Three Christmas Gifts

Jeff, Gracie and I have had a FULL, FULL two weeks of Christmas. To try to capture ALL of the great moments with both families would drive me to drink more eggnog, so I think I'll share three gifts that we received this season that we'll never forget.

1. GOLD--aka The Best Birthday EVER


Jeff's birthday was the 17th--on this day, the snow started. We received so much snow on this day that his birthday actually turned out to be the last day of school before break. The next two days were snow days, a fabulous start to our Christmas Break. I don't think we'll soon forget that night as our friends trucked through the snow to meet us for his birthday dinner at Rancho Chico or how we hovered in front of the TV before bed to see if school would be called off the next day.

This is Jeff and Gracie celebrating a snow day the next morning. Snowed in and sporting bed-heads!!!

2. FRANKINCENSE--or perhaps "GRACINCENSE"


Of course, Christmas with Grace this year was a gift. This is the year that she loved the tissue paper and the tags on gifts more than the gifts themselves. She actually raked in more gifts than we got for our wedding--thank heavens she's too young to write the thank you notes! (Thank you for showering her, everyone!) But what we saw her enjoy the most was the attention she got from all of our family members. She is so loved! Seeing her with the people we love is a great gift to us.


Gracie had such a great time with her cousins, Brooke, Abby, and Megan. We couldn't help snapping this picture of Grace in Megan and Abby's doll line-up. Just you wait until she's old enough to HOLD dollies, girls! Won't that be fun?

Gnawing on G'ma Trudy's tablecloth...and in case you're wondering, Santa didn't bring her any teeth for Christmas...soon!

Always a victim of any silly head attire...

Cousin Janie was such a good helper with Grace. I love the modeling she's doing with her own mouth...

Grace learned how to sit up on her own the week before Christmas! We still put some cushion behind her, as she loves to fly back into "recline" on a whim. What a fun new trick!

3. MYHRR--Or should I say, BURRRRRR.
I've got to say that this was the White Christmas I've only dreamt about. As a child, I remember drifts in our backyard as tall as me, and this year we got to see them again. And I was about to buy into the global warming theory...

It was so difficult to capture the VOLUME of the snow...but here are a few attempts...

This was just after DAY ONE of the snowstorm.


Look what Jeff has to shovel through to get to our Honda in the garage!


Gorgeous snow!