Christmas Morning and Christmas Day

Okay... I am writing this on 10 July 2013... :\

This was our first year celebrating the twelve days of Christmas (Christmas day is the first day of Christmas), so I got lost in all the photos and overwhelmed by how I was going to break it up. I've been so worried that I would forget everything, but I have a pretty good memory so let's see what we've got here!

Cecily woke up Christmas morning, and instead of doing our typical cuddle in bed for a bit until Cecily falls back asleep, we all got up to go open the presents underneath our Christmas tree! We didn't do stockings this year because I never ended up finding one special enough for Cecily. I really want her to have the same stocking throughout her childhood so it needs to be REALLY good.

^^ walking out to the tree. smile, silly! ^^

We each only got one present this Christmas. It was really fun helping Cecily unwrap her present!






^^ you got me a box? ^^


^^ what is this thing?? ^^


^^ oh cool. it's a fisher price rainforest activity mat! ^^








^^ i love it! thanks, momma & daddy! ^^

Levi said he felt like such a dad failure because he didn't get batteries for her activity mat. Haha! We got some later in the day and showed Cecily the lights and music. The music and response modes are a little overwhelming to her, but she loves the mellow light on the nature sound setting. I really love the nature sounds too. They're so relaxing and happy!

Then it was our turn for presents! We upgraded our falling-apart iPhones in the beginning of December, but we still wanted to give each other something on Christmas morning so we wrapped the boxes up!







After presents, we ate this really yummy buttermilk cranberry breakfast cake that Levi made. He prepared the batter the night before from scratch, and we had it fresh out of the oven in the morning. So good. I'm pretty sure it's going to have to become a Myers Christmas morning tradition.

Around lunchtime, we made our way over to my brother's house for Christmas lunch! Cecily fell asleep in the car and stayed asleep in her car seat in the house so we enjoyed our lunch in peace. We had the most delicious French dip sandwiches au jus with twice stuffed potatoes. I could eat that meal once a week. The best.



She also stayed asleep while we opened presents around her!








^^ all that snoozing was probably due to the fact that her headband was too tight... just kidding. but it was too tight; it was my first. i've learned a lot since then. ^^

Cecily got a beautiful dress, a cool ball rattle thingie, and a Baby Einsteins singing radio type thing from her Boppy Chrystal and Uncle Brov, a stuffed schnauzer we call Uli from her Boppy Ivy, and a great set of Disney princess mini board books from her Gram and Hoo. (I think she received some other gifts too... but I can't remember :\ )

Levi and I got lots of really nice presents too, including some hefty Amazon gift cards! We used them to buy the baby carrier we wanted!


^^ our only family photo from the day, and she's still sleeping!! ^^

Eventually, Silly Snorkels woke up and hung out with us for awhile.








^^ gotta love the beer bottles and victoria's secret bag behind them! ha! ^^


^^ playing with... something? we can't remember what it was!! i'm sure it was some sort of nerf gun/flying/racing type thing. something for the boys. ^^


^^ gram and hoo ^^




^^ gram reading to wolfie and boppy ivy! ^^

My grandma (Silly's great grandma! Woah!) was there too, but she's not a big a fan of having her picture taken. ;)

After all that activity, Cecily decided that she wanted nothing more than some milk and a cuddle.



And, of course, she fell asleep again!

At home that afternoon/evening, we baked some really awful cookies, ate a roast that had been cooking in red wine in the crock pot all day, watched Love Actually, and Silly fell asleep on me again. The best.



A truly wonderful first day of Christmas!

01/52

"A portrait of my child once a week, every week, in 2013."

Cecily: 11 weeks. Lounging in front of the Christmas tree. She was annoyed when I picked her up.

I've decided to participate in Jodi's 52 in 2013 project this year... along with many others. It should be fun to see how Cecily grows week by week. :) This one was taken with my iPhone because I still have no idea how to take good photos with my Nikon. I will learn though!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was really fun. We usually go to church in the evening but thought that it would be smarter to go earlier because of Cecily. Our usual tradition is to go to church in the evening then eat at a restaurant like Hof's Hut or Coco's (places we would never eat usually - for some reason, they're so fun on Christmas Eve). That just sounded like a nightmare with Cecily though. She's usually really good when we go out, but we didn't want to risk it and have her screaming her head off in the lounge at Hof's Hut with all the older people trying to enjoy their drinks and dinner. Too stressful.

So instead, we went to the 2:00 p.m. service at our church. We put Cecily in a cute Christmas-y outfit. She wore shoes for the first time! I bought those for her the night we got scary news from the doctor about my placenta prematurely aging, anticipating that she'd wear them on her first Christmas. It made me feel better to buy something for her, and I'm so happy that she was actually able to wear them for Christmas! The rest of the outfit we bought for her was way too big and had to go back. The shoes are still a little big, but they looked darling. Levi and I both wore red shoes to match. Haha! We're nerds. I never got a picture of all our feet together though. We're not very good at getting photos of all of us together yet. We took about a zillion photos on the steps before heading out.

 (I made Cecily's headband the day before.)

We left early so that we'd have time to get lunch and coffee beforehand. We tried a new place called Pandor across the street from Kean. It's a little boulangerie and café. We shared a croque madame, and it was DELICIOUS. Probably the best I've ever had. After lunch, we popped into Kean for some decaf macchiatos and my beloved Susie Cakes sugar cookies (I'm addicted). We made it to church with time for me to feed Cecily and get seats! This NEVER happens. A Christmas miracle! The church service was really beautiful. The theme this year was Wonder. We focused on how awe-inspiring God is and how His creation should fill us with wonder. The drama team did a really incredible performance (it even included a dance that reminded me of the wild rumpus in Where the Wild Things Are). But my favorite part was singing by candlelight and celebrating Jesus in worship.

Cecily was pretty good. I just had to hold her and stand in the back the whole time... as usual. I think we might have solved this problem this past weekend though. We got a carrier for Christmas so I wore her in that last weekend, and she didn't make a peep the entire service. Much better!


After church, we went home and baked some really awful cookies. Ha! They seriously went straight into the trash. We watched Elf, and Levi made our favorite cornflake crusted chicken. We decided to make a tradition of reading The Story of Holly and Ivy to Cecily on Christmas Eve (we aren't going to do the Santa thing so we didn't want to read her The Night Before Christmas). This was, by far, my favorite moment of Christmas. The book is pretty long, and I didn't expect Cecily to listen to more than a few minutes of the story. It took more than a half hour to read, and Cecily sat on my lap, quietly and happily listening to the ENTIRE STORY. At the end when Ivy goes to her Christmas tree and finds Holly, Cecily started panting a little bit and sounded all excited. I cried after I closed the book. Reading her first book to her was one of the sweetest moments of my life. This girl is everything I dreamed she would be and more. And more. And more. And more.

Cecily's Christmas Tree

On Cecily's 2-month birthday, 20 December, we picked out a Christmas tree. We had been meaning to get one sooner, but it just kept getting delayed by one thing or another (that one thing usually being taking care of a brand new baby). I actually ended up enjoying getting our Christmas tree later. It kind of helped create the feeling of anticipation that we want to feel before Christmas, like we're anticipating the birth of Christ. Our tree didn't even finish getting decorated until Christmas Eve. Haha! It was a work in progress.

Anyway, we went to our favorite lot around 6:00 p.m., and guess what? IT WAS CLOSED. Like closed for the entire season. On the 20th. Am I the only person that finds this really strange?! Maybe if they hadn't opened the day after Halloween, they could have stuck it out until at least Christmas Eve Eve. C'mon!

So we went to another lot down the street. They didn't have many trees left, but they were open! And we found the perfect tree for Cecily. We'll say she picked it out because I was holding her when I found it. ;)

She was pretty cranky at the lot so we made it a very quick trip. We managed to get some photos though! Not very great photos, but they'll do!

(in her owl hat; she often insists on having her head back like this. I think it makes people nervous because the lady working the lot lifted it up for me. Ha! I promise she's fine though. I always support her neck properly.)

(our perfect little tree for our first Christmas as a family of three!)

(I really wish we had gotten a better photo of the three of us, but Cecily was tired and ready to go home. It's hard to get good photos of all three of us!)

This year, Levi used 1,200 lights on our 6-foot tree. He's the king of Christmas tree decorating. We picked out Cecily's first ornament pretty early in December at Roger's Gardens. That was my first time carrying Cecily in her Moby wrap out in public, and sooooo many people came up to take a peek that day. One little old woman walked straight up to me, pulled the wrap back to see Cecily's face, and said, "Oh, God bless her." It was really sweet, and it cracked me up that she just walked straight up like that. It's funny how so many people want to talk to you when you're carrying a little baby around. Babies bring so much joy. :)





Cecily really likes the tree. Almost every day, I set her rocker seat up in front of it with some music playing, and she just hangs out. Sometimes for an hour, just happily smiling, cooing, talking, and looking around. She usually takes a nap in front of the tree too. She's sleeping in front of it right now!





We were so happy to be able to give Cecily this beautiful tree for her first Christmas. :)