The Greatest Gift

Merry Christmas, y'all! Hope this year has been blessed.

Billy had Friday off so we spent the entire day baking yummy desserts for our Christmas Eve dinner with my mom, step-dad, brother and sister. We love cooking together so it was a fun day for us. We made lemon and chocolate tartlets and the most sinfully. chocolate. cake. EVER. Chocolate is my happy place and this cake delivered. It's called an inside out german chocolate torte. And I'm finishing off a piece of it right now :D Saturday morning we spent time just the three of us and it was very sweet. And Luke was clueless. I made a big breakfast for us and we stayed in our pj's opening gifts. We only got Luke a couple of small items but several family members mailed him gifts....it looked like a day care through up in our living room! It was very fun and we are so blessed to have such thoughtful family members. Luke has enough new toys to last him until next year :) Later that afternoon we went on over to Billy's parents house and had a great time with them. Luke was SOOOO cranky, wouldn't eat and took forever to fall asleep. I was afraid he was getting sick. Today we realized that he's not sick, he was just working on cutting 4 teeth. Yes 4. At the same time. It was such a fun Christmas with our little family and I can only imagine how next year will go. Today the snow was fabulous and while it would have been fun to play outside or stay inside and watch movies all day, we went shopping instead :) Had Luke been able to walk or had he been just 3 weeks old and wanted to snuggle and sleep all day, we would have stayed home. But instead of carrying around a 26 pound child in the snow or trying to keep him (and us) from going stir crazy by staying inside all day, we ventured out and found some fun deals. I love spending days with my boys!!

So all in all, it was a very merry Christmas for us and a great first Christmas for Luke. We are grateful for many things this year. I am especially grateful for the gift of parenthood. Being a parent brings on so many new lessons, emotions, and opportunities for growth. God has used these past 10 months to stretch me in many new ways and I am thankful for the new and fresh glimpses of His character that He has shown me. We are often reminded that God delights in giving us such great gifts, much more than we delight in giving a good gift to a loved one. And being on the "parent" end of Christmas this year, I was just thrilled to share gifts with my little one. Though we didn't get Luke many gifts for Christmas (I think it was 4, if you count the 2 books I got him...and the other 2 came from yard sales :)), I was SO excited to give him something. I was looking forward to watching him learn how to play with it, explore what it does...I felt like a child, giddy with delight, knowing that I was giving him gifts. I got him those gifts because I love him and I find joy in giving him gifts. As I soaked in God's goodness on Friday night I was blown away and almost caught aghast at the idea that not only does God delight in giving us wonderful gifts, but imagine His excitement, anticipation, and astounding JOY knowing that He gave us the GREATEST gift. Nothing can top His gift of Jesus!

Snow day :)

Exploring new presents

Two sleepy heads on Christmas morning