time goes 5x faster after you have a kid... he is already 9 months!) but I have to admit that the thought of him crawling into bed with us on Christmas morning, or any morning really, puts a big smile on my face. Life before Carter was great, but man life with Carter is even better. Love him and our little family of three, + two dogs, to millions of little pieces.

Ohh I just remembered these other pictures from my point and shoot and it is getting late so I'm just going to post them at the bottom instead of inserting them in their appropriate places above.

Mama and Carter on Christmas Eve with his version of Poly

playing on Christmas morning. Carter loves feet and these Christmas socks from Joe's parents


If you let him get this close to your foot you better count on him biting your toe!




loves the touch around balls


Playing on Christmas day


opening presents with Daddy

opening presents with Mama






did I mention that he liked to eat the wrapping paper?


one of the 829 takes