Merry Christmas!

A few days ago, Ken and I were reminiscing about our Christmas' past. True, they were good, but mostly, we went through the motions and just barely uttered Merry Christmas to others. I am happy to say that this Christmas brought tears to our eyes for much happier reasons. I never knew that saying Merry Christmas to our child would be such an overwhelming and wonderful thing, but how truly blessed we are to have celebrated our first Christmas with Angelina as a family.

True, Angelina does not know what it all means yet, and she only thing she knows about Santa is that he says "ho, ho, ho". (I am convinced that she thinks he is a farm animal like the cows and sheep) But, to watch her come down the stairs on Christmas morning and see her get excited to see her new rocking moose was just priceless. We have had a whirl-wind of excitement and present opening over the past three days, traveling to both my and Ken's parent's houses. Angelina was certainly a champ and just went with the flow, and even loved tearing the paper off of her gifts.

This was such a memorable Christmas, I have never felt so blessed as I do today to have such a wonderful little girl I can call my daughter. Truly, this is the best gift of all.

Today we are leaving to visit some good friends in North Carolina, where we will not only ring in the new year but also celebrate Angelina's 2nd birthday (which is tomorrow). Wish us luck as we start our 16 hour journey!

Here are some pictures from our various Christmas celebrations:

Christmas Eve

Trying out the new rocking moose from Santa for the first time.

Angelina loves her new lamb slippers!

Playing with her new little people bus.

Finally, a decent picture in front of the tree!