Merry Christmas!

This Christmas was very low key for us. Nathan and I were feeling a little Scrooge-ish I think with the upcoming move and basically all we did was put up the Christmas tree! We also spent an evening making our own Christmas ornaments, which is a separate post. We rationalized that Shane isn't old enough to really know what's going on.

I had a tough time this Christmas, struggling with the materialism of a holiday I used to love. Nathan's family goes all out at Christmas time and even though I know, I KNOW that Christmas is not about the gifts I still always feel guilty that was don't spend/give as much. We can't. I don't believe in it even if we could. And this Christmas? This Christmas we didn't have anything to spend. So I did home made gifts, because I already had the supplies and what I didn't have I got for under $10. I was really nervous about how the homemade gifts would be received but they actually seemed to be well-liked! And I was pretty happy with them too.

Anyway we had a nice Christmas and I hope that all of you did as well.  On Christmas Eve we let Shane open his gift from us, which was actually his birthday present that I didn't give him because he got SO many toys.

Christmas morning I made chocolate chip pancakes as a special treat. I even got out some real Maple Syrup that I found at Walmart of all places! This northern girl can't stand that fake grodiness.

Then we got dressed up and went to church. Shane rocked the tux he wore to his uncle's wedding. I should've let the arms and legs back down, I didn't realize he's grown so much in just a few months! Everyone thought he was adorable in his tux. He was having a really rough morning and cried for ten minutes after I left him in the nursery, so I spent the service playing with him. I was sad to miss communion but happy to spend some sweet time with my boy.

From church we went to my in-laws house where I helped with lunch. Once more of Nathan's family got there we ate lunch, then opened up gifts.

 This was the first thing Shane opened.  He was so excited, he just wanted to play with his toys as he opened them but he has such a large stack that we had to move him along a little.

 Once Shane finished opening his presents, he helped me open mine.  He certainly got into the unwrapping part of Christmas this year!

 As a kid growing up my parents took a picture of us with our presents each year so I thought I would do that with Shane. I like to look back even to this day and remember my favorite gifts! I couldn't get Shane to stand with his presents without playing with them, but here are the gifts he got from Nathan's family. See the tall tower car ramp thingy? We are leaving that in the box until we move, so that he has something to keep him occupied while we unpack.

 These are the gifts from us. The car ramp was his birthday present. The book is really sweet, it's called "I Love it When You Smile" and I found it at the dollar store along with the coloring book. The truck were Daddy's pick.

 This is one of my favorite of the gifts Shane got. It's a little outfit with Navy emblems on the shirt, T-shirt, and jeans.

Holiday Fun

Wow, I have a lot to catch up on! Unfortunately I was unable to find my camera cord, so while I have lots of good pictures of my time at home, I don’t have any to put up. I will try to put some up later

I’m just going to do a brief day-by-day rundown of each day’s activities. I had so much fun with my family and we made a lot of memories. I really enjoyed watching Nathan interact with my family as they don’t know each other well because of the distance.
Most evenings we did Advent, watched Christmas movies and other movies, and endlessly cooked and did dishes

12/17—Thurs—As you know we went to the Dr. to find out we were having a boy, then we packed and left for OH around 10 in the evening.

12/18—Fri—Drive, arrive in OH around 6 and see baby stuff mom bought

12/19—Sat—I shopped with mom all morning—Once upon a child, Mall, Target, Walmart, Chipotles!, the Boys did their own thing, then in the evening the boys went to the movies and to the mall, and Mom and I went to The Greene for the live Nativity. I met Mom and Dad’s pastor, and we bought a Chai Latte and shared it while we walked around.

12/20—Sun—Visit Mom and Dad’s church, then go to the Air Force museum. Nathan and I went on the tour of the presidential and experimental aircraft. Erika and her fiancé Nate, and a few of his siblings joined us there. Erika was with us from this point on.

12/21—Mon—Got family photos taken at Walmart (and they did a great job!), went to get schwarmas but the shop was closed :(, so we had lunch at Long John Silvers instead. Then we went Christmas shopping at Valley Thrift store. The four of us kids shopped, and we got $5 to spend on each person in the family. And you would not believe the amount of gifts we all bought for our money! It was really fun—a new take on something we did when we were kids in Africa. On the way back home we had a family outing to the Pitt Stop tire store, then spent the evening gift wrapping, packing for the tripto NY, movie watching, and baking stuff that couldn't be done in oven in NY. (We only had camp stoves in the NY house, since Mom had brought her nice stove to OH)

12/22—Tues—Drive to NY, us kids took Mom and Dad out to lunch at Bahama Breeze for their 25th anniversary, and we decorated the NY house for Christmas.

12/23—Weds—Went to Ellicottville to go to Doug (PTL!) and get back and hips adjusted. He actually did adjustments on Mom and Dad and Nathan and I. Then we all went down to this cute little coffee shop just the four of us. Nathan and I walked around and window shopped while Mom and Dad went to their realtors office. Later that afternoon my cousin Ethan came over and brought Guitar Hero (which apparently my mom loves to play!) and we all took turns for several hours. While we were having fun, Dad was down in the cold basement replacing mom’s brakes. That night was our Baby Shower/Party at the church, which was really fun. Grandma and Grandpa Holtz bought the cake, which was super cute, and we got to see a lot of relatives, friends, and church family. Baby got some really nice presents too! After the party the Coulters came over to the house and we got to visit with them for a while longer.

12/24—Thurs—Chrismas Eve—Played guitar hero all morning while Miah and Dad were working at Grandad’s house. Mom and I had to go to Uncle Den’s to borrow a cheese grater but we stopped at Brooks and sneaked a sub sandwich. Nathan , Erika, Mom and I spent the afternoon making the Christmas Eve foods and we had over the Stovers and the Rineharts. Aunt Bonnie, Derek, and Brian stopped by for a few minutes to say hello, but didn’t stay long.

12/25—Fri—Christmas—Family day. Grandad came over for a brief visit and everyone mostly just played games and watched Christmas movies.

12/26—Sat—Packed up and cleaned up house(it’s still able to be shown), drive NY-OH, stop to meet the Gould family (the family of Erika’s fiancé), and see our old family dog Cadet, who now lives with the Goulds. When we got back to Mom and Dad’s we unpacked the cars, and then Nathan and I packed up our stuff to leave the next morning.

12/27—Sun—Drive OH-TX. Cry on and off for most of the day while I’m driving. I hated leaving. More on this one later.

12/28—Mon—Back in Texas. Sleep in, unpack, weep some more, go see Alvin and Chipmunks Squeakwell as a matinee.

12/29—Tues—Back to work

12/31—Thurs—New Years Eve—Off work early. Ordered pizza and Melissa, Thomas, Nathan and I sat around and watched TV. I fell asleep (big surprise!), but they watched all the festivities.

Then on Saturday Melissa and Thomas left—they moved down to the coast of Texas. I am happy for them since it gives them a lot of new opportunities, but for me I am sad because Melissa is my best (and basically only) friend and I will miss her big bunches. With her gone, I’m back to just having Nathan. And don’t get me wrong, he’s my best friend and I love him to death, but the reality is that he is gone way more than half of the time and that leaves me kind of lonely sometimes.

Christmas was amazing and such a happy time. I am so glad that we got to go and that God provided the means and kept us safe. I really needed that trip. The New Year has started out a little bit sad, but I do have Piglet’s birth to look forward to this year, and my mom (and hopefully Dad) coming down to visit after he is born.