Christmas 2008

Here are a few pictures from Christmas morning! Aliya was actually interested in unwrapping her gifts, not just eating the paper! Enjoy!


This one is not of Christmas morning, sorry! It's of Christmas evening, we went over to my grandma's for dinner. Aliya wore the most adorable Santa dress, but we took it off before we ate. After the meal she just crawled around in her tights and onesie. Everyone one joked that she looked like she was heading to dance class! Who knows, her feet do turn out when she walks, she's constantly in 1st position! Here is her discovering papa H's beard


Mom Channell sent her the CUTEST handmade hat and poncho set. She wasn't too sure about having it one, I hope to get a good shot of her in it! Thanks mom!


The kids got Jon a picture frame this year. Here's Jon and Joel right before they left to take Joel to his mom's.


She asked santa for her two front teeth...she didn't get them...


One of Joel's favorite gifts this year came from Grandma Sylvia and Papaw Tom, a game chair.


Aliya and her new "show".


Now that our family is complete we decided to start a tradition of getting a family ornament each year. We found this one at Cracker Barrel and fell in love with it!


Aliya opening her gifts, she handed each piece of torn paper to me...it took FOREVER for her to open her gifts!


Joel opening his new suitcase/duffel bag. (I should have cropped myself out of this one)


Jon opening his frame.


This was the first time in five years that there have been gifts under our tree for Jon and me. Well, Joel always makes us gifts at school, but this was the first year we had purchased gifts. We decided a few years back that a card will do from the two of us, as our money is better spent on others. Well, this being our fist year as a complete family we decided to exchange gifts "from the kids". Joel wanted to get Jon new T-shirts to wear while he cleans the house. I just couldn't bring myself to spend money on that, so we opted for an electronic picture frame for him to take to work. The "kids" got me a beautiful pendent necklace. It's the mother and child circle. It has two children on it and Jon had them add my birthstone and the kid's too. It is beautiful! He spent way too much on it, but as he said, this is a very special Christmas for me...my first as a mommy!

Rewind a bit to Christmas eve...we went up to Defiance to celebrate Grandpa B's birthday and Christmas. We at lunch then for the first time in my entire life we did Christmas before Grandpa's birthday. Joel was trying to hard to be patient, but his cute little smile won everyone over and he got his wish to open his gifts first! His favorite gift from that day was his new Steeler's Fathead from Grandma and Grandpa W. All his other gifts were a close second! We stayed at Grandma's until around 5p then we headed down the highway to Jon's dad's house. They had gifts for the kids and we enjoyed an hour visit. We got home in enough time for the Fathead to be put up on the wall and Aliya to be changed into her PJ's. Then we got back into the car and headed to church for the 10:30p service. We both thought (hoped) Aliya would sleep during church...WRONG...there was a baby in the isle next to us and she was fascinated with it. She kept saying "baby" over and over again. I ended up taking her to the nursery to play for a bit. She crashed out in the van before we were even out of the parking lot.

Joel was due back to his mom's at noon on Christmas day, so we just laid around ALL DAY! It was great! We finally decided to get around and head to grandma H's around 5pm. We had a wonderful meal and fellowship with everyone! We missed seeing Kris and Greg, they were in FL. Dad will join them tomorrow in the sunny state and then drive back with them in a few days. We will have our Christmas with them when they get back into town!

2008 was an amazing Christmas. I am overwhelmed by the generosity my family and friends show us each year. God is so good!

**Stay tuned for more pictures**