First Christmas with Liv
I’m pretty sure nothing in the world makes me happier than
A house filled with the people I love so much,
warm food waiting in the kitchen,
(+ egg casserole, ham, tamales, oatmeal, mimosas and the necessary nog)
and moments that are so beautifully imprinted in my mind.
After the Pilot, Liv, MIL and I did stockings and Santa gifts,
(Santa came for the dogs, too!)
the entire family came over for brunch. Mom and nana brought a ton of food, and my contribution to the feast was a fruit plate, cocktails/juice/coffee, the infamous cinnamon rolls and a big pot of cranberry-orange oatmeal.
I was originally going to do oats in our 3 small slow cooker thingamajig, but knew that burnt oats would be in the future. Despite your awesome tips, I was afraid I’d end up doing something to toast them so I stuck with what I knew: regular stovetop oats. I added coconut milk throughout the morning to keep them from drying out, along with cinnamon, a little stevia, orange juice and zest from our orange tree, and dried cranberries.
A dessert plate we took over to our neighbors:
After breakfast (and Liv woke up from the morning nap), we all opened gifts together.
Kyle, especially stoked about his Celtics tickets, and Liv, especially stoked about her new ball pit.
We ate, drank and were merry, watched A Christmas Story and I even took a nap while Liv was sleeping- Merry Christmas indeed.
It felt really good to unplug a little bit this past week and enjoy time with the family. I’m pretty busy, everyday and all day, but they’re all things that I choose and love to do. I feel so lucky to be able to be home with Liv most days, I love being a mom and helping to take care of our house, teaching at work and writing this blog. At the same time, it’s pretty easy to get sucked into technology and while that’s fun too, it can be pretty draining and a distraction from everything else. I kept the computer closed, still snapped a ton of photos (I can’t help it) and took some time to enjoy and be thankful.
This year was an exciting Christmas for us:
Liv gasping as we walked down the stairs,
the way my great grandmother (Liv’s great-great grandmother) giggled to watch Liv feeding herself green beans,
the Pilot making eggnog (and just knowing that he’s here with us, when he’s often deployed over the holidays),
making the ball pit and Rody horse, setting it all out as a team,
seeing the entire family together and feeling elated happy to be here in Tucson with them,
and to have my favorite little gift of all to share it with.
I have a feeling holidays are just going to get better and better which is pretty hard to believe.
Thanks for letting me share my pics with all of ya <3 Hope you’re enjoying the week so far!
See ya later on the family page.
xoxo
Gina
Recipes from this weekend:
–Peppermint bark (this went very quickly.. so good)
–Peanut butter kiss cookies (I used a jar of Justin’s maple almond butter and they came out really well)
–Cinnamon rolls (90-minute recipe)
12 Days of Fitness! It’s day 2: 2 pushups and 1-minute plank. When you complete it, leave a comment and let me know! I’m off to do my pushups and plank before work riiiiight now.
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This was such a beautiful post. I’m so glad you had such a special, wonderful, memorable Christmas with your family.
thank you so much <3 hope you're enjoying the holidays too!
Love this post and thank you for sharing your family pictures with us.
Thanks for sharing your Christmas! We had our first Christmas with a little one and although he is only 5 months old, it was still just so.awesome.
Day 2. 2 push-ups 1-1 Minute plank complete! 😉
awww happy first christmas to you all!!
What a wonderful first Christmas! Did my day two push-ups and 1 minute plank!
great job! 🙂
So nice to see a Celtics fan out there!! I got my dad tickets too– we try to go to a few games each season. Merry Christmas 🙂
I’m checking in! I’m also going to link your 12 days button on a post of mine, if that’s ok.
of course! xoxo
Done and done. Day 2 complete. Happy holidays to you and yours.
wahoo! thank you- you too!
Great post. Your baby is so cute. New to your blog, but my friend keeps telling me how I should check out your blog, and now I finally did. :). Merry Christmas.
thank you! so nice to meet you 🙂
Soooo beautiful!!! Liv looks amazing and the pictures of you guys are wonderful…
Merry Christmas to you guys, so glad the Pilot was where he wanted to be for Christmas!!!
That is so sweet that Liv was like WOW when you guys came downstairs. Priceless!!!
thank you so much! hope you had a wonderful holiday with your family too!
Ball pools are awesome at any age. I sometimes take my youngest nephew and niece to a large indoor playground that has a massive ball pool that adults are allowed to play around in also. There was only once where the attendant came over and supervised an evacuation due to an incident involving ‘bodily fluids’. It was quite cool how they water blasted the balls with some sanitising stuff then air blasted them dry.
Love seeing the pics from your Christmas! Glad it was everything you expected it to be and more.
Looks like a very happy family! Great pics.
I love the aerial view – you can just tell there’s so much love and happiness in your house! That is such a sweet picture of Liv and the Pilot reading together. And I love the picture of your and the Pilot, too. I’m glad you had such a great Christmas 🙂 And that’s so amazing that Liv’s great-great-grandmother could be there – wow!
Day 2 of the 12 day challenge complete – I can’t believe how hard it is to hold plank for a minute! I used to do it for 3! Post baby body isn’t going to come easy.