Belated Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year

Hey everyone,

I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas!! We greatly enjoyed ours. Jude is really fascinated with the idea of opening presents! We thought that he was not going to really be able to open any on his own, and we were shown otherwise. Jude's first Christmas present experience was when we went to see his godmother before she left to go home for the Christmas season, and she put them in front of him and he leaped forward out of my arms (luckily I was sitting on the floor) and landed right in the middle on top of all of his presents. He proceed to tear and chew on all of the packages until he found the toy or cloths inside. This method worked well, and he continued to use it all throughout the Christmas season as he received gifts.

Jude had gotten the cute little outfit he is wearing from his godmother as an early Christmas gift. It is long johns with a butt flap that says Ho Ho Ho on the butt!! It was perfect for the season, and he just looked so adorable.

Among all the other Christmas excitement Jude got to visit with his aunts and uncles who all came down to share the holiday with him. It was really nice because he has taken a liking to all of them, and they are finally getting a chance to play with him more then just holding him and being afraid they were going to break him. Skyler (being the tallest) was very nervous from the beginning because that is a long way for a little guy to fall. But now that Jude is getting to that little bit more of a rough and tumble age, he made sure to get in as much time with the uncles and his aunt as possible.

Cortney and Ryan were also up for Christmas. Jude almost did not remember who they were, and Ryan started out by giving him quite a startle, but he quickly warmed up to them both. They came over for dinner, chatting, and presents. Jude showed off as much as he could, and then was very interested in helping Ryan play with Ryan's new Christmas toys.

Finally, we had a wonderful visit from Jude's Great Aunt Patti and his cousin Adam for New Years. He was interested in showing off, and Aunt Patti had some wonderful earrings that he was interested in playing with. I quickly remembered why I currently don't wear jewelry, especially earrings. Jude had a great time showing Adam how strong he was, and flashed his award winning smiles at his Aunt to make sure that he caught her heart. Of course, the child was successful.

That about sums up the holiday season for us. Next year we will be in Fort Wayne, so we may have to find a way to travel a bit for the holiday's. Or maybe we will just have a family Christmas of our own...only time will tell. But we do know that we have a new Christmas tree to put up next year. We got a 7 foot tree at target for $5 in their 90% clearance. We were pretty excited!

We hope everyone else had a wonderful Christmas Season, and that their new year is full of hopes and wishes! I know ours is looking pretty bright!

God bless!