Merry Christmas!

This was the first Christmas in a long time that we stayed in San Diego. Usually we are either up in Bakersfield with my side of the family or back east with Jim's family. It was nice to not have to travel and just relax. Jen, Matt and Elijah came down and we all stayed at my parents for a couple of days...even Maddux. We all attended the Christmas Eve service at my parents church (the church I grew up in) and it was great to see so many people we hadn't seen in quite a while.


Christmas officially began as soon as Elijah woke up Thursday morning. It was stocking time. Christmas eve my mom, Jen and I decorated our stockings, the girls with snowflakes and the guys with Christmas trees...Elijah's was special with a snow man. We had brought Maddux's stocking down so she got open it with us.


Not too long after opening our stockings, we migrated to the living room for presents. There were a ton of presents with most of them being for Elijah. It was so much fun to watch Elijah open his gifts. His two favorites were the little kid laptop he got from Grandma and the ukelele he got from me and Jim. He did not want to let his "guitar" out of his sight. He even made his first music video playing along to Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours".


This year Christmas time was so relaxing. It was great to be able to hang out with family and really enjoy each others company. Elijah and Maddux were good buddies and played well together. It was fun to see Jim and Elijah interact. Elijah loves his uncle Jimbo. They would play tackle with eachother and Elijah would body slam Jim and just laugh.


Christmas reminded me how much I love my family and being able to spend time with them. We hope you had a great Christmas and made many lasting memories like we did!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Well Kind of, except for the snow and freezing weather. However, it has been raining this weekend and the temperature has dropped.

I love Christmas time. Spending time with friends and family, decorating, and taking time to remember the true reason for Christmas. It didn't take much time after Thanksgiving for me to get the Christmas decorating itch. We turned the Christmas music channel on, lit Christmas candles, and started decorating.




The other night Jim let me put Maddux's sweater on her that she got for her birthday. It made the perfect Christmas sweater and I had to get a picture of her wearing it in front of the Christmas tree. Needless to say, the sweater didn't stay on too long after the pictures.




Last night was our small group Christmas party. It was a great time of appetizers, desserts and fellowship. Jim and I have really enjoyed getting involved with our small group at church and getting to meet other couples that have recently been married. It's hard to believe that out of our group, aside from Tom and Sue who lead it, Jim and I have been married the longest at two and a half years. We are looking forward to getting to know everyone better over the next year.

the girls: sue, megan, kristan, laura, me and of course Maddux