The Holiday

Our holiday season is complete.  I'm sad.  It went really fast.  Life went from Halloween to 2013 in a blink of an eye.  We experienced a little bit of everything.  We saw lights, decorated the house, had An Elf on the Shelf, listened to carols, dabbled in a little bit of baking, winter art projects, shopping and more shopping to lead up to all the fun time we were blessed to spend with family.

This year only I got sick.  And my stomach bug got me on Christmas night-it timed itself just right-between weekend travels to visit family.  This year we did not have to bring Eli to the ER for anything.  So we survived. 

We gave tons of gifts and received even more.  Eli did really well saying his thank you's and truly loved everything he got.  We are slowly playing with each new thing and learning how fun it is to get surprises.  I also got so many great gifts. But my very favorite of all (and this sounds so cheeseballish but is so true) was the gift of Eli with his cousins.  He was in his glory each weekend playing with all the kids.  It was a gift to see his cheeks red and round from his happiness and it was a gift to let him go on his own and not bug ask me to play with him all day long.  He has cousins of all ages (and mostly boys) and the time spent with them was worth more than any beautifully wrapped package.

Here are my favorite shots---as many other blogs I've been reading-it's hard to pick just a few.  So scroll slow or fast through.



I love this shot because of the pure joy I can see in Eli's face as he talks to his cousin



And so here we go....Moving on right
into 2013.  Wow.  I'm ready but I'm not ready. 
I think it's pretty obvious what will consume me this coming year-a lot of trouble ;)