Merry Christmas to all....

After totally writing off the idea of making Ezra a stocking this year, I remembered that if I don't make it this year, then I will have two that I need to make next year! So I sat down, picked out my best "boyish" fabric from my stash and sewed away.

I'm happy with the simple results, although I was commenting to Ryan that seeing the three together makes ours (the outside ones) look so dated! Really, after just 6 Christmases together are our stockings already dated? Oh well, they are here to stay...that is the beauty of a stocking I suppose, it's kind of like a time capsule.





We had many a celebrations this year...

Christmas Eve morning we had brunch at Papa David's (Ryan's maternal grandfather). Quickly his calm grandfatherly bachelor home became over run by these two very fun toddlers (Ezra and his second-cousin, Miri)...




That afternoon, friends of Ryan's (and now mine :) from high school came over to hang out. This is the closest thing I got to a group shot...Katie with Ezra and Emily...


We went to church that evening and Ezra had fun playing with Miss Erika in the nursery. It is so heart-warming that he now loves going to the nursery. He talks about Miss Erika (and Phoebe, his friend who is often in the nursery with him) when we tell him that we are going to church.

Christmas morning...

Ezra slept in until 9am (score!). I love that he doesn't know yet that children all over America usually wake up anywhere from 1-4 hours "earlier than usual" on Christmas morning, but rather Ezra decides to sleep in an extra 30 minutes or so...

GG and Sara came over for cinnamon rolls and tea. And we passed out a few gifts. Ezra loved handing the gifts out...


Ezra was very quick at learning how fun it is to tear paper off of things...


...especially once he realized that underneath the shiny paper was his very own guitar from GG...


Our neighbors, Roger and Marlena, stopped by. It was nice to get to spend part of our morning with them since they have no family in town, and recently experienced the death of a daughter to cancer...


Then it was onto Aunt Terri's (Ryan's maternal aunt) for another Christmas celebration. Ezra loves to play in the kitchen, and early on, I gave in to letting him play with a butter knife when he is helping me... But now he has his own cutting kit, and is totally enamored by it and it's ability to "really cut" through hard things.




We stopped at Mary and Ray's on the way home and had a nice visit.

It was a wonderful and full weekend of celebrating and spending time with family.

We are now in Michigan. I'm sitting by the fireside as I type... I will post more on the happenings here in the next few days...