Family of 3

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE!

This was the eighth Christmas Marty and I spent together, and the fifth Christmas together as a married couple. Wow, that really is a long time. Seems like it was just yesterday or maybe last month we were trying to decide if it was appropriate to invite each other to our separate family Christmas celebrations. And here we are now with our very own family of 3. In years past we have just exchanged gifts at some random time during the holiday, not really making any big deal of it, which was fine because it was just us two. But since we now have our own little family, I wanted to designate an evening to our "family." This evening was the Friday before Christmas, Dec. 21, 2007. We invited over Marty's parents to celebrate with us. I made a nice supper complete with our good chinaware and even opened a bottle of wine! Gracie of course enjoyed her baby food meal of sweet potatoes and peaches, along with a few cereal puffs. Gracie as you will see below was dressed as cute as a button in her Christmas dress.

She had been trying all week to get into these presents...

such a temptation they were for her. Finally she can dig in. And of course playing with the ornaments on the Christmas tree, except now the needles are getting pretty brittle and fall off whenever she touches the tree.
Santa brought Gracie this shopping cart walker. She hasn't really started to stand yet on her own, but with some help she does pretty good.
She does try to get up, but those legs get kinda wobbly when they are on their own for to long.

Grandma Betty (Malecek) gave Gracie this caterpillar, its just like a rocking horse, except it's a caterpillar... it plays music and lights up. It caught Gracie's eye immediately. She is a little small yet, but I am certain in a few months the "rocking caterpillar" will be the source of many hours of enjoyment!

Our first Christmas celebration as a family of 3 was a joyous time. I hope to have many more celebrations to come and fond memories to cherish.